The Morning Offering

How to Trust in God

Students and faculty from Pacific Lutheran University
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He Who Lives the Will of God has no Worries

With all the troubles that are now befalling the world, you find yourself worried about your future. Bad economic times have made job stability a cause for concern, and record breaking climate changes are inflicting further hardships on communities at a time when our country can ill afford to help people recover from loss. Our monastery has suffered with the rest of you. We have had two years in a row where we've been unable to grow many of our usual vegetables because of prolonged cold in the spring and the loss of our bee hives as a result of a very cold Spring. Our orchard produced no apples this year because we had no bees to spread the pollen from tree to tree. Added to all this, our income is down by $20,000.00 from last year.

Yet we are not worried because we are doing the will of God. We've struggled to find ways to stay afloat like the rest of you, but in our attempt to live our lives according to God's will we have no worries. 

How do we know we're living according to the will of God? The Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica tells us, "He who lives according to God's will has no worries. When he needs something, he simply prays for it. If he does not receive that which he asked for, he is joyful as though he had received it. A soul that has given itself over to God has no fear of anything, not even robbers, sickness, or death. Whatever happens, such a soul always cries, 'It was the will of God'."

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon 

 

Sunday October 2, 2011 / September 19, 2011

16^th Sunday after Pentecost.

Sunday after the Universal Elevation of the Precious and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord
Afterfeast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Martyrs Trophimus, Sabbatius, and Dorymedon of Synnada (276).
St. Theodore, prince of Smolensk and Yaroslav (1299), and his children Sts. David and Constantine.

Dr. Brenda L Ihssen, Patristic Scholar at PLU

Galatians 2:16-20

 

¹⁶ knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
¹⁷ “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸ For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. ¹⁹ For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Mark 8:34-9:1

 

Take Up the Cross and Follow Him



³⁴ When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ³⁵ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? ³⁷ Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? ³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 9

Jesus Transfigured on the Mount

 ¹ And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”