“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I said quietly, almost ashamed of the intensity in my voice. “He used to be so religious. Now he doesn’t even pray. And it disturbs me in a way I can’t explain.”
He looked at me with that familiar calm, not dismissive, not alarmed, just attentive.
I continued, almost in a rush. “He’s been ill for some time now. Dialysis, hospitals, doctors changing, systems failing us again and again. But the hardest part isn’t even that. The hardest part is that, despite all his knowledge and past involvement in religious work, he has stopped praying. And that makes me restless… irritated… sometimes even bitter.”
I paused and then added, “I don’t like what it’s doing to me.”
He didn’t rush to reassure me. Instead, he said something that startled me. “You are becoming more concerned about his faith than you are about your own.”
That sentence landed heavily.
I felt defensive at first. Isn’t caring about someone’s prayer a good thing? Isn’t that what love is? But before I could object, he gently continued.
“Your concern is sincere. But sincerity does not automatically make a concern healthy.” Then he leaned forward slightly and said, “You are responsible for effort. You are not responsible for outcomes.”
That distinction changed the atmosphere in the room.
“You see,” he said, “this is your test, not his. Your test is: how do you respond when someone you love changes in a way that disturbs you?”
I had never thought of it that way. I had been so busy worrying about his prayers that I had not noticed how my own heart was becoming rigid, anxious, and reactive.
“You are trying to carry something that belongs to God,” he said softly. “The result of someone’s spiritual journey is not in your domain. It is in His.”
That word domain echoed inside me. “Then what is in my domain?” I asked.
He smiled and said, “Your patience. Your tone. Your humility. Your curiosity. Your moral balance.” He paused and added, “Your effort. But not the outcome.”
I realized then that somewhere along the way, my concern had quietly turned into a desire to manage. To fix. To bring him back. To ensure a certain outcome. And when that outcome did not appear, frustration followed.
“You cannot pull someone back into prayer by pulling their heart,” he said. “Faith breathes in freedom. It suffocates under pressure.”
Those words stayed with me long afterward. Then he offered a perspective that reframed everything. He said, “Instead of asking, ‘How do I bring him back to prayer?’ ask, ‘What might have happened inside him that led him away from it?’”
This was uncomfortable. Because it meant shifting from judgment to understanding. From control to curiosity. He explained that many people approach religion expecting certain emotional rewards: peace, certainty, protection, meaning. “When those expectations are not met,” he said, “they don’t reject God. They become disappointed with what they thought religion would give them.”
That was a new thought.
“They may still value morality,” he added. “They may still speak about ethics and goodness. But their disappointment quietly distances them from practice.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t just seeing his absence from prayer. I was looking for a possible story behind it.
“And here,” he said, “comes the most important part.” He raised his finger slightly, not to emphasize authority, but care. “Never focus on controlling actions. Focus on understanding constructions.”
I was puzzled.
“Actions are what people do,” he explained. “Constructions are how people see, interpret, and experience life. If you chase actions, you will move toward force. If you seek constructions, you will move toward understanding and influence.”
That difference was profound. Trying to make someone pray is about actions. Trying to understand what prayer now means — or no longer means — to them is about constructions. “And only constructions,” he said, “have the power to reshape actions from the inside.”
I thought of how often I had spoken sharply. How often I had said, Why don’t you pray? Instead of asking, What changed for you?
He gave a simple example: “Suppose someone stops going to the gym. You can shout, ‘You must go!’ Or you can ask, ‘What happened to the joy you once felt there?’” One tries to force behavior. The other invites reflection and understanding. “They are worlds apart,” he said.
And then he added something that kept returning to me long after.
“Every difficult relationship is an invitation, not to fix the other, but to grow yourself.”
Then he looked at me and said gently, “If you allow frustration to take over, you will miss the opportunity this situation is offering you.”
That frightened me, but also freed me. Because it meant this was not only about him. It was also about who I was becoming in response to him.
“You cannot walk someone else’s spiritual path,” he said. “But you can walk your own with grace, even beside them.”
I left that conversation feeling lighter. Not because my problem was solved. But because I had stopped carrying what was never mine to carry.
Now, when the irritation rises, I ask myself: Is this my domain or God’s? Is this effort or control? Is this concern or fear dressed as care? And slowly, the tone inside me has changed.
I still care. But I no longer clutch. I still hope. But I no longer chase outcomes. And perhaps that, in itself, is a deeper form of faith.
