Of all the signs of a person’s knowledge and wisdom, none is proof of greater wisdom than that one does not cling to his own opinion: Lean not upon your own prudence (Prov 3:5). For those who cling to their own judgment so as to mistrust others and trust in themselves alone, invariably prove themselves fools and are judged as such: You see those who are wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them (Prov 26:12). But if a person distrusts his own judgment, that is a proof of his humility, which is why it is said, Where humility is, there also is wisdom (Prov 11:2), whereas the proud are too self-confident.
Accordingly, we learn from the Holy Spirit (by his gift of knowledge) to do not our own but God’s will, and by virtue of this gift we pray to God that his will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is in this that the gift of knowledge is proved, so that when we say to God, Thy will be done, it is as when a sick man consults a physician. He takes the medicine not precisely because he wills it himself, but because it is the will of the physician. If he only took what he willed himself, he would be a fool.
Hence we should ask nothing of God but that his will be done in our regard—in other words, that his will be fulfilled in us. For one’s heart is right when it agrees with the divine will. Christ did this: I came down from heaven to do, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me(Jn 6:38)…. For that reason he taught us to ask and pray, Thy will be done.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
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