Another beautiful day, my dear friends, here on Divine Passages on Piraiki Church Radio, at 91.2 FM. Today is beautiful because every day is a great gift from God. I know you, too, are going through many troubles. Even as I say this, perhaps you are about to collect your medical test results. Perhaps you have already received bad news. You may be having problems with your child or facing financial difficulties. I know about all these troubles, and yet...

we recognize and believe that everything is held within a wise plan. God's love watches over our lives, and He can make all that happens serve a good purpose. He can use it to help us grow, to sanctify our lives, to help us advance spiritually, mature, and become stronger.

We will go through many things. Still, life has its beauty. All the things that trouble you, that make you struggle, hurt, and cry—one day you will look back and see that those difficult times gave you strength, wisdom, and holiness. And you will rejoice.

Yes, holiness, strength, and maturity often come through difficult times. Those are the times that make you stop and think. When a day goes smoothly, who sits down and says, “I feel so well today. Why am I so healthy? God, what are You showing me through the good health You have given me? Do You want me to thank You and praise You?” Who spends all day wondering why they feel so well? Have you ever done that? When you have money and things are comfortable, do you ask, “Why do I have money? Why is business going well? Why are customers coming into the shop?” We do not usually think that way. In comfortable, easy times, life can feel flat, and we give it little thought. But when pain comes, or a trial, or something that makes life hard, then...

we begin to ask questions.

“Oh, my head hurts. God, what is happening?” The moment you have a headache, you begin thinking about your head and your health, and you look for a remedy. On all the days when your head does not hurt, you hardly think about it at all. Health and well-being do not trouble us. It is the hard things, the things that hurt us and weigh us down, the pressures of life, that in the end strengthen us, give us new life, and renew us.

Once I gave a talk called “The Days of My Life Are Passing—What Am I Doing?” When the title was announced, I received emails, even from people abroad. They said, “Father, we would like to hear that too. I know what you mean: the days are passing, and I am doing nothing. We are wasting our lives.” Another person wrote, “Father, you must be talking about me. My life passes without meaning or beauty, and I do nothing.” Everyone thought the talk would fill them with guilt. I realized how much guilt people carry. Say, “The years have passed—what have we done?” and people sigh with shame and sorrow, “Oh dear.”

“What have we done? Nothing! The years of our lives have passed, and what have we done?” I said, “No, my friends, that is not what I mean.” At the talk, I explained: do not look at the years of your life, past or future, as something so sad that it will leave you depressed. “But what have we done with our lives?” We have done so much. “But we have made mistakes.” Of course we have. Who told you that you would go through life without making mistakes? And what happened because you made one? You matured. You saw your mistake. You learned humility. You changed your ways. You repented.

Is it so terrible to make mistakes in life? Those mistakes have helped make you strong and wise. Now you can offer advice because your own journey has tested you. Mistakes, successes, failures—they are all part of life. Think of a child coming home from school. You ask to see their notebook and find four little mistakes. They got one exercise wrong. They scored 18 on one test, 12 on another, 16 on a third. Perhaps you scold them a little, but inwardly you say, “They are a child; they will learn through this.” You cannot expect everything to be perfect in fifth grade...

or fourth grade, or the second year of middle school. The child is learning. If they already knew it all, why would they go to school? They will make mistakes, cross things out, and get some answers wrong. That does not surprise you. Life is like that too. Your life is beautiful, even with all you have done, because God sees it all and helps bring good out of it. He can use even your mistakes, your passions, your blunders, and your sins to guide you through your trials. He guided the Prodigal Son through his wasteful living and his ordeal until he found himself again and found the road home. I hope you understand: I am not telling you to seek out mistakes. I did not say you should pursue them...

Did I tell you to sin so that you could find your way to God? No. But mistakes do happen in our lives. We all make them: wrong choices, wrong purchases, wrong thoughts, wrong moves. Who has never made a mistake? How good it is to understand this, to come to terms with it, to learn humility, and to say, “This is who I am. I make mistakes, small and large. I am human. God, will You strike me or punish me for that?” And God says, “Why would I? Through these mistakes your life is being shaped. In the end you mature, turn your face toward heaven, and say, ‘God, help me.’”

