As we are entering the next and final semester of this school year, and approaching the many challenges that come with college, we tend to forget that through these challenges, we figure out who we are and what we like. We learn to balance between time with others and time with ourselves. We sometimes even do some things which we may not expect out of ourselves. But there is only One other being out there that knows us more than we know ourselves, and you guessed it... God Himself.

The Almighty, the omnipotent, who is glorified by all the angels and all the saints has offered to share His throne, so in knowing Him we may know ourselves and what He intended for us. There are many things we can do to discover the depths of our hearts but before we get ahead of ourselves let’s remember how He loved us before we were even conceived....

As Jeremiah the prophet wants to shy away from the calling God had for him as a prophet, God arms his doubt telling Jeremiah:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born;I sanctified you;” Jeremiah 1:5

How beautiful it is that God before even being formed placed us under His unconditional love and care, making us Holy in His name. The Almighty God has brought Himself down to someone as little as me? Even in Psalm 139 we read... “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb” Psalm 139:13.

Although the Psalmist here reiterates what we read about God and Jeremiah, it serves to show us that He didn’t just sanctify Jeremiah, but all of us, especially since the Psalms are the greatest expression of human emotion. What greater love than this? Finally, we read in the Adam Psali for the Lord Jesus reciting and chanting “You know my heart: and You search my depths: My Lord Jesus: help me”

So now knowing that God is truly omniscient, knowing all things, not just about the universe but about each and every single one of us, what are we called to do now?

The one thing our fathers emphasize is sitting alone in silence every day, in

self-examination. As God knows us best, in this time we quiet down and calm all of our senses, sitting in stillness with God, just as we read in the Psalms, “Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10. And it is through our loving God who knows us better than we know ourselves that we can understand who we are and where our heart is. In this time of self-examination there are many questions one can ask themselves...

1. Do I really believe?

2. If so, what do I actually believe? 

3. For what and for whom do I live?

4. What are my weaknesses & shortcomings that I fail to recognize? 

5. What are my highest loyalties?

6. What is my most important goal in life?

7. Do I entrust myself to God's love and care each day?

8. Do I thank God for His blessings every day?

9. Do I set aside time each day for prayer, God's word and silence? 10. Do I serve others or myself?

11. What do I desire the most in life?

Our teacher St. Paul teaches us that “If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged” in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians 11:31... how powerful yet scary to think about. If we acknowledged our sin constantly and daily, only then will we be able to discover ourselves and know our hearts, and we would not be caught up with those around us... and beware my beloved for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Guard your heart and offer it to the Lord. Every year, we always know what gifts we’re going to offer each other... but what are we going to offer God? There is not much that God desires out of us, but what He does desire is our hearts. As we pray in the Standard Basillian Fraction “O Master, Lord our God the Great, the Eternal, who is wondrous in glory; who keeps His covenant and His mercy to those who love Him with all their heart”. How beautiful it is that it’s made very clear what God wants from us.

One time a beloved father of the youth was asked “How can we know when our heart is filled with God?”. This father looked down and smirked with such an angelic facial expression. He answered saying “ We know that our heart is filled with God when every decision that we make depends on whether this is going to help me grow closer to God, or not” and moving forward we can utilize that as our measure.

Finally, I want to end off with a meditation. When we have God in our hearts, we have everything, because God is everything. Let’s not forget in Acts 17:28 how “in Him we live and move and have our being”.

Let’s pray that God may allow us to face our personal mirrors in order to examine our hearts, find the weakness within ourselves, and RUN to Him for He is the true healer and the physician of our souls. Glory be to God, forever and ever. Amen.