Many people brag and boast, "My hands put food on the table for me and my family...
With my hands, I can support myself." Such people who trust in their own strength truly think vainly, and speak vanity. They indeed have forgotten God Who created them, and Who
bestows health and food to all living things. For anyone who has distanced himself from God and attributes his accomplishments to his own strength suffers from pride. Just as a person who wants to hang from a spider's web comes crashing to the ground, similarly, he who trusts in his own strength and power also suffers a hard fall.
Such people are unaware of Job’s declaration: "If I have laid my hands upon my mouth and kissed them, this would also be reckoned to me as a great
lawlessness;for I would have lied against the Lord
most high" (Job 31:27-28).
The Ecclesiastes also affirms:"I returned and saw under the sun that: the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor
wealth to men of understanding, nor grace to men with knowledge" (Ecc. 9:11).
He also adds, "Wisdom is better than weapons of war. But one sinner destroys much good." (Ecc.9:18).
Even the Lord gave the following counsel to His disciples: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides
in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in
Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who
abides in Me, and I in him, brings forth much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (Jn. 15:4-5).
This is appropriate, for He is the Light and the Life of all people:
"All things were made through Him,and without Him nothing was made that was made" (Jn. 1:3).
To Him belongs the glory unto the ages. Amen.
monk Antiochos