Those mistakes have helped you come to know yourself. Now you understand yourself and your brother, because you have been tested.

I once told you about asking Mr. Ganotis, a fine scholar and teacher of both spiritual life and life's ordinary lessons, “Who were your spiritual teachers? Who were your elders, your spiritual fathers? Who taught you? From whom were you edified?” He answered, “My greatest spiritual teachers have been my sins and my mistakes.” I had never heard an answer like that, but I saw how true it was. We learn so much from our own mistakes. And your life is not made up only of mistakes. You have done many good and beautiful things. If you can see that, you will thank God. Please, let go of that sorrow...

on your face. You may ask, “Is it that easy? Do we just press a button?” No, but we can change our logismoi, the thoughts that keep pressing on us. Change those thoughts. As Father Joseph says in his book, try a little of the plagal first mode, with its joyful sound, and let it lift your spirits. The third mode is joyful too, full of joy, enthusiasm, and praise. Try looking at things differently, and your heart will begin to feel differently too. You have done such beautiful things in your life. Perhaps you have raised a family. If you have not, wait—I will speak to you as well.

“Well, I have not raised a family either.” Straightaway you find another reason to feel bitter and complain. My friend, do not do that. Even in the greatest problem you face, there is a way to see it differently and find some peace in your soul. “Is that just a psychological trick?” No. But we can help our understanding, our heart, and our logismoi, those persistent thoughts, to change, so that the way we see life changes too. I was about to speak of family, but let me tell you something else first. A man once called me from the Holy Mountain. He lived in a hut, though he did have a telephone. By hut I mean there was no power, no...

refrigerator, no electricity—none of that, of course.

The stove and water heater burned wood, and he used candles and oil lamps for light. He called because smoke from the stove had filled his room. “I opened the windows, and the cold came in,” he said, “but I had to let the smoke out. I could hardly breathe.” He was complaining about it, but then his thoughts shifted and he saw things differently. “While I was sitting by the bookshelves,” he told me, “I noticed an old issue of National Geographic.”

“I saw photographs of children suffering in Somalia and Ethiopia. Then I realized I have nothing to complain about. I am doing fine, even though the stove filled the room with smoke, everything turned black, and I nearly choked on the fumes.” The same man, seeing the situation differently, no longer thought it was a tragedy. He said, “Glory to God.”

We are not like those who have nothing to eat or drink, who die every day, whose little bodies you see lying by the roadside. So much depends on how we look at things. Teach your eyes to see the bright colors of life. Do not keep fixing them on the black and the gray, going there again and again to complain, to grow melancholy, to see everything as bleak. Do not do that. If you like it, if it gives your life meaning, and you say, “I like always being this way, so that others will pity me and pay attention to me as someone tormented, a victim of life, a poor sufferer”—if you have convinced yourself that your mission in this life is to cry continually... But I do not think God brought you into this world to live constantly

in misery, sorrow, and complaint. Shake yourself awake and say, “No, things are not only as I have been seeing them. I will look at them differently.” You have done great things in life. You have raised your family, for example. Is that a small thing? You ask, “What will I present to God?” Your family. “But I do not undertake a spiritual struggle.” Is caring for them not a spiritual struggle? “But I cannot be at church from seven in the morning, as you are.” I understand. You cannot be there at seven, just as I do not get up at six to cook or go to the market at seven, as you do. We cannot all do the same things. God's grace, love, and help are woven into your work. His grace flows through your hands and is present in your home, in all that you do. One mother said to me, “What...

“What do I do? Nothing. The days of my life go by. I get up in the morning, make breakfast for my husband and children, send the children to school with sandwiches in their bags. Then I go to the market, shop, stop at the bank to pay some bills, come home, clean, dust, mop, cook, do the laundry, iron shirts. What do I do? Nothing. The years have passed like that.” But that is not how it is, I tell her. Isn’t everything you just described worthwhile? Isn’t it important? Do you know what the trouble is? You are not doing these things with your whole heart, so they give your life no sense of purpose. They have become tiresome because you do not look for something precious in them. If your life runs like a little motor and you do everything by rote, the same tasks over and over, monotonously...

