21.4 | Man’s Greatest Weakness: Attributing Success to the Self

Section 4 | Man’s Greatest Weakness: Attributing Success to the Self, and Turning to God Only in Times of Trouble

If you listen to testimonies in church for a long time, you will notice a very common phenomenon:

Most people’s stories of returning to the Lord begin with hardship, not with smoothness.

Someone went bankrupt, someone got sick, someone fell into the abyss, or someone had no way out.

At that moment of being "out of options," the Ego loosened, and they truly opened the door of their heart for the first time.

But what about when things are smooth? When things are smooth, people never seek God—because they feel that they themselves are God.

On the day I was baptized, the pastor called me a "Son of Peace." This means:

A person who chooses to walk into faith without having encountered major setbacks, bankruptcy, illness, or losing everything—such people are a tiny minority in the church.

Why are they so few?

Because there is a very deep weakness in human nature:

Man is humble only in adversity; as soon as things start to go smoothly, he begins to turn toward himself. Success makes people forget their previous prayers, forget the posture of pleading, and forget that "I can’t do it"—

Thus, the Ego re-occupies the center, and the door of the heart is immediately shut again. And once shut, it is even more dangerous than before, because so-called success has contaminated his self-perception, making it very difficult to return to a peaceful state of mind.

I heard a story: There was a wealthy family where the master and mistress were often worried and fearful about their wealth, constantly anxious and even defensive and argumentative with each other. Yet their servants, a couple, always had a great relationship and were always happy and joyful. One day, after an argument, the mistress said: "Look at that couple next door, they are so peaceful and their relationship is so good, I really envy them." The master said nothing. He simply took a bag of money and threw it into the small courtyard where the servants lived, saying: "Their happiness and peace are about to end."

This is why success is more dangerous than failure;

It is also why people are more likely to lose their way after success than after failure.

Psychological Analysis: Why Does Smoothness Make People Distance Themselves from God?

From a psychological perspective, this phenomenon is not accidental; it has a deep structure.

In psychology, this is known as:

1. Self-Serving Bias When encountering difficulties, people attribute failure to external causes:

"Bad luck, bad environment, insufficient resources." But once they succeed, people immediately attribute the credit to themselves:

"I’m amazing, I’m smart, I worked hard, I made the right judgment." This is the most deep-seated bias in human psychology.

Thus, success strengthens the idea that "I can rely on myself," and success weakens the realization that "I must rely on God."

2. Illusion of Control Once things go smoothly, the brain produces a delusion: "I can control the world, I can control the outcome." As a result, the Ego returns to the center position, and God is pushed to the edge. But the more successful one is, the more one wants to control; the more one wants to control, the more anxious one becomes.

Anxiety is a byproduct of the "Self attempting to re-take control of the universe."

3. Selective Memory People naturally forget "how God once helped me," but they firmly remember "how I prayed to God back then." They might even feel that God helped them not because of His Grace, but because of their own "cleverness"—that they forced God to help them through their passion and persistence.

Such is human nature:

Pain is remembered for survival;

Success is beautified for self-praise. Thus, during smooth periods, the human heart automatically leaves faith and returns to the "rely on self" mode.

So, What is Original Sin?

Once a person has achievement, they attribute the achievement to themselves;

Once a person encounters difficulty, they attribute the change to God. This sentence essentially reveals the structure of original sin.

Adam and Eve did not fall because they "ate a fruit"; they fell because of the concept: "Now I know, I can rely on myself." The essence of eating the fruit was not the act, but an idea: "I can do without God; I can judge for myself." This happened while Adam and Eve were successfully obtaining eternal happiness and joy in the Garden of Eden.

As a result, this success misled them into thinking: "I know how to do it, I want to be like God too."

This thought produced our Ego. Consequently, they ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and began to fall.

From then on, humanity went from having a complete reliance to having only themselves to rely on. And we humans are finite—both our intelligence and practical experience are finite. Once we rely on ourselves, we must use the finite to combat the infinite, and the finite inevitably leads to ultimate failure.

Therefore, true humility happens after success. A person is naturally humble when encountering failure; but to remain humble after success—that is the true breakthrough. True humility is not found in failure, but after success.

Because people naturally let go of the Ego when they fail,

But people are most likely to raise the Ego again when they succeed.

And because of this:

• Failure brings people back before God. * Success makes people leave God (if they attribute the credit to themselves). * And Humility is what turns success into an opening for the next round of Grace.