4393. About the Providence of the Lord

About the Providence of the Lord I spoke at length with spirits and angels, saying that one's own wisdom is like a heap of earth scattered thinly throughout the atmosphere in comparison with the whole atmosphere, which is not visible, and the heaps are such that they fall to pieces and amount to nothing in the atmosphere. Providence is as when one walks in dark forests, the exit out of which one does not know; but upon discovering it, attributes the find to his own wisdom; whereas providence is like someone in a tower who is watching the person's vagaries, and leads him without his knowledge to the exit. The reason he attributes it to his own wisdom if he is prompted to observe something of the path, or to coincidence or chance, is that he looks at things present, not at far off goals, of which he sees nothing at all, not even seeing anything of goals in the world, still less in the other life. This was illustrated and confirmed by the angels.

That nothing whatever is achieved without the providence of the Lord, is also illustrated by various things occurring in nature that are attributed to chance, which are the result of providence, as, for example, in trade, in games, in everything else.