Saying of the Desert Christians: Abba Isaiah 3

from:http://orthodoxwiki.org/Sayings_of_the_Desert_Fathers#Abba_Isaiah

(Abba Isaiah) also said 'When God wishes to take pity on a soul and it rebels, not bearing anything and doing its own will, he then allows it to suffer that which it does not want, in order that it may seek him again.'

Some thoughts:

God allows us to suffer, which is something we don't want. It's quite true we dislike suffering. OTOH, there are logical consequences to our choices. Some things we suffer through no fault of our own but as a result of living in a fallen sinful world. And some suffering we do bring upon ourselves. It's the latter that we can usually do something about. I'm with Isaiah... the best thing we can ever do is seek God.

I say "seek God". God is of course, right there in front of us all the time holding out His arms to embrace us and welcome us home. But we don't see this and so we have to work through our muddles to get to that place where we can simply say "I believe, help me in my unbelief." I call that muddling through "seeking God."