This was written by a sixteenth-century Catholic monk named John of Landsburg. This spoke volumes to me today when I read it in A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller.

“I know those moods when you sit there utterly alone, eaten up with unhappiness, in a pure state of grief. You don’t move towards me but desperately imagine that everything you have ever done has been utterly lost or forgotten.  This near despair and self-pity are actually a form of pride. What you think was a state of absolute security from which you’ve fallen was really trusting too much in your own strength and ability. Profound depression and perplexity of mind often follow on a loss of hope, when what really ails you is that things simply haven’t happened as you expected or wanted.

“In fact, I don’t want you to rely on your own strength and abilities and plans, but to distrust them and to distrust yourself and to trust me and no one and nothing else. As long as you rely on yourself you are bound to come to grief.  You still have a most important lesson to learn; your own strength will no more help you to stand upright than propping yourself on a broken reed. You must not despair of me. You may hope and trust in me absolutely. My mercy is infinite….”

If I could add anything, it would be that the economy of faith, weakness and dependence are good things. Utter helplessness leads to desparate prayers which God hears. As long as we’re self-sufficient, we will never really and truly pray. Only when we come to the end of ourselves do we reach out.

I’m learning it’s okay to be weak and dependent and helpless because that’s where I find that God is my strength and my source and my ever-present help. And for the record, all of this is from A Praying Life, which you should go buy and read now.