Words of Wisdom from Saint Paisios

I have been accompanying my morning coffee each day with a few pages from a book called Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man. This is the first in a series of five books of this newly-canonized saint. We picked up all of the books in Jordanville this summer. I picked up the first one that very same day as I waited for my husband while he visited an old friend, and I was immediately blown away. This book is full of nothing but gems of wisdom. It truly is life-changing for me. Even if our mornings are crazy, if I can sneak in a minute or two of reading time, it helps set the day off on a better note. 

I wanted to share a snippet from what I read this morning. 

-Geronda (Elder), is logic of any help when a spiritual person is confronting temptation? 

-In such cases, we should do what is humanly possible, and where something is not in our power, we should leave it to God. There are some people who rely on their minds in everything they do, like those who want to pray the Jesus Prayer only with their minds. They try so hard to concentrate they get a headache. If I were to approach the problems that I face daily in this way, do you think that I would be able to manage? I just do what is humanly possible and leave the rest to God. I say to myself, "God will show me, He will enlighten me and I will know what to do." You hear many people complain, "How will I get this done, and how will I manage to finish this or that..." The smallest problem gives them a headache. If we try to solve problems using nothing but our logic, we will get dizzy. We must place God at the forefront of every one of our actions. We should do nothing without first putting our trust in God. Otherwise, we will agonize and tire our minds, and we will feel psychologically miserable."