How do you know if you have decided to pray?


The man who has decided to pray has love inside him and never opens his mouth to talk about another man. If he opens it only once a year, it means that all that year he has done nothing but eat human flesh with his mind, his heart, his judgment, with everything that is his.

He who decides to pray is also very resistant to the troubles and events of life, that is, he is the man who knows how to stay at ease wherever he finds himself: he will be poor, rich, among good people, among bad people, among people who love him or who do not love him, who want him or who do not want him, who hate him, who slander him - it is indifferent to him. He knows how to adapt wonderfully and live joyfully. And the more he prays, the more resistant he is, and he does not even feel the difficulties he goes through.

A man of prayer is, above all, the one who not only endures accusations and slanders, because these only hurt earthly people, but also enjoys them. They rejoice and are happy when they accuse him, when they slander him, when they expel him, when they try to bring him down, to throw him here and there. These are the characteristics of the man who wants to pray. If we lack one of them, know that we have never decided to pray, that God is not yet interested in us, but only our fleshly heart is interested in us!

Elder Emilianos Simonopetrit

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