The Gift of Humiliation

To pass through to Wisdom, we need to experience a major humiliation to our ego. This often comes through suffering or failure--anything that brings us to readiness before Grace and Mystery. But that very desire for grace and God is best created by an initial experience of love, order, meaning, purpose, and direction. The easiest path of growing up spiritually, and in many ways the most natural, is to start with some "law and order." Then we must critically recognize that Order cannot solve all or even most problems, especially pain and suffering. Finally, without rejecting either Order or Disorder, grace will move you toward God's Reorder.
~Richard Rohr