A heedless and absent-minded man can believe that things just take their normal course, and all events occur by accident and coincidence. It can seem to such an inconsiderate man that God, if He even exists, is somewhere high in the heavens and has no interest in this world, which is small and insignificant in His eye. People who think so are called deists. Deistic teaching about God has become especially widespread in the West during the last centuries, when people started to lose live contact with God in the Church, Sacraments and prayer. Usually, these people are superstitious at the same time, attaching great importance to stars’ influence on human life, watching tokens and omens, e.g. cats crossing their way, scattering salt on the table, shaking hands across a threshold, not sleeping with their feet turned toward doors and so on. Some people have an immense numbers of superstitions, which wastefully complicate their lives.
It is best not to pay attention to these stupid superstitions at all, because everyone’s life in particular, and the universe as a whole, are governed by God.
We pray: “Our Father which art in heaven,” but at the same time we know that God is everywhere, because He is a genuine Spirit, who is “living everywhere.” That is why David the Psalmist exclaimed, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee” (Psalm 139).
Some agree that generally, the world is ruled not by accidents, but by God. However, they think that God does not care about each and every person, because man is unworthy and negligible, and God will not look after this uncountable multitude of creatures. But this reasoning is incorrect and sinful. To express it in human notions, if God decided that microbes were worthy of existence and gave specific organization and form to all of them, why then would these creatures be unworthy of His care further on? God cared to give them life; He also cares about the continuation of their lives. Some say that there are too many living beings. But how dare we assign our limitations onto God, Who is infinite in perfection? Had He created billions of worlds with myriads of humans, beasts, insects and germs, it would not have worn Him out to care about each particular life. One might say that these creatures are too small and insignificant, but we create our concept of size by comparison to ourselves. What is huge in our sight is negligible before the majesty of God, and what seems little to us is great for His goodness and love. The Lord provides for everything, gives life to all, and leads to the victory of truth and good.
The Savior said that even a sparrow shall not fall on the ground without the will of our Father (Matthew 10:29); this shows all the more that nothing in our lives can happen without His will. Things that are good and kind are given from the Lord, Who is the eternal source of goodness. Things that are evil are not sent from God directly, because there is not even a shade of evil in God. For our benefit and salvation, though, the Lord permits evil to harm and hurt us. In this case, various troubles have the effect of bitter, unpleasant, but saving medicines. Almost all pills and medical operations are unpleasant for us, but we have to take them because we know they are necessary and health-giving.
Everyone should clearly know that only God is the source of happiness, peace and bliss. God created consolations and joys of the visible world for the sake of our corporeal nature. Man with intelligent soul, using everything moderately, should not forget God. The soul cannot be satisfied with anything worldly and tangible. In most cases we follow our bodily lusts insatiably, and absolutely forget about soul and its spiritual needs. Because God does not want us to step back from our vocation as children of God toward the state of plain beasts, He sends us sorrows. Being beaten by things we were seeking irresponsibly, we slowly start to understand the futility of our activities and turn to God.
We be firm in our knowledge that God is infinitely good and wishes our happiness and salvation only; this is why we should also be thankful in accepting grief from Him. Children do not stop loving parents when parents punish them justly, because they know that parents want better for them. The Scripture says that the Lord punishes him whom He loves.
If the Lord provides for us all the time, meaning that He always cares about our life and salvation, then we also have to learn how to follow His Providence in our lives. Sometimes we notice that things happen not as we want them to. We get angry and indignant, murmur about fortune, but after years pass we understand that what happened was for the best, and it would be worse for us otherwise. We Christians should thank God for our sorrows, rather than triumph over our success, because sorrows renew our passions, while worldly success leads to forgetting God and the purpose of our life on the earth.
source: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0809/__P1Q.HTM
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