...without taking joy in it, without love, without seeing any quality or beauty in any of it, these things really are tiring and dull. You feel like giving it all up, and you regret the life you have lived.

...do it with love. When you slice the bread for your child’s sandwich, you might say, “This bread will go into my child’s body. The bread I am holding will become part of my child’s body. O God, let this bread nourish my child and bring my child health.”

Think of Saint Matrona in Russia. People would come to her, and she would make the sign of the Cross over water, bless it, and give them a little blessed water from her own hands. What was that saintly woman doing? She was making the sign of the Cross over ordinary tap water, not the Agiasmos, and blessing it. Because she gave it with so much love from her heart and with so much prayer, the plain water she gave them worked a miracle: their souls found peace, and they felt that...

...this woman made the same movements anyone else would, but with grace, with love, with devotion, and with a burning love for God and the salvation of the whole world. Let me tell you something I read on a wall the other day. I was walking down the street and saw the words, “Love or nothing.” Actually, I think it said simply, “Passion or nothing.” Life cannot move forward unless you have a deep longing, love, and joy for something. That is what I mean by passion here: put your whole heart into whatever you do, all your care and all your generous effort. Then your life will be beautiful. Take this radio program I am doing right now, for example.

...if I do not want to do it, if I am weary of life and have no desire to speak, I cannot make the program. I will say, “I cannot do a program today.”

That does not mean that when we play a repeat, I have no desire to make a program. Some people ask to hear an older program again. They do not all have internet access, where the old programs are saved and can be heard whenever you like. You know that, I think. Someone will say, “I liked that one from a while ago. Please play it again.” Sometimes we also do it so we have time to prepare new programs. We need a little time to withdraw and gather what we have to say; we are not an inexhaustible spring.

Now, what was I saying? If I have no desire to speak, I will fail. You might ask, “And what do you accomplish?” I am not claiming to say anything momentous. But at least I want to say what I say; I want to do what I do. It matters to begin your day doing something you like, to enjoy doing it, and to be able to say, “This fills me with purpose.”

...I enjoy it and do it with care. Let me tell you something from everyday life so you can see what I mean. I ask you to sense God in the things we are discussing. That is the wonder of it. God is in these stories that may seem ordinary and trivial: bread, sandwiches, chores, ironing shirts. Yes, God is in all of them. How could I believe in a God who stays far away in the clouds and is concerned with me only during the Divine Liturgy, during the service, or in those few moments of the day when I stop to say something before His holy icon? God is the breath of life in us. He is there as we breathe, in our beating hearts, in the blood flowing through our veins, in our...

...nerves and nervous system, which give our bodies sensation, vitality, and strength. God is everywhere and fills all things. You need to see and feel God everywhere in your life. That is no small thing.

Someone once told me, “I was on my way to church, listening to you as I walked, and I felt good.” But God is there before you enter the Church. You may think, “Now I am going to meet God.” What, then, do you meet before you get there? Nothing? Emptiness? Chaos? You can choose to live in God’s presence even as you climb the steps into the church building, and before that, at home, in your car, everywhere. This is theology lived out in life, in what we do and experience. All of it matters. Sometimes God is found where you would never expect Him. And sometimes you expect to find Him in a certain place and do not, because you have not prepared yourself through the way you live each day. You go there as if you could press a magic button and say, “Now that I am here, I will feel everything.”

...you will feel everything. You need to live it beforehand, in other places too. Bring God into every part of your life: to your table, into your sleep and your bedroom, your bathroom and kitchen, your office, your library, and your garden.

In the most private moments of your life, when you think, when you weep, when you pray, when you love and share, God is present. If you feel that, there is no day of your life that is not wonderful, no day that is not beautiful. There will be sorrows, trials, and difficulties. But we can take them, see them differently, and see life as Christ sees it and as He taught us to see it: “All things work together for good for those who love God.”

For those who love God, he says, everything can help bring about something good: a good outcome, what is good and perfect.

