How did Saint Joseph the Hesychast live his life and reach holiness? Read a fragment from one of his letters:

When, by praying and asking for something from God, you reach despair, then the fulfillment of the request is near to you. Christ wants to heal some hidden passion from you, so He delays the fulfillment of the request. If you get the request faster than you expect, your passion remains unhealed. If you wait, you also receive what you asked for and, also, the healing of the passion.

And then you will rejoice with great joy and be thankful for the warmth of God, who wisely builds them all and does them for our benefit. You have no use, therefore, if you grieve, if you get angry, if you say hard words. You have to shut your mouth. Nobody should see what you have inside you. Let the steam come out of your eyes, not of your nose. Don’t give in, to ease yourself, as it is said, but rather to calm down yourself. By waiting and long-suffering you will burn the devil.

I – the witness is my Lord, He who loses all those who speak lies – I have used much of what I tell you now. So great and heavy were the temptations that I thought that my soul would come out of pain like smoke on the stove. And yet, after the trial passes, so much comfort comes, as if you were in heaven, without a body. Christ loves you, Mother of God loves you, the Saints praise you, Angels marvel at you.

Do you see how much goodness the temptations and troubles bring? If you want to see, to enjoy the love of Christ, endure what comes to you. Not in what you like, but in what the Lord wants you to try. Nothing in what we willingly do is as useful as what the Lord sends us without our consent. God wants the devil’s enemy to fiercely fight the man, bone over bone, blood over blood. So much so that it melts like wax at the fire.