To have the Doing of It Ourselves

"The truth is that we do not understand the value of our own weakness.  We want to be conscious of our strength, and we want others to be conscious of it also; we want to do great things--for God, we say--and we want others to know that we have done them: we want to acquire a store of merit and an armory of virtues so that we can feel secure in our own spiritual riches; we want good to be done--but we want to have the doing of it ourselves so that we may be rich in what we think are good works.  We forget what the Holy Spirit writes:
"'There is an inactive man that wanteth help, is very weak in ability, and full of poverty: Yet the eye of God hath looked upon him for good ...'"~~Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, ch.17.