Let me give you an ordinary, practical example. I once went to a dietitian, a remarkable woman. Her guidance, the treatment and diet she prescribed, and the way she helped you were excellent, and you could see results. She had something different for each person, a completely individual approach. You could not take one person’s plan and give it to someone else. She even wrote, “What we prescribe is for you alone. If you give it to someone else, it may not have the same effect and could even harm them.” Once, impressed by her work, I told her, “You are remarkable.” She replied, “I am not remarkable. Do you know what I am? I am in love with my work. I love what I do. It fills me. I do not do it primarily for the...

...money. I do not do it to make a name for myself. I do it because I love it and put my heart into it. I am passionate about it,” she told me. Her example taught me something about work that may seem ordinary to you, though it is not ordinary at all. So many of us struggle with these things. Everywhere, including in the Church, people struggle with their health, their bodies, their triglycerides, cholesterol, weight, and everything else. She told me, “I used to have a clinic in a certain part of Athens. Do you know what happened? It had a shopfront window, and people would break it to steal the patient files. They thought that by stealing the files, they could steal my secrets too. Not a chance!”

“They stole the files,” she said, “but they saw no results, because I did not hand out copies of the same plan to everyone. I had something different for each person, so those files were no use to the thieves. I worked out each person’s treatment with love, care, and passion. Eventually I put a sign in the window: ‘Please do not break the glass. Ask me, and I will give you the files. Do not steal them or break the windows. I will give them to you; they are not secrets.’” If that same spirit lived in you, your life would be like Paradise, full of happiness. You would make a meal and feel as though you could fly. You would not notice the time passing. If you loved what you did, if you loved God, for whose sake you do it all, if you loved the person beside you...

...your husband, your wife, your children, your colleagues if you work, your students or your teachers at school. If we relate to others with that kind of love, with care, longing, and hope, then everything we do becomes beautiful, and the days flow by. You hardly notice them passing. You say, “When did morning turn to noon, and when did night fall? Another day has gone.” There may be a touch of longing in those words, a sense that the day has passed and you have left something behind. But you are not sad, because when you look back, you see that you have left a radiance behind. You have left...

...light, not darkness or wreckage or ruins. You have left something beautiful. Even if what you leave behind that day is tears, tears of metanoia, of repentance...

...those tears shine too. They have their own radiance, dignity, and brightness. There is nothing wrong with that. Everything in your life can become beautiful. You can rejoice and keep from growing old before your time. Whatever makeup you put on and however carefully you tend your appearance, what matters is renewing the soul within you. That is what you should do.

So that is my wish for you today, through these humble words of ours. Vasilis, thank you so much for being with us again today. Thank you for putting your heart into this program, supporting it, working on the sound, and choosing its music. Vasilis Chatzinikolaou, who loves music and chanting and cares so much about this program, is with us again, and I thank him warmly. You can call the station, Piraiki Ekklisia, at 4118602 or 4118640. It is a station that speaks to our souls because it loves God, who truly touches our souls when we let Him enter us, down to the very cells of our bodies.

The point, then, is to find meaning and purpose in whatever you do, and to take joy in it. If you do not like what you are doing, change it. Find something you enjoy, so that as the days pass you can say, “I am doing something I love.” A young man once told me, “Father, it really matters to do something that fulfills you in life, even if that something does not seem very important.” Listen, I told him: something that seems insignificant can fill your life with meaning when you give it your whole heart. Suppose someone says, “I am going to tidy my desk, with all its scattered papers, folders, mixed-up books, addresses, cards, and receipts.” He might think, “What is that? It is nothing spiritual, nothing remarkable.” Yet even this can be meaningful if you do it with your whole heart, fully present and aware, rather than having your body there while your heart and your thoughts are elsewhere, leaving you a divided person.

