The problem is that, while I love being able to serve God and His Church through creating these resources, I am not paid anything for this work—in fact, I even pay my own production expenses. While I hope the day will come where I can receive some form of compensation for this type of work, that day has unfortunately not yet come. Therefore, during circumstances such as these, pro bono work that consumes a significant amount of time and resources must be put aside to allow me to meet my family’s needs.

I deeply appreciate your reading my studies and listening to my podcasts, and hope that you will use some of the other resources available on the Web for growing in your relationships with God and others.

Grace has been given mystically to those who have been baptized into Christ; and it becomes active within them to the extent that they actively observe the commandments. Grace never ceases to help us secretly; but to do good—as far as lies in our power—depends on us.

Being transformed by the grace of God entails truly following and obeying Him.

The sun made dark, and again flaming out…the Temple veil rent, blood and water flowing from His side…the earth was shaken, the rocks shattered because of the Rock; the dead risen to bear witness of the final and universal resurrection of the dead. The happenings at the Sepulchre, and after the Sepulchre, who can fittingly recount them? Yet not one of them can be compared to the miracle of my salvation. A few drops of Blood renew the whole world, and do for all men what the rennet does for milk: joining us and binding us together.

As St. Maximos the Confessor says,

The holy Church of God is an image of God because it realizes the same union of the faithful with God. As different as they are by language, places, and customs, they are made one by it through faith.

The wonderful thing is that God brings all this beautiful diversity into union with Him.

St. Nilus of Mt. Sinai tells us, “Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.” And he says in another place, “Seek in prayer only righteousness and the kingdom, that is virtue and knowledge—and all the rest ‘shall be added unto you’ (Matthew 6:33).

But most of all, he says, “If you have not yet received the gift of prayer or psalmody, ask persistently, and you will receive.”

…to strive always and in every way to be united with God, their creator, lover, benefactor, and their supreme good, by Whom and for Whom they were created. This is because the center and the final purpose of the soul, which God created, must be God Himself alone, and nothing else—God from Whom the soul has received its life and its nature, and for Whom it must eternally live.

But Lorenzo Scupoli tells us to go slowly:

Be wise and sensible in undertaking tasks for the body: fasts, vigils, physical work and so on. They are necessary and essential, and do not imagine you can progress in spiritual life without them, but you must be wise in knowing your measure and keeping to it…Find this mean by experience and in actual deed, instead of by theory, and make gradual progress your rule, moving from below upwards.

Elder Macarius of Optina answers:

Have great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.

We can add to this St. Basil the Great’s words, “First give your children virtue for an inheritance.”

One must by every means strive to preserve peace of soul and not be disturbed by offenses from others; for this one must in every way strive to restrain anger and by means of attentiveness to keep the mind and heart from improper feelings. And therefore we must bear offenses from others with equanimity and accustom ourselves to such a disposition of spirit that these offenses seem to concern not us, but others. Such a practice can give quietness to the human heart and make it as dwelling for God Himself.

For those who struggle with such desires, you might benefit from this Orthodox evening prayer, “O Lord our God…Grant us to live chastely in deed and word, that we may obtain a virtuous life, and not fall away from thy promised blessings; for blessed art Thou forever.”

This prayer may not simply turn off sexual temptation like flipping a light switch (although it might), but true prayer will open you to God’s grace.