We Must Never Trust or Rely Upon Ourselves in Anything

Not to rely upon ourselves, my beloved brother, is so necessary in our warfare that without it—be certain of this—you will not only be unable to win the victory you desire, but you will not even be able to stand firm against the most insignificant attack of the enemy. Imprint this deep within your mind and heart.

Since the transgression of our forefather we have typically thought very highly of ourselves, despite the weakening of our spiritual-moral powers. Although daily experience very impressively assures us of the falseness of such an opinion of ourselves, in an inexplicable self-delusion we do not cease to believe that we are something, and something not inconsiderable. Yet this spiritual infirmity of ours—very difficult to notice and acknowledge—is, above all else in us, contrary to God, as the firstborn offspring of our self-centeredness and self-love, and as the source, root, and cause of all passions and all our falls and transgressions. It shuts that door in the mind or spirit through which alone the grace of God customarily enters us, not allowing that grace to come within and dwell in a person; and grace departs from him. For how can grace enter for the purpose of enlightening and helping a person who thinks of himself that he is something great, that he knows everything himself and needs no help from anyone else? May the Lord deliver us from such a Luciferian disease and passion! God sternly rebukes those possessed of this passion of self-conceit and self-esteem through the prophet, saying: ”Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight” (Isa. 5:21). Thus the Apostle Paul exhorts us: ”Do not be wise in your own opinion” (Rom. 12:16).

Hating this evil conceit in us, God on the contrary loves nothing and desires to see nothing in us so much as a sincere acknowledgment of our nothingness and the full conviction and sense that every good thing in us—in our nature and in our life—proceeds from him alone as the Source of every good, and that of ourselves nothing truly good can come: neither a good thought nor a good deed. Therefore he himself, in his providential care, takes pains to plant this heavenly seed in the hearts of his beloved friends, awakening in them the disparagement of self and establishing non-reliance upon self—sometimes through gracious action and interior illumination, sometimes through outward blows and sorrows, sometimes through unexpected and nearly irresistible temptations, and sometimes through other means not always comprehensible to us.

Nevertheless, although this expectation of nothing good from oneself and this non-reliance upon oneself is God’s work in us, we on our part must make every effort to acquire such a disposition—doing everything we can and everything that is within our power. And here, my brother, I point out to you four practices by means of which, with God’s help, you may at last attain non-trust in yourself—or that state of never relying upon yourself in anything.

(a) Know your nothingness and constantly hold in mind that you cannot of yourself do any good that would make you worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Hear what the God-wise Fathers say: Peter of Damascus affirms that “there is nothing better than to know one’s own weakness and ignorance, and nothing worse than not to acknowledge this” (Greek Philokalia, p. 611). St. Maximus the Confessor teaches that “the foundation of every virtue is the knowledge of human weakness” (Greek Philokalia, p. 403). St. John Chrysostom asserts that “only he who thinks of himself that he is nothing truly knows himself in the best way.”

(b) Seek help in this from God in fervent and humble prayers, for it is his gift. And if you desire to receive it, you must first establish in yourself the conviction that not only do you not possess such self-knowledge, but that you are entirely unable to acquire it by yourself; then, standing boldly before the majesty of God and firmly believing that in his boundless loving-kindness he will certainly grant you such self-knowledge when and how he knows best, allow no doubt whatsoever—not the slightest—that you will in fact receive it.

(c) Accustom yourself always to be watchful over yourself and to fear your countless enemies, against whom you cannot hold out even for a short time—fear their long practice of waging war against us, their all-encompassing cunning and ambushes, their transformation into angels of light, their countless snares and nets, which they secretly lay across the path of your virtuous life.

(d) If you fall into any transgression, turn as vividly as possible to the sight and acknowledgment of your own weakness. God allowed you to fall precisely so that you might know your weakness more clearly and thus not only learn yourself to despise yourself, but come to desire to be despised by others also on account of such great weakness. Know that without such a desire it is impossible for the salutary non-trust in yourself to be born in you and take root—the non-trust in which lies the foundation and beginning of true humility, and which itself has its foundation in the said experiential knowledge of one’s own powerlessness and unreliability.

From all of this everyone can see how necessary it is for one who desires to become a partaker of the Heavenly Light to know himself, and how the goodness of God customarily brings the proud and self-reliant to such knowledge by means of their falls—justly allowing them to fall into the very transgression from which they considered themselves strong enough to protect themselves, so that they might know their weakness and no longer dare to rely upon themselves in this or in anything else.

Yet this means, though very effective, is also not without danger, and God does not always employ it—only when all other means, those easier and freer of which we have spoken, do not bring a person to self-knowledge. Only then does he at last permit a person to fall into sin, great or small, depending on the greatness or smallness of his pride, self-conceit, and self-reliance—so that where there is no such self-conceit and self-reliance, there are also no instructive falls. Therefore, when it happens that you fall, hasten in your thoughts to humble self-knowledge and a lowly opinion and feeling of yourself; and with importunate prayer, seek from God the gift of true light for knowing your nothingness and for grounding your heart in non-reliance upon yourself, lest you fall again into the same or into an even heavier and more destructive transgression.

I will add to this that not only when a person falls into some sin, but also when he is overtaken by some misfortune, calamity, or sorrow—especially a bodily illness that is serious and prolonged—he should understand that he is suffering this so as to come to self-knowledge, namely to an awareness of his weakness, and to humility. It is for this purpose and end that God allows all manner of temptations to come upon us from the devil, from other people, and from our own damaged nature. And the holy Paul, seeing this purpose in the temptations that befell him in Asia, said: ”We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

I will add yet one more thing: whoever wishes to know his own weakness from the actual course of his own life, let him—I will not say for many days—but for even just one day, observe his thoughts, words, and deeds: what he thought, what he said and did. He will undoubtedly find that the greater part of his thoughts, words, and deeds were erroneous, wrong, unreasonable, and bad. Such an experience will impress upon him how disordered and weak he is within himself; and from this understanding, if he sincerely desires his own good, he will arrive at feeling how absurd it is to expect any good from himself alone and to rely upon himself.