Instead, you can say, “Lord, I am working before You, ‘as for the Lord.’ I give care to these little things in front of me because I will find You here. Here I will feel Your presence and show my love. Here my spiritual life will take practical form, beyond words and ideas. Here I put things away, dust, clean, throw out rubbish, find bags, pick up bits of lint, and sort what is useful from what is not.” Is there no meaning in that? There is something beautiful about it. So this young man told me, “Do you know what I did that gave me a sense of purpose? One day I got up, and my parents took me to a place in the country where we are building a house. They asked me to help. I had not been there for a while. We carried things, helped out, and moved tables and furniture in and out. The hours went by.”

“At noon we went to the supermarket, did the shopping, went home and ate, and then carried on working. We returned home in the evening. We had been out all day, tired from the work and the strain, completely exhausted. Can you believe,” he told me, “that when I went to sleep, I felt I had done something good with my day? I had helped. I had worked with others. I had been active. Above all, I kept thinking that this was the house where we would live. I thought about the future, about my brother and me starting our own families, having homes there, and dividing the apartments between us.”

“That gave the work meaning,” he said. “Even though it wore me out, and even though moving furniture and working on houses is not what I normally do, I enjoyed it. I felt the day had not been wasted. The next day,” he said, “was Saturday.”

“I got up at one in the afternoon, went on Facebook, and let the time pass. I ate, then waited until I felt sleepy enough to go back to sleep. Eventually it was bedtime, and I slept again. I had spent the whole day sitting around, absorbed in the computer, lost in space, as we say. The time was mine, and the day was free for me to use, yet I felt empty. On the face of it, you might call it a restful, relaxed, comfortable, pleasant day. If people hear that someone slept until one, they might say, ‘Oh, what I would give to sleep until one just once!’” He did sleep until one, but he did not fill the rest of his day with anything good.

I am not saying we must all become activists, always busy building things and helping people. Find meaning in your life. A person in a wheelchair may find meaning even if all they can do is sort a few small things with their hands. Someone who cannot see may also find meaning in life. They may ask, “Why can I not see? What can I do for other people? Can I accept my condition with patient endurance?” Is that not meaningful: to say, “In my life, I have learned patient endurance”? If God comes and asks me, “My child, what did you do throughout your life?” I can say, “Lord, I endured patiently. I bore my illness and my trial.” Someone else may have a difficult person to care for and take to the hospital.

Another person has kidney problems and must go for dialysis two or three times a week, however often it may be. “Lord, I endured patiently.” What will God say? That you did nothing great or spiritual because you gave no talks, because you were neither a missionary nor a monk nor a member of the clergy? Is that endurance not something great?

The days of your life pass, and what do you do? You endure patiently. See the worth in what you are doing. Feel the honor God gives you, and know that God loves you. He loves you. He is not scolding you; He honors you. He wants you to feel the honor and praise He Himself offers when He says, “My child, I love you.” The world may expect a great deal from you. Others may criticize you and call you useless or unsuccessful, say that you have fallen behind or are getting nowhere in life. But in My eyes, you and your spouse have been married for four years, hoping for a child, and you are still waiting. That is patient endurance. That is strength, perseverance, and hope. You have faith, My child. Is that a small thing? You believe in

the power of God. You keep hoping and do not give in to despair. Is that a small thing? The days of your life pass, and what are you doing? You are changing. You are being transformed. It is a great thing to let the passing days change your thinking, your ideas, and your opinions. Someone may say, “I am still the same.” If that means you still love, good: always love, and never give that up. But if you are clinging to strange, unhealthy, harmful ideas, change them. As young people say, “Get unstuck.” Let go of those fixed thoughts and change your outlook.

Father Porphyrios said that when he was young, he heard confessions. At first, he said, he was strict: Canons, penances, rulebooks, strictness, all applied with exactness and consistency. Between us, if we applied that kind of exactness, neither you nor I—and I put myself first, so you do not misunderstand me, I put myself first—should ever receive Holy Communion again; I should never serve the Divine Liturgy again. None of us should receive Communion if we apply such exactness. Even those who insist on strictness could not bear it if it were applied to their own lives. Whatever we may say, we do not really know what such exactness entails. Taken strictly, these matters are very severe. But after a few years, he said, “I came to understand people's pain, the struggle with the passions, and, above all, the love of God.”

