NOTES for Mat 10:32-36

"...Even the hairs of your head are all numbered..." What does this mean? No one dies apart from the Father's will, but does this mean that those who die die by His will? This is a very difficult question, and the abyss of unbelief lies very close here. But it can be avoided if we trust our heart and the Word of God.

Priest Georgy Chistyakov writes in his work "Martyrdom as a Phenomenon":

"To endure September 11, the almost daily explosions in Israel, and other horrors. Or does He behave the way a strict teacher sometimes does? No, that too is impossible! If God is merciless, then Job's wife is indeed right when she advises him to curse God and die. How can one not remember Voltaire here? 'How could God create this terrible cesspool of misfortunes and crimes? It is supposed,' says Voltaire, 'that God is powerful, just, and good, while we see madness, injustice, and malice on every side. Therefore people prefer denying God to cursing Him.' At the same time Voltaire himself believed in God, although he said that he preferred to believe in a God who was not almighty and was limited in His possibilities, but good. [...]

Yet despite everything, and above all despite what is obvious, we somehow feel God's presence in the world. [...] We feel this precisely, not knowing it, and understand not with the mind but with the heart, that the Lord shares with us every misfortune of ours in all its fullness. He is with us where things are bad. And this is the main thing. Descending with us as if into hell, into the depths of our misery and despair, He also leads us out of those depths, giving us wisdom and patience. As this is depicted on the Paschal icon 'The Savior's Descent into Hades'..."