When you are attacked by bad thoughts, remember that you cannot control whether a thought enters your rational mind. If someone says to you, “Please, do not think of a yellow car,” your mind might immediately form an image of a yellow car. You are not responsible for being attacked by a bad thought, but you are responsible for whether you accept or reject the bad thought. If you reject it, there is no sin.
If you have a bad thought, you may be tempted to become despondent (depressed) and to fall into the deep pit of despair (hopelessness) because you imagine yourself to be too good or too spiritually advanced to have such bad thoughts. Pride deceives you into imagining that you are high and mighty, until reality smashes your ego-tower to bits and you fall hard on your face. If you see your own imperfection with a sober view of yourself, remaining grounded in humility, bad thoughts will not cause you such distress.
Do not despair over your past sins, either. It is healthy to feel ashamed that you have sinned. Shame is good if it drives you to repentance, but avoid guilt that keeps you stuck, lying in the thick mud like a pig, self-reflecting on what a miserably sinful person you are. Guilt prevents you from making progress. Like the Prodigal Son, get up, repent, and be reconciled to God. If you sense that God is distant, you are the one who created the distance. God made you, loves you, and awaits your return so that He can bless you. He desires to forgive you so that your sins are removed from you as far as the East is from the West.
Even if you feel alone and depressed, you are not really isolated from your fellow human beings unless you choose to isolate yourself. Sometimes, we tend to separate ourselves from the help we need most. Keep seeking the guidance of your priest for fatherly counsel and remain connected to the community of the Church. We all need the care of the physician and the Hospital. God works through our fellow human beings to heal us and move us toward our destiny.
A good medicine for despondency, despair, and anxiety is giving thanks. Giving thanks is natural for the human being who has been healed and perfected. It is effective therapy for those of us still in the process of healing.
Remember everything good that God has given you and be thankful. Always be thankful. Even give thanks for difficulties because these experiences, by the power of God, can be transformed into opportunities for growth in character, maturity of faith, strength, and good health. Do this by cultivating your humility. If you are prideful, you will focus on whatever you want and whatever you think you need, but lack. If you are humble, you will be thankful for what you already have been given as a blessing.
Maintain a thankful inner disposition, but don’t stop there. Go beyond thankful thoughts and feelings to outwardly express your inner thankfulness through action. Wishing a friend “Happy Birthday!” as you place a personal card and generous gift into her hands is superior than just harboring a thought about it. Give thanks to God in the morning and throughout the day as an expression of loving thankfulness. Your effort to genuinely offer thanks to God and to others will soften your heart so that you are able to receive more of the good, healthful, healing Gifts that God desires to bestow upon you.
Read: Ezekiel 33.11, Psalm 103.12; Psalm 139.1-16; Psalm 118; Luke 17.11-19
Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees