Our Good Lord has made man’s life very sweet (in its proper sense – the spiritual one) but some of us turn it into hell with our miseries, by not having discarded the secular mentality so that we can confront matters spiritually. That is how we strive to “sweeten” our life (in the wrong sense) and we never want to die; instead, the more the years pass by, the more the “oh’s” of our agony increase, filling our soul with stress.
In other words, some of us poor wretches reach such a point, that we actually strive to retain the soul inside our 100-year-old, exhausted, intravenously-supported flesh and insist that “life is sweet” while we tremble lest we die. Whereas, for one who is dead from a secular aspect but resurrected spiritually, there is absolutely no agony, fear and stress – ever – because he even awaits death joyously, knowing he will be going to Christ and will be rejoicing for living once again, as he will be living near Christ and feeling a part of the joy of Paradise while still on earth and even asking himself if there is a greater joy in Paradise than the one he is feeling here on earth.
—St Paisios