+JMJ
"The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and sober for prayers. Above all let your love for one another be intense because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace."
(1 Peter 4:8)
Why do men expend so much energy and frustration bemoaning circumstances outside their control yet exert so little zeal in governing the passions that lie within their reach? One complains of lawlessness that abounds but fails to acknowledge and rectify his own disregard for God's law. How quick he is to mourn the loss of thoughtful discourse but is sadly slow to rein in his own impetuous and uncharitable words. Though he longs for the time when society promoted thriftiness and industry he apparently is indifferent to the calcified state he allows his soul to sink to when he wastes precious time on inane distractions. Lamenting his lack of influence on the moral fabric of the culture he overlooks his significant influence on the moral beings within his own home.
A Christian is called to be a sign of contradiction; and so, he must both surrender to God's providence in the course of external events and seize responsibility for his own internal affairs. This paradox provides peace but not without the difficulties involved in the accomplishment of both tasks.
To refrain from useless anxiety requires physical and spiritual endurance: constant prayer and intentional acts of trust. Worry and speculation are deceptive comforts, offering a false security that tells one that he must be safe if he is engaged in these occupations; yet like the mythical Hydra whose heads multiplied with each decapitation, the worrier discovers more anxieties, and less peace, as he tries to feebly combat uncontrollable factors.
Self-discipline demands an equal amount of exertion as it can be a fatiguing process. Once a fault is humbly acknowledged, heightened vigilance accompanied by increased prayer and determined perseverance are necessary to overcome it.
When once a person resolves to simultaneously abandon his life to divine providence and master his obdurate self, he finds relief in the knowledge that extraneous circumstance are in God's hands, and not his- he shuns despair and clings to trust. Simultaneously, he discovers great confidence in the knowledge that, because Christ redeemed him he is no longer a slave to his former self and can master his passionate nature. He realizes his immense influence of those nearest him, recognizing that just as his deficiency of virtue was negatively reflected in those closest to him, so now his surplus of virtue is positively illuminated by those same persons within his sphere.
