Allow us, O Lord, to glorify You, until our dying breath…..
One can fall into deception, either out of inexperience, or out of pride. And if it is out of inexperience, the Lord heals the deceived one very quickly; however, if it is on account of pride, then the soul will be struggling for a very long time, until it has learnt humility and will then be healed by the Lord. We fall into a deception, when we consider ourselves more prudent and experienced than the others – even our own spiritual father.
This is what I myself had thought -in my inexperience- and this was the reason that I suffered. And I thank the Lord from my heart, because in this way, He humbled me and admonished me, and did not revoke His mercy from me.
Now it occurs to me that without confessing to our spiritual father, it will not be possible to avoid deception, because it was to the spiritual father that God gave the gift of “binding and unbinding”.
Elder Sophrony