Galatians 6:4
But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
Let go of comparison. Spiritual comparison is the enemy of joy and fruitfulness. We look at other spiritual lives and feel I’m less or I’m better. St John Climacus says this: “Do not compare yourself with the strong lest you become discouraged, nor with the weak lest you become proud.”
What’s the worst word that we say as Egyptians comparison? Ishmahna.
I don’t know how many times you would say ishmahna, like, how come this person gets to do this? And I’m comparing. Because God wants them to do this and God wants you to do another thing.
You feel that you’re being measured and that’s why ishmahna this person gets this. Be careful of this. Your value is not based on what you’ve been chosen to do. Everybody has their calling.
—Fr. Paul Girguis
Category: VOCATION
-
-
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
—Mother Teresa -
Studies say, the higher you go, the higher your net worth, the more money you have, the less percentage you end up giving. The more people have, the less people give on average percentage wise. Why is that? Because when you have little, you know that the little is not going to take care of you. When you only have a few things, you say, “this cannot possibly provide for me – my trust is in someone bigger.”
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Mark 10:25
—Fr. Antony Paul, THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES -
We come to realize that what previously seemed so important for our lives, loses its power over us. Our desire to be successful, well liked, and influential becomes increasingly less important as we come closer to God’s heart. To our surprise, we even may experience a strange inner freedom to follow a new call or direction as previous concerns move into the background of our consciousness.
—Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life
-
“Pray as if everything depends on God. Work as if everything depends on you.”
—St. Ignatius -
“The question of where to live and what to do is really insignificant compared to the question of how to keep the eyes of my heart focused on the Lord. I can be teaching at Yale, working in the bakery at the Genesee Abbey, walking with poor children in Peru, or writing a book, and still feel totally useless.”
—Henri Nouwen -
“In an ordinary journey, the further the traveler proceeds, the more tired he becomes; but on the way of spiritual life the longer a man travels, reaching forth unto those things which are before, the greater the strength and power he acquires for his further progress.”
—Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain -
Whenever you feel a sense of “this is just the way it is”, there is probably some bad faith there. For years I assumed I can’t expect to get any writing done after 5pm — the energy or focus just isn’t there, so I’m practically sentenced to spend the evening reading, watching something on a screen, going out or otherwise not working.
This is an old, self-defeating lie, and there’s no telling what it’s cost me. There’s no barrier at 5pm. The line is completely imaginary. There’s just a strong aversion to my work when I get close to that time of day, and I pretend it’s some kind of natural law.
Our lives are riddled with imaginary lines. Bedtime isn’t a real thing. It’s a choice, every time. Going to work is a choice. Eating lunch is a choice. Letting ourselves down is a choice. Meeting a deadline is a choice, and missing it is a choice, as much as we’d like to believe each of those outcomes was inevitable all along.
Noticing bad faith doesn’t cure it, but it makes it harder to ignore. We can let ourselves suffer certain problems for years, if we think they’re happening to us the way weather does. But once you recognize a particular condition in your life as ultimately voluntary, its days are probably numbered.
I can’t describe to you how strong a feeling it is, but once it’s past 5pm, it truly feels like I can’t write. It seems like the part of my brain that does that is shuttered like a storefront on a Sunday evening.
But when I actually do sit down at six or seven or eight and start typing, the words come out like any other time. The door was always open, I just walked by it again and again and again.
-
Never delay in undertaking any work you have to do, for the first brief delay will lead to a second, more prolonged one, and the second to a third, still longer, and so on. Thus work begins too late and is not done in its proper time, or else is abandoned altogether, as something too burdensome. Having once tasted the pleasure of inaction, you begin to like and prefer it to action. In satisfying this desire, you will little by little form a habit of inaction and laziness, in which the passion for doing nothing will possess you to such an extent that you will cease even to see how incongruous and criminal it is; except perhaps when you weary of this laziness, and are again eager to take up your work. Then you will see with shame how negligent you have been and how many necessary works you have neglected, for the sake of the empty and useless ‘doing what you like’.
Unseen Warfare
Lorenzo Scupoli
