He Speaks, I Listen

God loves to speak to me though the books I am reading. Secular, religious, fiction, non-fiction, if He wants me to get it He uses a book ((or music too sometimes)). Here's a passage that leaped out at me the other day.

I think it is pretty unambiguous about my situation.

Remember how the first desire...entered into [y]our souls, how it was warm, how often and sweetly it fed the soul. At times the Lord would place upon you His blessing hand. Watch out, lest you push away from yoursel[f] God’s expectation for you. With good monasticism show yoursel[f] to be worthy of His election. Remember what indication the Lord gave you for this, in order for you to leave the world and to choose precisely this and no other convent. Watch out, therefore: do not waver in doubt, as if the place you chose was not from God, and do not be fainthearted when it seems that the Lord has turned His face from you…Watch out: do not make these labors fruitless after having already achieved that which you sought and do not lay down the armor of warfare…Here you have everything necessary for successful [sic] life but it [sic] is not acquired for free. How much it demands—sweat and pain, both inward and outward! This you know, but you also know the consolations which fall to the lot of the laborers, and you clearly see the end to which everything leads. Do not grow faint. God will not forget your labor as He did not forget the labor of others who labored for the glory of His name.

Kindling the Divine Spark, p33-34 by St Theophan the Recluse, emphasis mine although all of it applies

So... I have my "orders".

Remember each of us has his own cross which he has to carry in answer to the call of God to follow Him and upon which he has to be crucified…The Golgotha of this cross is our heart…and it is composed of different dispositions of our heart…

The lower part of the cross, which enters into the ground, on the inner cross represents self-denial which breaks the ground of the heart and implants the cross…

The upper part of the inner cross—the part which goes upwards, stands erect and extends—represents patience, that is a firmness to stand in your intention so that no obstacles, discontentment or labors can make you waver…

The horizontal section of the inner cross represents obedience: such a disposition whereby a person never undertakes or plans anything on his own but simply listens and fufills without contradiction the orders of others. The obedient one…voluntarily renounces his independence and yields himself as the implement of another.

…Each of the above-mentioned monastic virtues has, in addition to its external, stern aspect, an inner side which is alive and joyful, and which either predisposes one for it or develops from it.

Thus patience is supported by and lives in hope that monastic labor is not in vain… [H]ope nourishes patience and makes it inexhaustible. Hope fills the heart with the joy of certain possession of that for which it waits and this joy alleviates the painful effort of patience caused by labors.

Obedience is animated by love. Obedience is the renunciation of one’s own activities and reasoning—our most precious actions. One must have strength to gain mastery over himself amd deny himself these things…Only love can powerfully add sound flexibility to obedience…Where there is love, everything is done easily, quickly and willingly. Only obedience which comes from love can render joyful all the labors to which it is assigned.

Finally, mortification of oneself to the world is vivified and occasioned by the faith…that we were created for life in God…and that because of this, no one who wishes to rise again to life in God must die to himself and to the world.

Kindling the Divine Spark p52-56, St Theophan the Recluse

Lord have mercy.