Divine Humility

We are perplexed to see misfortune falling upon decent, inoffensive, worthy people - on capable, thrifty, little trades-people, on those who have worked so hard, and so honestly, for thier modest stock of happiness and know seem to be entering on the enjoyment of it with the fullest right. . . Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for the moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks their modest prosperity and the happiness of thier children are not enough to make them blessed; that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recoginition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them. I call this Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms, but He is not proud, He stoops to counquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to HIm, and come to Him because there is "nothing better" now to be had.

Lewis, C. S., The problem of Pain, p. 86-87