When there’s respect for small things, there’ll be even greater respect towards the bigger ones. When there’s no respect for small things, then neither will there be for the bigger ones. This is how the Fathers maintained Tradition.
In your fight with the devil don’t say that ‘this little thing doesn’t matter’ or ‘that other small thing doesn’t matter’. When you fight to avoid falling into small holes, the devil can’t push you to the edge of the abyss of great sins. Fight continuously with prayer and attention but be warned: over-reacting and giving exaggerated importance to non-important things is also a demonic delusion.
We need discrimination and spiritual guidance in our fight, but in the end we’ll triumph, by God’s grace. We must have this faith because the devil will either push us towards negligence, saying that sins don’t matter, or to despair, saying that we’re finished if we’ve sinned at all.
Paradise isn’t for the sinless because here on Earth there are no such people. Paradise is for the steadfast spiritual warriors who repent until the end.
Based on Saint Paisios the Athonite
In the photo the mechanism of an old clock at Vatopedi
- Source: asceticexperience.com