A soul that is happy in the things of God can overcome tremendous obstacles.
A soul that is happy in the things of God can overcome tremendous obstacles.
There are many tables to eat at in life. There is the table of public opinion. The food is sweet, but it sours in the stomach. There is the table of personal achievement. That’s a power meal for sure, yet the crash is as rapid as the ascent. There’s only one table with rich food that settles well and brings supernatural strength; it’s the table of God’s will.
Money will buy a bed but not sleep, books but not brains, food but not appetite, finery but not beauty, medicine but not health, luxury but not culture, amusement but not happiness, a crucifix but not a Saviour, a temple of religion but not heaven.
We will never be happy until we make God the source of our fulfillment and the answer to our longings. He is the only one who should have power over our souls.
Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.
The heart is rich when it is content, and it is always content when its desires are fixed on God.
I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory…You alone know what is expedient for me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels,and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I adore, but do not seek to fathom.
Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely content with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God.
What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them…we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.