There was one simple-minded villager who lived by the labor of his hands, but earned very little: he barely had enough to feed himself and his family. Once he went to the seashore, sat down on a stone and began to watch how large ships with rich goods approached the pier, and how these goods were then unloaded and taken to the city for sale. And a sinful thought entered his head: “Why did the Lord send wealth and every kind of contentment to some people, and leave others to live in poverty?” And he began to grumble about his miserable lot.
Meanwhile, the midday sun was intensely hot; The poor man began to feel drowsy, and he fell asleep unnoticed. And he dreams that he is standing at the foot of a high mountain; A venerable old man with a long beard approaches him and says to him:
- Follow me!
He obeyed and followed him. They walked for a long time and finally came to a place where there lay a great many crosses of all kinds and different sizes. There were crosses large and small, gold and silver, copper and iron, stone and wood. And the old man says to him:
- Do you see how many crosses there are here? Choose any one for yourself and take it to the top of the very mountain that you saw in front of you.
Our simpleton looked at the golden cross: it was so beautiful, like a red sun shining. He liked this cross, and he wanted to take it on his shoulders, but no matter how hard he worked, he could not only lift this cross, but also move it from its place.
“No,” the elder tells him, “it’s obvious that you can’t bring this cross to the mountain.” Take another one - silver. Maybe he will be able to do it.
The simpleton took the silver cross. This one was, however, lighter than the gold one, but still he couldn’t do anything with it. The same thing happened with copper, iron, and stone crosses.
“There’s nothing to do,” the elder tells him, “take one of the wooden crosses.”
Then the simpleton took the smallest of the wooden crosses and easily and quickly carried it to that mountain. He was glad that he had finally found one cross within his own strength, and asked his companion:
- What reward will I have for this?
“So that you can decide for yourself what to reward you with,” he answered him, “I will tell you what kind of crosses you saw.” The golden cross that attracted your attention at first is the royal cross. You think to yourself: how good and easy it is to be a king. What you don’t realize is that royal power is the heaviest cross. And the silver cross is the cross of all those who are invested with power - this is the cross of the shepherds of the Church of God, the cross of the king’s closest servants. They all also have a lot of worries and sorrows. The copper cross is the cross of all those to whom God has sent wealth. You envy them and think how happy they are. And life is harder for the rich than for you. After your labors, you can sleep peacefully: no one will touch your wretched hut and your little property. But a rich man is always - day and night - afraid that someone will deceive him, rob him, or set his house on fire. In addition, the rich man will give an answer to God for his wealth: how he uses his wealth. And if trouble happens, the rich man becomes poor: how many sorrows will then befall him! But the Iron Cross is the cross of military men. Ask those who were in the war, and they will tell you how they often had to spend nights on the bare, damp earth, endure hunger and cold. The stone cross is the cross of trading people. Do you like their life because they don't have to work like you? But doesn’t it happen that a merchant goes overseas, spends all his capital on goods, and all the goods perish from a shipwreck, and the unfortunate merchant returns home a complete poor man? But the wooden cross that you so easily carried up the mountain is your cross. You complained that your life was difficult, but now you see that it is much easier than the life of other people. The Lord, the knower of the heart, knew that in any other rank and position you would have destroyed your soul, so He gave you the most humble, the lightest cross - a wooden cross. So, go and do not complain to the Lord God for your poor lot. The Lord gives everyone a cross according to his strength - as much as anyone can bear.
At the last words of the elder, the villager woke up, thanked God for an intelligible dream, and from that time on he never grumbled at God again.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru