Path to perfection? .
“In addition to training your mind to learn, you should also control your will, so as not to let it lean towards your own desires, but to lead it to be perfectly as one with the will of God.
To be firmly grounded, we must endure a much greater struggle with our nature..which is accustomed to please itself, it seeks its own comfort & pleasure in all it does.
‘Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, & acceptable, & perfect, will of God’ Rom. 12:2
Even when we desire God Himself & seek Him, even this desire & search can contain some fault or omission, & may be mixed with some pandering to our self-love or vainglory. If you wish to safeguard yourself from such hidden obstacles on the path to perfection. When you start to do anything you must, as far as you can, strip yourself of all wishes of your own & neither desire to do that thing nor turn away from it, until you perceive that the only thing which moves & draws you towards it is the consciousness of God’s will.
Before all things we must go to God with the warmest & purest prayer, begging Him with all diligence, once, twice & many times, to illumine & to teach us.
Unseen Warfare by St. Nikodemos