“That softened me too. I began to see people differently. As the days of my life went by, my thinking changed. The taste of God in Holy Communion changed for me, and so did the taste of God in my heart. Different words came from my mouth when I spoke to people. I was no longer strict, always correcting, scolding, and imposing penances.”

“I had gentleness and kindness. I prayed fervently and tried to transform another person's soul through love rather than fear. And as I changed, I helped others change.” The days of life pass. Are you changing, or are you still just as rigid, conservative, and moralistic—concerned with moral rules more than with living a truly moral life?

Perhaps you are still outwardly pious, even self-righteous, as you once were. You had good reason to begin that way. It was how you had been taught and what you knew. It was not wrong then; it was the best you could offer at the time. But if you carry that earlier way of thinking into today simply to defend your old position and avoid admitting that you too need to change, what becomes of the passing days of your life? You do not let God shape you. You do not let Him soften you and smooth your sharp edges so that you can move among people and approach them with love. What can I say? The days of our life pass, and we change.

I used to see certain things one way. Deep down, I am glad about this, and I thank God, because I see some things differently now from how I did ten or fifteen years ago—completely differently. I am not ashamed to say so. I am not ashamed to admit that my thinking and my soul are changing. For example, fifteen years ago, if you had told me that someone

wanted to become a monk, I would have said, “What does he contribute? Nothing.” That was what I believed. But as time passed and I met more people, I came to see that you can be out in the world, speaking, offering help, and preaching, without that necessarily changing the world. It is God who changes the world. So if you find a living connection with God, you can help your neighbor whether you are a monk or a missionary, in the world or on a mountain, with a family or without one. I did not understand that then. If someone had told me to go to the Holy Mountain, I would have said, “But you will not help anyone there.” That is what I mean, and I am glad my thinking changed. Other things change too. Our outlook can change without changing the heart of our faith, the meaning of Christ, or Christ's teaching. The way we express that truth should be flexible and adapt to the person we are speaking to. I repeat this because you may misunderstand me: the heart of the truth does not change. What changes is how you offer that truth to the world and how you approach someone.

That is how I see it. In any case, whatever we do in this life is small, perishable, and limited. Do not expect to do everything perfectly, because even the finest things you do will one day pass away. We too will pass from this life. After a hundred and fifty years or so, we will be gone, won't we? How many years would you like? I have given you a hundred and fifty to be safe, since some older listeners might hear me name a younger age and say, “What are you talking about? I am that age already!” Another might say, “I have already lived past the age you mentioned.”

So after all those years, you will understand that the small things and the great things are all small. Father Iakovos in Evia once said something beautiful. Someone read it to me from a book, and I liked it: “Here, my child, we live as the days go by.”

In other words, you do something as the days of your life pass. The thing you make will not necessarily last forever. Love, truth, and prayer do endure, and the good you do endures in its goodness. But build a house, and one day you will leave it. Build a great building, and you will leave that too. Whatever you make, however much of your heart you pour into it, however wonderful you think it is, it is not absolute. It is a small thing. Even great works are small when you remember that they too will pass away. Yet if you bring God into these small things, they take on beauty, an enduring quality, radiant glory, and greatness. Once, Father

Paisios was peeling an orange, and someone who saw him was deeply moved. “What was so striking about the way Father Paisios peeled an orange?” a friend asked him. “Was he speaking to you? Did he give you some wonderful teaching?” “No.” “Then what was he doing?” “He was peeling the orange, but I felt God's grace coming from him and covering me. And all he was doing was peeling an orange.” “How was he peeling it?” “Normally,” he said, “like anyone else.” You see? Even among the peels of an orange, the fragrance of God can come forth if you do the task with your whole heart, “as for the Lord.” That is a beautiful phrase: “as for the Lord.” It means working before the Lord and for His sake, before God and for your brother or sister. You can do such little things. Say you go to collect the...

