The Holy Forty-Two Martyrs of Ammorium.
Day 4 of the Great Fast. Abstention from meat and foods that contain these ingredients. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 2:11-21; Vespers – Genesis 2:4-19; Proverbs 3:1-19.
Read Proverbs 3:1-19
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Pr. 3:5).
How difficult it is to trust in the Lord with all your heart! I think of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, telling His Father: “Father, if you are willing, remove this chalice from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done” (Lk. 22:42). I also cannot help but think of the faith of the patriarch Abraham after being instructed to sacrifice his beloved son. When he stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son Isaac, “the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ So he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Gen. 22:11-12).
Some of us have the reputation of being “overthinkers.” I wonder how many times in my life my tendency to “overthink” got in the way of me trusting in God. We wish we could understand “the big picture,” but God does not always provide that to us. We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart, just as how Jesus trusted in His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane and how Abraham trusted in God up to the very moment he would sacrifice the life of his beloved son. Today, let us remember that God is a loving Father and wants the best for us. Let us trust Him with our whole heart as we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”