In his desire to
demonstrate how God provides and
cares for His creations, 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? Another 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, twofold.
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
crowing 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 for one to say is:
“Just art Thou, Lord, and straight
are Thy judgments” (Psalm 137)>>.
