If you are undertaking anything, before asking any other adviser, ask the advice of faith. Appeal in the words of the Apostle: Lord, what wilt Thou have me do? (Acts 9:6). Is what I would undertake pleasing to Thee, Lord? If it is pleasing, bless it; if not, do not let me do what is displeasing to Thee. And then listen to what the Lord tells you in your conscience, in your reason, in the counsels of pious and wise people and, having begun the course that you select, pray in your heart, O Lord, make haste to help me (Ps. 69:1).

Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (1868)

Trust in prayer consists in uttering the petitions, thanksgivings, and praise with faith in the presence of God, and of His hearing them; and with fear of God, not doubting, nor being in the least uneasy as to their acceptance and fulfillment, but in absolute assurance that God has heard them and accepted them upon His heavenly Altar; and that, in accordance with the desire of our Mother the Church (if we pray in the name of the Church), as well as of our own heart, He will give us, as the all-good Almighty and most wise, all that we ask, and more abundantly than we ask or mean. But the heart that has a partiality for food and drink, that is greedy for these, and is weakened by them, has not much trust; neither the heart in which hatred and animosity are concealed, nor that is bound by avarice, covetousness, and envy, until it puts away its infirmities and amends itself.

St. John of Kronstadt
“My Life in Christ”

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