Chrysostom
Good and Faithful Servant
You ask prayer that all negativity leave your lives and that prosperity and good health come. But take care what you ask. Do you not see that for many, prosperity is their ruin? The rich man who received his good things in this life afterward suffered more fearfully. Wealth often becomes an addition of punishment, especially when it comes without repentance. So I will pray, but not merely that this imagined "negativity" flee away, for often what you call negativity is the very medicine your soul requires.
Consider those who seem plagued by misfortune or even possessed by demons. They are humbled, downcast, ashamed; they depart from their affliction purified, having put away many sins by bearing their chastisement thankfully. Their condition calls not for shame but for admiration. Yet we who are healthy and prosperous grow bold in sin, adding venom to our souls with each offense, and we think we are well-treated. Far worse than any demon is an unrepentant heart enjoying ease. So before you beg to be rid of every hardship, examine yourself strictly. Are you more grieved by the loss of comfort than by the loss of virtue?
I will pray for your family, for those you named, that God would grant them what is truly good. But the true good is not always wealth or smooth circumstances. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom. Wealth is broad and swelling; it obstructs the narrow way. Sometimes in His mercy God takes riches away, as a father banishes a harmful mistress from his son, to free us from slavery. If He sends poverty or sickness, it may be to preserve you from the greater sickness of pride and forgetfulness of Him. Do you assign a few days of prayer and then expect all to be well, as if playing a game? The soul requires constant watchfulness.
As for a steady job, seek first the Kingdom, and all these things will be added. The question is not why one man is poor and another rich, such things are no proof against Providence. Show me instead a man who strives for virtue and becomes wicked, or one who becomes holy without effort. Believe firmly that God orders all things, and bear whatever falls to your lot with thanksgiving. I will ask the Lord to give you not what merely delights the flesh, but what strengthens the soul: humility, patience, and true health, which is a clean heart. For that is prosperity that cannot be taken away.
Consider those who seem plagued by misfortune or even possessed by demons. They are humbled, downcast, ashamed; they depart from their affliction purified, having put away many sins by bearing their chastisement thankfully. Their condition calls not for shame but for admiration. Yet we who are healthy and prosperous grow bold in sin, adding venom to our souls with each offense, and we think we are well-treated. Far worse than any demon is an unrepentant heart enjoying ease. So before you beg to be rid of every hardship, examine yourself strictly. Are you more grieved by the loss of comfort than by the loss of virtue?
I will pray for your family, for those you named, that God would grant them what is truly good. But the true good is not always wealth or smooth circumstances. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom. Wealth is broad and swelling; it obstructs the narrow way. Sometimes in His mercy God takes riches away, as a father banishes a harmful mistress from his son, to free us from slavery. If He sends poverty or sickness, it may be to preserve you from the greater sickness of pride and forgetfulness of Him. Do you assign a few days of prayer and then expect all to be well, as if playing a game? The soul requires constant watchfulness.
As for a steady job, seek first the Kingdom, and all these things will be added. The question is not why one man is poor and another rich, such things are no proof against Providence. Show me instead a man who strives for virtue and becomes wicked, or one who becomes holy without effort. Believe firmly that God orders all things, and bear whatever falls to your lot with thanksgiving. I will ask the Lord to give you not what merely delights the flesh, but what strengthens the soul: humility, patience, and true health, which is a clean heart. For that is prosperity that cannot be taken away.
