Sin is an abnormality, a distortion of the natural human existence, a violation of God's plan. However, in order to see this deviation from the norm in ourselves, we need to recognise the norm. We need a certain standard in front of us, an ideal to model our soul by it. When we turn our eyes into our soul, like the Queen in Shakespeare's Hamlet, we only see "black and grained spots as will not leave their tinct". But how can we isolate those black spots if everything around them is also in the dark? In the dark all cats are grey, so if we really want to reveal the blackness of sin in our souls, we need a powerful source of light.

For Christians, this light is the image of Jesus Christ, recorded by His disciples in the text of the four Gospels. This is the ideal of our humanity, its norm, its standard, and at every moment of our lives we either strive to conform to it, or we fail and deviate from it. There is no third option.

Here, it would seem, is the solution to the problem: in order to see sin in your thoughts, words and actions, you need to consider them in the light of the Gospel, comparing them with the thoughts, words and actions of the Son of God. However, to do this, one should read the Gospel not on a from-time-to-time basis, but daily and thoughtfully. It might just be one chapter a day, but you should read it slowly, analysing the difficult places, searching for interpretations on them in the works of the Holy fathers. You need to make this reading a part of your daily routine. Otherwise, the light of the Gospel will not illuminate your entire life, but only flashes of it will gleam here and there without leaving any trace.

Such a "fragmentary" attitude to reading the Gospel can be compared to a night trip by car: when we drive in the dark, we certainly turn on the headlights. But what happens if they are not turned on all the time on a dark road, but only occasionally? Probably nothing good.

Thus our whole earthly life can be this darkness, in which we either drive at random, with our headlights off, periodically flying off the road into a ditch, crashing into poles or worse — harming other people. Or we can try to illuminate this darkness with the light of Christ, gradually learning to notice and avert the dangerous sins that lie in wait for us. True, even in this light we sometimes stumble. But then the Christian can already clearly see what kind of a snag - a sin - he has bumped into. And when you know exactly what you stumbled over, it's easier to protect yourself from repeated falls in the same place.

Original article: https://radiovera.ru/vyiklyuchennyie-faryi