Describing the spiritual life of a Christian as, in the apostle's view, it should be, Paul places prayer at its center: continuous prayer, and necessarily with thanksgiving. The whole life of a Christian is built around such prayer. It would seem impossible to pray continuously: there are other things in life that have to be done, so one will in one way or another have to be distracted from prayer. But it only appears so to someone for whom prayer is merely certain words that have to be said to God.

Meanwhile, words are only the outward form of prayer. In some cases one can do without them altogether. In all spiritual traditions, at least those that go back to Abraham, there exists the practice of prayer without words, silent prayer, or prayer in which short prayer formulas are used. They can easily be repeated to oneself in a whisper or even mentally anywhere, under practically any circumstances. It is possible that Paul has something similar in mind. Among believing Jews in his day such prayer was known and popular. The prayer formula usually used was either the prayer "Shema" ("Hear, O Israel...") or simply the invocation of the sacred name, the name of Yahweh, which could not be pronounced aloud but which no one forbade invoking mentally. In church practice, especially in the East, inner prayer later became widespread and is usually called the Jesus Prayer, because in it, and there are several versions of such a prayer, the name of Jesus is present, whom the one praying invokes.

But whatever the prayer formula may be, it still remains only a means to direct the will of the one praying toward the One whom he wants to address, toward God or toward Christ. The goal remains precisely the union of the human will with the will of God or with the will of Jesus. Ideally there should be no gap left between the two wills; they should form a single whole, while each remains itself, as it was with Jesus Himself and His heavenly Father. Such unity of a person with God makes possible everything else that Paul lists in his letter: constant joy, attention to every movement of God's breath, listening to prophetic revelations. But the most important thing is that it creates that space of relationship between God and the person outside of which normal spiritual life is impossible at all. That is why the apostle places prayer at the center of Christians' spiritual life: it makes possible everything else in it, as Paul reminds the Thessalonian Christians.

As he concludes his letter to the Thessalonian Christians, Paul calls them to preserve the life of the Kingdom in which they have come to share. As is clear, it can be preserved only by remaining inhabitants of the Kingdom, which is what the apostle calls the recipients of his letter to do. Paul considers the main goal of all the spiritual efforts of the faithful to be the preservation of that spiritual wholeness without which life in the Kingdom is impossible and which must be carried through to the day of Judgment and the Savior's return (v. 23). And in order to preserve it, what is needed first of all is openness to the world, readiness to receive it and to "test" it (v. 21). Indeed, the task of the faithful is to carry the Kingdom into the world, and self-isolation is, of course, excluded in principle.

At the same time, however, in order to solve this task it is absolutely necessary to learn to distinguish good from evil and to make the right choice in the concrete situations of which life actually consists, so that each such situation would turn, for every faithful person, into a triumph of the Kingdom regardless of where and when it arose (vv. 21-22). And one can learn to live this way in only one way: by allowing that breath, or "spirit," of God that permeates the Kingdom to change one's human nature, making it fit for the new life. But such transformation will be impossible unless God is given the freedom He needs, freedom of access to the human heart, including in particular in the assemblies of the faithful, which in fact exist in order to become centers of this spiritual work. That is why the apostle calls them "not to quench the Spirit" and "not to despise prophecies" (vv. 19-20): for it is precisely in such forms that the action of God directed toward the transformation of human nature most often manifests itself.

But this work, like almost everything connected with a person's spiritual life, is a God-human work, and therefore God's action alone is not enough here. What is also needed is the environment in which the results of such action can be preserved and take root. In the apostle's thought, the Church must become that environment where those seeking new life can not only come to share in the Kingdom, but also live in it, building their relationships with God and with their neighbors according to the laws of the Kingdom, and not according to the laws of our still untransformed world (vv. 14-18). And then the Church will become what Christ Himself conceived and created it to be: a community of people living in the Kingdom and carrying it into the world.

"Give thanks in everything..." We know very well that thanksgiving is one of the most important, "supporting" pillars of our faith. But knowing this, we are often tormented by the fact that our thanksgiving feels strained and insincere; it is clear that we simply do not want to grieve the Lord. And sometimes there may be no thanksgiving left at all, only cries of emotional or physical pain, and that happens too. What happens to our faith at such a time? How can you explain to a father who has lost his beloved nineteen-year-old daughter, lost her not to illness but suddenly, simply because a car struck her to death, how can you tell him that he must give thanks for this, that he must believe... There is such cold churchliness, which simply places a person before a choice he is incapable of making. It exists. But there is another theology as well. Here is an unexpected thought from Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh: "In order to give thanks now for sufferings, in order to give thanks now for the sorrow of the earth, one must already see it glorified, one must already discern the Lord's victory; otherwise our thanksgiving is blasphemous, and we do not give thanks, we are powerless to give thanks, because we do not live by the Kingdom for which we pray." (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, "After the New Year's Prayer Service," December 31, 1967.) Let us look carefully at the words "otherwise our thanksgiving is blasphemous." Let us think through all their seriousness and understand that it is better not to give thanks than to give thanks blasphemously. And what we need to seek is not the fruits of faith, but faith itself. One can go everywhere looking for where to get apples, or one can plant an apple tree oneself, cultivate it, water it, fertilize it, wait several years, and then it will bear fruit.