We know God loves us and wants to protect us. He knows our problems. He is omnipotent so there is no problem that he cannot help us with, except for one. That is overcoming our lack of humbleness.
Elder Paisios says,
The difficulty God faces, and I repeat, it is the only one, is the He “cannot” help us when our soul is not humble. God “feels sad” because, while he sees His creature suffer, He “cannot” offer any help. What ever help He offers, it will harm the person because he lacks a humble mind.
This is when we are overtaken by our passions and God allows this to happen. He cannot help us because our soul is filled with pride and self-centered thoughts. In a sense, in these moments we have rejected God and instead put all our trust in our own being. We are intent on gaining whatever it is we desire.
The Elder says,
God will not give us what we are asking for, no matter how hard we try, unless we humble ourselves. If our aim is humility, then God will give us everything for free.
God desires only one thing from us: our humbleness. He does not need anything else; just humble ourselves, so He can actually make us partakers of his divine grace, which was granted to us through the mystery of Holy Baptism.... He is only asking from us to humble ourselves and respond out of gratefulness and appreciation of His love. Thus, divine grace, will make us love God and get to know Him; it will do everything for us, if we only humble ourselves and allow for it to act.
Saint Peter advises us,
Cloth yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:5-7)Source: Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, pp 88-89
Can anyone realize how GREAT the Father is? We who are known by the Father have as it is "a sneak peek" of His GREATNESS by and thru the logos, Jesus Christ in print. However, His GREATNESS goes way, way beyond our meger atempt to somehow imagine the dynamics of the possibilities,the properties, and all His ways past finding out.(Both the huge vastness and the minutest). A truly humble mind is the only possible way of obtaining a glimpse of His true greatness because IT WILL BE NECESSARY to have a great and deep humility when we are in His Kingdom (as spirit beings)or we will be mentally "BLOWN AWAY" by HIS AWESOME GREATNESS!
ReplyDeleteWords cannot adequately describe how fully convinced I am of this statement. I thank you for these posts and the comment section you provide.