An Ignored Heart is a Lost Heart

The Heart An Ignored Heart is a Lost Heart It is important that we direct all our thoughts, all our actions, and all our desires towards a burning love for God. Our heart must become inflamed with the love of God, and all our intellectual and emotional striving must be directed towards the development of the heart, for the Kingdom of God is within. When we seek the Lord with all humility, and keep His commandments, love takes the heart by storm, and joy resides in us. If we ignore the spiritual life, and make no effort to join our heart to God, our heart will be lost, for an ignored heart is a lost heart. With love in Christ, Abbot Tryphon When I was received into the Orthodox Church on October 13, 1996, the Sunday of the commemoration of the 7th Eccumenical Council, I realized that I had spent my entire life up to that point mostly focusing on the things other than God. Even if I had thought that I was “spiritual”, it was a spiritual of my own making, of my will. How much time had I wasted? Together with my late husband, our hearts became inflamed with the desire to serve God in thought, word, deed and heart. Now twenty-three years later, I still agree with Abbot Tryphon, perhaps even more so now that I am in my 60s and have lost many of those near and dear to me. “Take my heart by storm, dear Lord! What else will bring me Your peace and consolation?” As Peter said to Christ after many of those following Him departed, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him, [67] Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?[68] Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [69] And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” (John 6:66-69) Everything else pales in the Light of Chirst, Veronica Hughes