You fell, now arise (Proverbs 24:16)

St Peter of Damascus on "Despair"

It is always possible to make a new start by means of repentance.

‘You fell,’ it is written, ‘now arise’ (Proverbs 24:16.)

And if you fall again, then rise again, without despairing at all of your salvation, no matter what happens. So long as you do not surrender yourself willingly to the enemy, your patient endurance, combined with self-reproach will suffice for your salvation.

‘For at one time we ourselves went astray in folly and disobedience,’ says St. Paul. ‘…Yet He saved us, not because of any good things we had done, but in His mercy’ (Titus 3:5.)

So do not despair in any way, ignoring God’s help, for He can do whatever He wishes. On the contrary, place your hope in Him and He will do one of these things: either through trials or temptations, or in some other way which He alone knows, He will bring about your restoration; or He will accept your patient endurance and humility in the place of works; or because of your hope He will act lovingly towards you in some other way of which you are not aware, and so will save your shackled soul. Only do not abandon your Physician, for otherwise you will suffer senselessly the twofold death because you do not know the hidden ways of God.

What is Prayer?

Prayer is a conversation of man with God.  

He who prays with a broken and humbled spirit is filled with divine gifts and blessings - that is, with joy, peace, comfort, illumination, and consolation - and he, too, becomes blessed.  Prayer is a doubled-edged sword that slays despair, saves from danger, assuages grief, and so on.  Prayer is a preventative medicine for all diseases of soul and body.

Elder Ephraim of Philotheou (Mt. Athos)

"The person found worthy of praising God gains more by it than God, for he has received a great and marvelous gift of grace. The more he praises God, the more he becomes a debtor, until finally he finds no limit or interruption to his knowledge of God or to thanksgiving or humility or love."

St. Peter of Damascus 

"Where humility is combined with the remembrance of God that is established through watchfulness and attention, and also with recurrent prayer inflexible in its resistance to the enemy, there is the place of God, the heaven of the heart in which because of God's presence no demonic army dares to make a stand."

St. Philotheos of Sinai