[Theodore said], Humility and the fear of God surpass all other virtues. The gateway is humility…(Book 15, Saying 22, The Desert Fathers).
In last week’s post, we focused on humility as the means for undermining egotism. Today, we view it as the means for cultivating a “disposition of the heart.”
The image of a “gateway” is a good one. Unless we can proceed through the gate, we can never know what is on the other side. Egotism keeps the gate locked and the focus upon ourselves.
Humility opens the gate and beckons us onward in our relationship with God, because through humility we have “emptied” ourselves of the false self, thus making room for holiness. Humility disposes our heart to the Lord, and from that disposition we are able to receive whatever God wants to give us and to accept whatever assignment God has for us.
