In his desire to demonstrate how God
provides and cares for His creation, whenever we tend to become indignant and
not understand His actions, the Elder would tell us stories such as the
following one:
An ascetic who had observed the
injustice that exists in the world prayed to God and asked Him to reveal the
reason that righteous and pious people suffer misfortunes and are tortured
without any obvious explanation, whereas the unrighteous and sinners become
wealthy and enjoy comforts. In the middle of the ascetic’s prayer, he heard a
voice instructing him as follows:
“Do not ask for those things that your
mind and the power of your knowledge cannot reach, nor seek to learn what is
hidden, because the judgments of God are an abyss. However, because you have
requested to learn, go down into the world and sit in a certain spot discreetly
and note whatever you shall see from there, so that with this minor test, you
will get an idea of what God’s judgments are. That way, you will come to
understand just why God’s providential administration in all things is
unsearchable and unfathomable.”
On hearing this, the old ascetic
carefully walked down towards the inhabited areas until he reached a meadow that
was crossed by a busy main road. There was a spring and an old tree nearby, so
the elder hid himself carefully in the hollow trunk of the tree and decided to
observe from there. Soon after, a wealthy man on horseback rode past. He stopped
at the spring for a drink of water and lay down on the grass to rest. After
quenching his thirst, he took out a pouch with 100 gold coins from his garment
and began to count them. When he finished counting, he placed the pouch back in
his garment; however, without realizing it, the pouch fell to the ground, into
the grass.
He ate, he rested, he slept a little,
and then he got back on his horse and rode off, without realizing he had lost
the pouch with the gold coins.
After a while, another passer-by came
to the spring. He found the pouch with the gold coins, grabbed it, and ran off
with it, into the fields.
A little while later, another passer-by
appeared. Tired as he was, he too stopped at the spring, took a drink of water,
took out a piece of bread that he carried with him and sat down to eat.
Just as that poor man was eating, the
wealthy horseman reappeared in a fury, his face red with anger. He pounced upon
the unsuspecting man, yelling at him to give him back his gold coins. The poor
man, not having any idea about those coins, reassured him with solemn oaths that
he had seen no such thing. But angry as the horseman was, he began to beat the
poor man until he eventually killed him. He then proceeded to search through the
poor man’s clothes, found nothing, and left him, greatly shocked and saddened.
The elder saw all these things happen
before his eyes, and stood in wonder, overwhelmed with sorrow at the unjust
murder that he had witnessed and turned in prayer to the Lord, saying:
“Lord, what is the meaning of this will
of Yours? I beg You to explain how Your Benevolence can tolerate such an
injustice? A person lost the coins, another found them, and another was unfairly
murdered!”
As the elder continued to pray with
tears, an Angel of the Lord descended and said to him:
“Do not be sorrowed, elder, nor be
disillusioned and imagine that all these things happened supposedly without the
will of God. Because of all the things that you just witnessed, some were by
God’s concession, others were for education, and others had providential
reasons. So listen now: He who lost the coins was the neighbour of the one who
found them. The latter had an orchard worth 100 gold coins. Being greedy, the
rich man forced him to give up the orchard for only 50 coins. Unable to do
anything else, the poor man prayed to God to take care of the injustice.
Therefore, it was God’s providence which had responded to the poor man’s prayer
and had given him back the money, two-fold.
“The other man—the poor and weary
one—who had found nothing and yet was unfairly murdered? Well, he had committed
murder, but only once in his life. However, he had repented sincerely, and for
the rest of his life had made sure that his works were Christian and pleasing to
God. He constantly beseeched God to forgive him for the murder he had committed,
and would usually say, ‘My Lord, please give me a death just like the one that I
had inflicted!’
“Naturally, the Lord forgave him from
the very first moment that he showed signs of repentance. But He was especially
moved by the sensitivity of His child, who not only made sure he upheld all His
Commandments, but also desired to pay for his old crime. Thus, the Lord granted
his wish, allowing him to die in the manner that he had prayed for. God did not
deprive him of his wish, and allowed him to die a violent death, just as he had
asked, and then took him into His bosom, in fact even crowning him with a
glorious wreath for the sensitivity he had shown!
“Finally, the other man, the greedy one
who lost all the gold coins and then committed murder, he would have had a
disastrous end on account of his greed and his love of money, so God allowed him
to fall into the sin of murder, so that his soul would be severely pained and
thus seek to repent. Given the turn of events, that person has now abandoned all
worldly pleasures and is going away, to become a monk!
“Now then, in which of these cases did
you find God to be unjust or cruel or insensitive? “For this reason, you must no
longer concern yourself with in-depth examinations of God’s judgments, because
He metes them out fairly, in the manner that He deems appropriate, when you on
the other hand misconstrue them as injustices.
“You should also know that there are many other things that happen in the world by the will of God, for reasons that people cannot understand. Thus, the proper thing to say is: You are Just, O Lord, and straight are Your judgments. (Pss 137).
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