For those of us who are self-assured, this from André Louf will hit home–hard, but in a hopeful way.

God’s purpose is to crush our idols.  There is in us a self-assurance to which we cling to the point of despair but with which God cannot do anything.  He wants to take that assurance from us.  This causes us so much pain, and our disappointment with God is so intense that we are strongly inclined to curse him, that we even begin to doubt his existence, or that in some way we want to get even with him.  None of this is too serious.  For even in the most embittered curse we still voice something of our faith and in every blasphemy the true image of God is still present, if only in a hidden and perverse fashion.  It is God himself who takes us into his hands, God who–we think–attacks us because he wants to remove that which is dearest to us and to which we are unknowingly attached, heart and soul–the little idol which we have carried with us for years and which we adore as the true God.

We cannot escape this. . . . In quiet confidence and humble self-surrender we try to accept this reality.  And as we wait for it with an almost indiscernible but nevertheless a deep joy, God gradually opens our eyes.  His look makes us free to look back.  Till now we had known him only from hearsay; soon, very soon, we will have seen him with our eyes.