Wonderful is God in thus teaching us humility! And He is also wonderful in teaching us obedience. Man can never be as obedient as God.
Man sows seed in the field, and then leaves it to God. Man does this sowing in one day, but God stands over the seed for a hundred days,
guarding it, warming it, giving it life and gradually bringing it up out of the earth as a blade, filling the blade with an ear and ripening it, until man once
more goes into the field, to spend a day or two harvesting the grain and carting it off to his barn.
The raven hatches its young and then leaves
them, caring no more about them. But God takes this caring on Himself, and obediently cares for the fledglings day and night. The fish lays its eggs
and goes off, but God stays to hatch young fish from the eggs, and to watch over their feeding and growth. The innumerable orphans, both of humans and animals, would not survive were God not to care for them.
God watches day and night over all His creation, lending an ear to their desires and fulfilling their needs.
God hearkens to the pleas and prayers of men and fulfills them; He always fulfills them obediently, as long as there is no sin in their pleas and prayers. Prayers, however, that seek to draw God into sin and to make Him a participant in human sin, these prayers God refuses and does not listen to them....
And so, man can never be as humble as God, nor as obedient as He. Through all His creation on heaven and earth, God teaches men humility and
obedience. God offers this message to mankind out of His great love for men and out of His burning desire that all men be saved, and that not one of them perish.
St. Nikolai Velimirovic
