To avoid arrogance, we must also be truthful with ourselves. Even if we have accomplished some incredible achievements, that doesn’t place us on the highest levels of spirituality. Our achievements might be astounding, but they don’t make us completely holy people. Reaching those lofty levels takes a lifetime of work.
We still have much to accomplish. We aim to eliminate many aveiros and increase our production of mitzvos. These tasks take a lot of effort because they are so vast. Though this is not a complaint against us and we can still be excited by our progress, we must remember where we are holding and what we have left to attain.
Reading about great tzaddikim helps us appreciate this. When we learn about the incredible levels in middos and bitachon they reached, we marvel at their greatness. Though of course we don’t compare ourselves to them — we were given a different life situation with different expectations — we still realize that there are many more heights that we aspire to attain.
We must remember that what we celebrate when we score big victories against desire is the great achievements Hashem has helped us attain. These merits draw their greatness from our effort and the difficulty involved, not from our spiritual level. Hashem takes actions that seem small and makes them big. Even if our actions weren’t done with the loftiest intentions, Hashem treasures them and makes them significant. We rely on Hashem to see our toil and accept and magnify our achievements. If He wouldn’t do this for us, how much would our accomplishments be worth?
And though Hashem considers overcoming difficulty the pinnacle of accomplishment, it does not place us on lofty spiritual levels. We must not lie to ourselves about where we are. In general, we should focus on accomplishing, rather than on our status. This will enable us to be excited when we accomplish without feeling better than anyone else.
In addition, we must understand our relationship with Hashem to avoid arrogance. Feeling we have accomplished extraordinary achievements might on some slight level make us feel that Hashem owes us and that He must comply with our demands “because we are so great.” Obviously, we want to avoid this.
Hashem does not need us. He is omnipotent; He doesn’t need anyone. He doesn’t owe us anything no matter what we do. Of course, He will reward us handsomely for every good deed, as He promised. We just need to make sure not to think He owes us. We must not approach our relationship with Hashem with arrogance or demand that He do what we want. Rather, we must approach Him with reverence and request that as our loving Father, He grant us our wishes out of kindness and mercy.
We must always remember that Hashem is the Boss, not us. Hashem does not need to do anything for us, but He always does the absolute best for us because He loves us. He even allows us to have a relationship with Him! He is our best friend and our greatest ally. He is always on our side and never leaves us. But we must not forget Who the Master is and who the servant is. If He does something we don’t like, chas veshalom, we must try to accept it even though it is so hard, and we must know that one day, hopefully while we are still in this world, we will catch a glimpse of how it was best for us even though it hurt so much.