The more hard-hearted is the man, the deeper is his fall. An egg breaks even when it falls from 30 centimeters, while a rock must be at a very big height to fall and be crushed.
God will let the hard-hearted man succeed in certain things, will let him reach a big height and then fall resoundingly so that he would crash, soften, break.
The meek, sensitive, sympathetic man might not reach such a great worldly success and he might have many obstacles in his way, but these protect him from having great falls, which his sensitive heart won’t be able to endure.
So you see that the obstacles from our life are for our protection and not for our damnation and punishment. And when God wants to save us from the wrinkles of our selfishness, He puts obstacles to our plans. Meaning that the obstacles protect us from our selfish falls. That is why the people say: `Any obstacle is for good` and by analogy `any comfort is for harm.`
The Holy Fathers say: `Nobody entered heaven by comfort.` That is why any fall is preceded by selfish comfort and any nice thing is preceded by a crush and by humility.