You go to collect the envelopes from the mailbox in your apartment building, and your child is beside you. The way you open the mailbox and glance at the other residents’ letters and envelopes says something about you. It might show nervousness, curiosity, even disgust. You might think, “What magazine have they been sent? Is that an envelope with a check?” Curiosity, gossip, indifference—the qualities of our soul come out even in the most ordinary moments of life. The days of our lives go by. So what are you doing with them? This hour we’re spending together on this program is passing too. What are we doing with it? I remember a monk who was a friend of mine. He died some years ago. When was it? Two thousand and...

five? I don’t remember exactly, but around 2005, at a monastery outside Athens. I was in Jerusalem at the time. Someone called and told me, “Father so-and-so has passed away.” I was shaken. He was only forty-five, and I couldn’t get back in time for his funeral. I asked, “Please, when is the funeral?” “In two days,” they said. I couldn’t make it. When I returned to Athens, I asked someone at the monastery, “Father, could you give me something from his cell to remember him by?” We were friends. We didn’t speak every day, but we talked whenever I visited. We had a mutual affection and respect. They gave me a prayer rope that was terribly worn, almost falling apart. It looked as though it had been through a war. It was so worn that a slight pull might tear it and send the knots coming loose...

from all the use it had seen. I wondered, “What else was there?” “Nothing. There was nothing else in his cell. We found a cardigan, this prayer rope, his cassock, and a few books. That was all.” And I thought: this man lived forty-five years, and yet he lived them with purpose. You can live just forty-five years and live a great deal.

You can also live ninety or a hundred and five years and never understand why you lived. The beautiful thing is to be able to say at the end of each day, as night comes, “I did good things today.” Nothing remarkable, perhaps. But in the little things I did, I thought of God, I loved people, I was glad to do them, and I put my whole heart into them...

and they brought me joy. It was a lovely day. No one knows me. No one has heard of me. I haven’t impressed any crowds. I’m simply at home, in my little room, either alone with my books or with my family and children. But I fill my life with good things, and I bring God into all of them. Those are beautiful days. If you live them that way, life will be sweet. And when my time comes to die, I’ll look back and speak humbly. I’ll say more another time about how the days of our lives pass, and how they can pass beautifully even when we know that, at the end, a painful parting awaits us. Then we can say, “Yes, I’m leaving. I accept this humbly. Everyone else leaves this life, and so will I. I cannot be the exception. It would be selfish of me to say, ‘Why must I die? I want to live,’ when everyone dies.”

I too join the whole human family on that journey. But when I look back over my life, like a ship looking at the wake it leaves across the waves, I see lovely little things. Very small things, perhaps. You may not be an inventor. Not everyone will be an inventor or an astronaut. Not everyone will be famous, wealthy, a shipowner, a donor, or a great benefactor. You too will make this journey, and you’ll be able to say, “I raised my family and my little children. I showed patient endurance. I fought my small struggles and did my little jobs. I trimmed the green beans, made a sandwich for my child, went shopping for my wife—and I found joy in all of it.”

In all these things I thanked God and was grateful to Him. I’ve packed a suitcase full of gratitude, full of things for which I thank God. I’m not afraid of this journey, because as I stand ready for takeoff, I’m holding that suitcase. It carries no valuables. And sometimes, when you aren’t carrying valuables, you travel more safely.

You say, “I have little, but what I have is full of God. I have little, but it is full of thanks to God, praise, gratitude, humble acceptance, and a contented soul. There’s no grumbling, bitterness, complaint, or murmuring in it. My life is good. Glory to God. Glory to God. How beautiful it is. Thank You, my God.”

I won’t have time to say more. I’ve said very little today. But this hour of our lives has passed too—another hour gone by. Perhaps the program will be broadcast again later tonight, and in a few days you’ll be able to listen to it online as often as you like. May our love be carried onward too, through our prayers, and may our lives be filled with meaning.

Now go and do something you enjoy, even if it seems very small and unimportant. Do it with all your heart, take joy in it, and thank God. Know that these simple actions can bring you very close to Him. And don’t feel guilty because, as you tell me, you don’t have time to pray for a hundred hours. Pray for half an hour. Even that half hour—or fifteen minutes—is good, so long as your every breath and every moment are offered to Him.

Wonderful! May God give you strength for all the hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades of your life ahead. Until we meet again on the next program. Goodbye, my dear friends.