You say that you have no success. Indeed, there will be no success so long as you are full of self-love and self-pity. These two things show at once that what abides in your heart is “I” and not the Lord.
The presence of self-love, living within us, indicates that the initial decision to serve the Lord is not successful and fully formed.
God can not give an absence of self-love and self-pity, but requires the man to take the task to subdue himself and be humble, and because of the labor God’s mercy will come.
St Theophone the Recluse
