Pride robs us of one of the most needed part of our spiritual life. It robs us of hope. As long as everything depends on me, what need do I have of hope? As a consequence, when I fail and all else around me is collapsing, hope is nowhere to be found. Nothing is left but despair.
Merton described despair as a pride so stiff necked that it would rather luxuriate in the rotten vegetation of being lost and in hell than accept help from the hand above. Something like that. But an accurate vision of what we’re like, when we give up hope.
We fail to persevere; to hang in and keep on trying. Perseverance is the beginning of hope. We don’t give up, but keep on trying and we begin to have hope. Hope that things will get better. We begin to see the evidence of that hope in others around us and we begin to have faith. All the time, maintaining perseve! rance and hope. As faith grows, we begin to realize the gift we’ve been given from the Hand Above. We begin to see that others are in need of this gift and we begin to want to give what we have so freely been given to them. We begin to love without expectations of any return. First comes perseverance, then comes hope, then comes faith, and then comes love. In that order. This, then, is the answer to despair. It’s the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
We don’t have to go there to where your friend went. Each day we can choose to do God’s will instead of ours.
It’s a daily choice. We commit ourselves to not giving up, but going on. We renew our hope in God’s power to see us through this day. We place ourselves in faith into his care. He in turn expresses his love for others through us. This is the solution we all sought, when we placed our drinking pro! blem in his hands.
There used to be a saying around the program that if your ass falls off, put it in a bag and bring it to a meeting.
Sounds good to me.