Grow with the Gospel
The sand needs a minute to cool. The man warmed him with the warmth of his body, and now he is cold again. What shined yesterday is carried today on black, as if charred, stretchers. Coal remained from the fire, and it no longer burned. There is no memory of a person; even about many great people can be said in the words of the prophet David: “Their memory perished with a noise” (Psalm 9: 7) - just the same perished, only with a noise. We see that the names of those before whom the millions trembled now became a toy in the hands of not only any historian and journalist, but even a child: you can tell jokes about Stalin and Hitler, and nothing will happen to you for that. There were many great empires, about which we either don’t remember, or never knew - we know Greece, Rome, Babylon, and not less significant rulers ruled a little further to the east ... Then why all this? What is the point in our throwing, exploits, love? They are so fleeting, but they may also come into conflict with the Kingdom of God. Is the Lord sorry for us earthly joys?
The answer to this is only one. The Lord says: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Matt. 6: 33). The Lord is ready to receive, and bless, and increase our joy. Therefore, in the Church there is the sacrament of the Wedding, and therefore the Lord, especially so that we do not doubt, performed His first miracle at the wedding. So He honored the earthly marriage. He came to the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, moreover, it was important for him that there was joy at the feast, and when the wine ran out, He, at the request of His Most Pure Mother, made a miracle, turned water into wine did not leave. But if the people who played the wedding, considered marriage the most important thing in life, it would conflict with the preaching of Christ.
The Lord wants every person on earth to be happy, not at all jealous of happiness as such, and does not want us to suffer. We suffer, not because God so ordered, but because man is sinful and suffering is always a consequence of our sin. God resists human happiness if the search for happiness becomes more important than the Kingdom of God. He is ready to give us all earthly blessings, if we are looking for the Kingdom of God as the main thing in life. And I am ready to break, as idols, as idols - that is, as false gods - those goals that are more important to us than the Kingdom of Heaven. In this he is truly a jealous person. He says this about Himself: I am the Lord your God, a jealous God (Exodus 20: 5). What does it mean when a wife is jealous? She is ready to receive relatives and friends of her husband, but she is not ready to accept another woman in his fate. And God is not ready to accept another god in the space of the worldview of man, to agree that the other has become the most important, divine honors are given to the other. The Lord says: What is the use of a man if he gains the whole world and damages his soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? (Matt. 16:26). If the soul dies, there is nothing to buy it! Every soul is absolutely priceless, in the world there really is nothing that could be given for it. And it is impossible to restore her dignity before God ...
Excerpt from the book of Fyodor Borodin "Grow with the Gospel"
