How simple everything is, is it not? The Holy Spirit spoke, and everything was clear to everyone. Why, then, are we always overcome by doubts and uncertainty, endless searches for God's will, and inability to hear His voice?..
How simple everything is, is it not? The Holy Spirit spoke, and everything was clear to everyone. Why, then, are we always overcome by doubts and uncertainty, endless searches for God's will, and inability to hear His voice?
In this connection it is fitting to recall a parable. A certain man came to his spiritual mentor with a question: "Why have I been seeking a meeting with God for so many years, and still it does not happen?" Then the mentor led him into the water and began to drown him. And when the man had almost choked, he pulled him out of the water and asked, "What did you want most of all there, under the water?" The disciple answered, "Air." "Then," said the teacher, "when you desire that meeting as much as air, it will happen."
Do we seek the will of God that strongly? Can we always say, as in this verse, that we "served the Lord and fasted"?
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13:2 Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them - This was not ordaining them. St. Paul was ordained long before, and that not of men, neither by man: it was only inducting him to the province for which our Lord had appointed him from the beginning, and which was now revealed to the prophets and teachers. In consequence of this they fasted, prayed, and laid their hands on them, a rite which was used not in ordination only, but in blessing, and on many other occasions.