Your Will Governs All
When I thought about the concept of meeting with peace of soul all that comes to me throughout the day, I considered the constant stream of alarming news that we encounter daily and how that doesn’t bring me peace at all. Even if we turn off the news, in our everyday lives the restrictions on where we go, what we do, whether our faces are covered or not, and who we can be with are constant reminders that things are not normal. The restrictions and disruptions of the pandemic cultivate an atmosphere of fear even when we are healthy.
To better understand how people in the past dealt with much worse circumstances than mine, I chose to read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn this Lent. After spending years in Soviet prisons, Solzhenitsyn wrote this book as a warning for other countries. The book chronicles true stories of the torture and imprisonment of thousands of ordinary and often innocent people under the USSR. The author wrote this partly to warn us that these things are possible in any country at any time.
There are alarming parts of the Gulag Archipelago that seem to parallel things happening in my country. We believe that God’s will governs all, but when I look at the state of our society, not just the news but the arts and general culture, I struggle with questioning why so often He allows evil to appear to flourish. I remind myself that God allows us to have free will within His ultimate control. This space of free will is like the fertilizer in my garden. Unpleasant, even horrible things can happen within that space, but mercy, love, and growth bloom out of this freedom.
The Gulag Archipelago chronicles horrors of internment under communism, but it also tells of the amazing resilience ordinary people are capable of. In fact, many saints lived during those days. A few Sundays ago, in the Orthodox Church we celebrated the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. So far, over 30,000 martyrs and confessors have been glorified from the days of the Soviet Union. This is more than the number of martyrs who died during the first three centuries of Christianity. These martyrs, along with those who were faithful yet survived these times, are the contemporaries of my parents and grandparents. I am humbled by their courage and faith. Would I have the courage to hold fast to Christ under persecution when I become anxious just from reading alarming news stories?
By asking for God to grant us grace to have peace of soul no matter what comes to us each day, we are trusting God. Trusting God means we are looking beyond our present circumstances and placing our hearts into eternity, but it doesn’t mean we are passive. God allows us to go through difficult times to stretch us and push us into growth. Placing our confidence in God develops the stamina we need to be faithful in our own generation. There has always been trouble in the world. Jesus warned us of this, but He also reminded us that He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Believing and trusting that Jesus has overcome the world enables us to be grateful in our hearts which changes the dynamic in both our inner life, our physical health, and our reactions to others. Peace based on Christ’s love can dissipate that gnawing fear which stalks us and instead allows us to bring courage to those around us.
It’s not easy to do this. For me, calmness is more attainable some days than others. It’s a goal I strive for over and over. Like most of us, I often worry about things that will probably never happen and that I can’t control anyway. Some days I’m not happy to greet the things that come my way and I don’t see the way through them. Maybe Saint Philaret knew that these are things we wrestle with when he was writing this prayer. It’s a healthy goal to treat the things that come to us- which are clearly out of our control because they are coming to us- with peace of soul. We can do that if we have the firm conviction- not a half-hearted conviction – that God’s will governs all.