Two meetings and their different spirituality

What is PEACE with God?!

One day, when I was standing in line and approaching the ticket office at the railway station, a woman standing at the ticket office, having heard the cashier's answer about the lack of free seats on her train, began to loudly express her indignation throughout the entire waiting room, continuously uttering curses at everything and everyone at the station, accusing them of all the sins they could have committed, as well as those to which they had nothing to do. When she moved away from the ticket office and approached me, I saw a chain with a cross on her neck and said to her quietly: "Ask God to help you!" "That won't help," she answered loudly, waving her hand. "Do you have peace with God?" I asked her. And then something unexpected happened to me, because the woman stopped, looked at me attentively and quietly asked: "And what is peace with God?"

At this time, the person standing in front of me moved away from the ticket office and the people in the line started to loudly say to me: “Sir, you are holding up the line! Are you going to take a ticket or not? If not, then move away from the ticket office!” I no longer had time to answer the woman, since I had already told the cashier the name of my train, which I definitely had to take that same day, but the cashier’s answer stunned me: “There are no free seats on your train today.” I turn to leave the ticket office, saying to the cashier: “What a pity!” And I hear, half-turned from the ticket office, the cashier’s words: “Citizen, wait! You can go with a transfer by electric train to Rtishchevo station, and there you can transfer to another train, which also goes to your city, and I will reserve a ticket for you on this train.”

"I agree, thank you," I exclaimed, and in my consciousness, in my thoughts, the words flashed: "Lord, I dreamed of this, to travel by train through these places dear to me since childhood and to remember all my distant past connected with it." People say: "Every cloud has a silver lining," but now I already know that misfortune cannot help, only God! The woman who asked me had already disappeared without a trace, but her words sank into my soul: "And what is peace with God?"

Years passed and returning to these words, I found the answer in the Bible on how to have peace with God: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ... by whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom. 5:1,2,11). We receive reconciliation with God ONLY through Jesus Christ and in no other way!

What kind of faith should we have towards Christ? Only with love for Him: “faith that works through love” (Galatians 5:6) “If you love Me, keep My commandments”; “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 14:15; 15:10); “and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”; “And whoever keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him” (1 John 3:22,24).

Connecting with God in Prayer

Once, I got into a conversation with an elderly woman at a bus stop. We talked about our problems, as well as our relationship with God. She was somehow very calm, despite her worries of those days. I often noticed this state in elderly deeply religious people. From our entire conversation, I was surprised by her story about her evening prayer. The thing is that she did not have a prayer book - a collection of prayers that Orthodox Christians have. And she was worried about how correctly she was addressing God in prayer. Regretting this, she told me that she simply talks with God as with the One Who is very close to her, Whom she loves and in Whom she hopes.

And I understood that at this time of her prayer nothing else existed for her. She only spoke to Him about her life and consulted Him about everything that was troubling her, rushing to Him with all her thoughts with hope and love. And her words ran easily, as if someone was helping her with this, about the entire past day and its worries. She told Him what she had managed to do and what had not turned out as she wanted. And she asked Him about this, knowing that He would answer her. And she would wait for His answer and the help that she was asking Him for. Her entire conversation was intertwined with words of gratitude, sometimes with tears. This was her prayer, which left in me the memory of her warmth and deep trust in God. Our closeness with God should never be interrupted. We must always remember that we are connected with Him by love, His love for us and ours for Him forever.