Joycie Kristina Rager

The devil does not rejoice when you fall.
 He rejoices when you stay down. We often believe that hell celebrates every sin of ours. It is not so. For the demons, the fall is only a tool. They know very well that a fallen person can rise again, for they have seen it too many times. They saw David rising from adultery and the shedding of innocent blood, with “Have mercy on me, O God” on his lips. They saw Peter, after denying Him three times, going out and weeping bitterly. They saw the thief entering Paradise first, from a cross. It is not your fall they want. They want what comes after it: the moment when you say to yourself, “There is no longer any escape for me.” Peter and Judas fell on the same night. It was not the sin that separated the two, but what they did afterward. Peter wept and returned. Judas no longer believed he could be forgiven; he remained alone with his sin and perished. The Holy Fathers, who knew the warfare of thoughts better than anyone, exposed this cunning. Before the sin, the enemy whispers to you: “Go ahead, God is good, He will forgive you.” 
After the sin, the same voice tells you: “God is just. For you it is too late.” Beforehand, he shows you a God too mild to stop you. Afterward, he shows you a God too severe to receive you anymore. Neither of them is the true God. The liar is the same; only the mask has changed. The Unseen Warfare, the book that St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite gave to the Church, teaches us something else that disarms us. The black turmoil after the fall is not humility, but wounded pride. It comes from a soul that is astonished that it could fall, because it believed itself stronger than it was. The humble person is not astonished when he falls. He weeps, rises, and runs to God. St. John Climacus says that nothing is greater than the mercy of God, and that the one who despairs kills his own soul. St. Isaac the Syrian says that all the sins of men, placed beside the mercy of God, are like a handful of sand thrown into the sea. If you are down now - after an old sin, after a passion you can no longer escape, or after a shame you have told no one listen: The thought that tells you “it is too late” is not the voice of conscience. It is the voice of the one who has never known repentance. You do not have to be clean in order to return. You return in order to be cleansed. You do not have to have strength in order to rise. Simply say, with whatever strength is left to you: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” The rest is His work. Hell needs you to stay down. Heaven needs only that you lift your eyes. Look at the icon of the Resurrection. Christ descended even into hell to take Adam by the hand and lead him out. However low you are now, the floor you stand on is not deeper than hell. Rise. Again. And again. Until your last breath.