Humility is the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is when nothing can disturb the stillness of the human soul, there is prayer in the human soul, and there is God in prayer. Humility is such a state when no circumstances, no enemies, no friends, nobody can disturb your peace. Only the perfect own it outright, in our case it is a procession to humility. If we strive for humility it rewards us with the means to achieve it. And, in reverse, if we do not desire to, we do not achieve anything.
One cannot be forced to be humble, one can easily be bullied and develop tricks of survival in the world of intimidation and severity, while humility is born in free will, it may be born when a person is willing to get it. It happens when he or she sees the point of it. A person cannot desire what he or she does not understand. When a person realizes what humility is he or she wants to practice it, to study and to own it. Humility gives happiness, peace, comfort, and love. On the other hand, if there is no humility, there are only troubles, misfortunes, quarrels, and disappointment. There is no monasticism without humility, but no one can make anyone practice humility. If one declares he wants to become a monk and he does not care to practice humility, thus he desires some other kind of monasticism, a kind he made up for himself. Just like Old Testament Pharisees: they wanted to be with God, but somehow without God. They made an ugly religiousness.
When you find God in prayer, you do not need to find excuses, it has happened already, there is no need for either explanations nor talks. The one who does not believe in anything should find excuses. And God needs no excuses from you, He needs you to find Him in prayer. Do you know what it is like to be with God when you find Him? It is as if someone put His arms around you, and nothing else matters. No excuses, no explanations. It feels good and that’s it. That is how it should be with God. A boss or a judge may want your justification, not God, but before God you may only cry with joy, recognizing your imperfection, as He wants you to know He loves you no matter what, He wants you to feel safe in His arms and doesn’t want to let you go. With such God it all works easily. And it’s very hard with God who makes your existence unbearable, judging your every step ready to punish you for any sin. Glory be to Thee, O Lord. It is very sad when Christians make some dreadful judge out of God, it’s sad for God and it makes me scream: “People, He’s not like that, He is not like that at all, that’s about us, not about Him”. There is a picture of the prodigal son, he has knelt before his face buried into dad’s knees, his dad has hugged his head and he is sobbing, this bad, lost son. There he is, crying tears full of shame, tears of gratitude and sympathy towards his father, crying with joy, as his father is so kind that he is ready to accept him the way he is, kissing and embracing him.