That to Distrust Ourselves, and Place Our Whole Confidence in God Is a Great Means to Overcome Temptations, and Why God So Readily Comes to the Help of Those Who Trust in Him

WE see that the Lord Himself in many places of Holy Scripture assigns no other reason for protecting and delivering a man in time of temptation and tribulation beyond the fact of his having hoped and trusted in Him. Because he hath hoped in me, I will deliver him (Psalm xc. 15). Thou who savest them that hope in thee (Psalm xxvi. 7). He is the protector of all that hope in him (Psalm xvii. 31). Hence the Church’s collect: “O God, the protector of all that hope in Thee.” And the psalmist puts this before God to oblige Him to show mercy: Have mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me, because in thee my soul trusteth, and in the shadows of thy wings I will hope (Psalm lvi. 2). And the Prophet Daniel does the same: Because there is no disappointment for them that trust in thee (Dan. iii. 40). And the Wise Man says: Who hath ever hoped in the Lord and been disappointed? (Ecclus. ii. 11). And all Scripture is full of this topic. We have spoken of it above at some length, and therefore need not dwell on it here.

But let us see why this means is so effectual for gaining the favor of the Lord, and why God so readily comes to the help of such as distrust themselves and put their whole confidence in Him. The reason of this we have already mentioned several times, and the Lord Himself assigns it in the psalm: Because he hath hoped in me, I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name (Psalm xc. 14). St. Bernard declares it: “Because the man attributes nothing to himself, but all to God, and gives Him the honor and glory of it all.” Thereupon God steps in, and makes the business His own and charges Himself with it, and stands up for His own glory and honor. But when aman trusts in himself and in his own methods and contrivances —taking upon himself the whole conduct of the affair, and so taking it away from God—and seeks to exalt himself with the honor and glory that is due to the Divine Majesty, then God leaves him in his weakness, which is good for nothing. For, as the prophet says: God hath no pleasure in them that trust in the strength of their horses (Psalm cxlvi 10) and in their own methods and contrivances, but in them who distrust themselves and all the means they use of their own, and put their whole confidence in God; to them He sends succor and bestows upon them His copious and abundant blessing.

St. Augustine says that this is the reason why God sometimes delays His gifts and favors and allows to remain in us for a long time the after-tastes of our vices and bad inclinations, “not for our damnation, but for our humiliation, enhancing in our eyes the value of His grace, lest, if we found everything easy, we should take that to be ours which is really His, an error clean contrary to religion and piety.” If we got these things easily, we should not value them so much, and we should straightway think that we had them in our sleeve, the fruit of our own diligence. St. Gregory, on those words of Job: Lo, there is no help for me in myself (Job vi. 13), says: “Often we make such a bad use of virtue and the gifts of God that it would be better for us not to have them. Thus the possession of virtue becomes death to the soul; it prompts her to selfconfidence; it stabs her with the sword of vain elation; it lifts her up to slay her, and drags her to destruction.” That is why the Lord often refuses us His gifts, and permits us to have experience of our own impotence and to fail in many good works, great and small, being unable to do what we want. And He lets this impotence continue for a long time, that we may learn to humble ourselves and to cease to trust ourselves, and not attribute anything to ourselves, but attribute all good to God; and then we shall be able to sing and say: The bow of the mighty is overcome, and the weak are girt with strength (I Kings ii. 4).