by Abbot Tryphon
We dare not surrender to the temptation of despair, even if these are the End Times.
The cultural and spiritual warfare that is taking place because of the pandemic, with the forced separation of mass numbers of people from their extended families, elders, parish communities, and fellow workers, has brought our world to a place not experienced in hundreds of years. Coupled with the polarization of the populous within the United States, and the mass apostasy from Christianity in the West, many Christians are now thinking we must be entering the period of the End Times.
Yet when we consider the words of the Our Father,
“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”,
we must know, as Christians, that our prayers do make a difference. Just as the faithful of the Early Church looked at events taking place in their world as possible signs of the imminent Second Coming of Christ, they, nevertheless, kept their focus on the possibility that there could be a “first resurrection”, as described in the 20th chapter of the Book of Revelation, where the Church could experience a triumph, even in this world.
It is this hope that must be the ground of our daily living, for as Christians we are not to be giving ourselves over to fate, but to the hope that comes from Christ. God IS in charge, and He is NOT bound by anything. When we pray,
“Thy will be done”,
we must mean it! If these are indeed the “End Times”, we need to prepare ourselves to stand before the judgment Throne of God, and answer for the way we’ve lived our lives.
Yet we dare not surrender to the temptation of despair, but live our lives in the joyful knowledge that we are loved by God, and have every reason to live whatever time God has allotted for us, with a joyful heart, concentrating our every waking hour to being a repentant child of the Most High God.
See also:
On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World
All Saints of North America Orthodox Church is a vibrant growing Orthodox church in the Phoenix West Valley, Arizona.
