I hope no woman here will ever allow herself to lose her ideals, even though she meets with resistance and disappointment; still dress your sweetest, look your nicest, and care for the home, making it as happy as possible, though your heart is like lead within you. In middle life and afterwards we get beyond our ideals. They are like the withered flowers of a bridal bouquet—a handful of withered leaves. The heart that sits alone, when the light of some great hope has passed, may well be said to sit “in the dust.”
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer
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“Be the day dreary, be the day long; at last it ringeth to evensong.” The watcher knows that presently the darkest night will thin into the grey dawn. There is always an end to things. Pain is limited. At last there comes the swooning, when we can suffer no more, and we fall into a gentle sleep, and forget ourselves. There is always a limit, always a “thus far, and no further.”
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
Do you cherish any resentment or hatred towards another, to whom you refuse to be reconciled?
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Is there some injustice which you refuse to forgive, some charge which you refuse to pay, some wrong which you refuse to confess?
Are you allowing something yourself which you would be the first to condemn in others, but which you argue may be permitted in your own case, because of certain reasons with which you attempt to smother the remonstrances of conscience?
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
In some cases the hindrance to conscious blessedness lies not in sins, but in weights which hang around the soul. Sin is that which is always and everywhere wrong; but a weight is anything which may hinder or impede the Christian life, without being positively sin. And thus a thing may be a weight to one which is not so to another. Each must be fully persuaded in his own mind. And wherever the soul is aware of its life being hindered by the presence of only one thing, then, however harmless in itself, and however innocently permitted by others, there can be no alternative, but it must be cast aside…
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
Perhaps you look too much inwards on self, instead of outwards on the Lord Jesus.—The healthiest people do not think about their health; the weak induce disease by morbid introspection. If you begin to count your heartbeats, you will disturb the rhythmic action of the heart. If you continually imagine a pain anywhere, you will produce it. And there are some true children of God who induce their own darkness by morbid self-scrutiny. They are always going back on themselves, analyzing their motives, re-considering past acts of consecration, or comparing themselves with themselves. In one form or another self is the pivot of their life, albeit that it is undoubtedly a religious life. What but darkness can result from such a course? There are certainly times in our lives when we must look within, and judge ourselves, that we may not be judged. But this is only done that we may turn with fuller purpose of heart to the Lord. And when once done, it needs not to be repeated. “Leaving the things behind” is the only safe motto. The question is, not whether we did as well as we might, but whether we did as well as we could at the time.
We must not spend all our lives in cleaning our windows, or in considering whether they are clean, but in sunning ourselves in God’s blessed light. That light will soon show us what still needs to be cleansed away, and will enable us to cleanse it with unerring accuracy.
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
Perhaps you spend too little time in communion with God through His Word.—It is not necessary to make long prayers, but it is essential to be much alone with God; waiting at His door; hearkening for His voice; lingering in the garden of Scripture for the coming of the Lord God in the dawn or cool of the day. No number of meetings, no fellowship with Christian friends, no amount of Christian activity can compensate for the neglect of the still hour.
When you feel the least inclined for it, there is most need to make for your closet with the shut door. Do for duty’s sake what you cannot do as a pleasure, and you will find it become delightful. You can better thrive without nourishment than become happy or strong in Christian life without fellowship with God.The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
Sometimes it looks as if we are bound to act. Every one says we must do something; and indeed things seem to have reached so desperate a pitch that we must…It is not easy at such times to stand still and see the salvation of God; but we must. God may delay to come in the guise of His Providence…He stays long enough to test patience of faith, but not a moment behind the extreme hour of need. “The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and shall not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come; it will not tarry.”
The Gift of Suffering
by F.B. Meyer -
Why then are you sad? Why do you mourn in your soul, hearing “Sell your possessions”? Even if your belongings could follow you to the future life, they would not be particularly desirable there, since they would be overshadowed by truly precious things. If, on the other hand, they must remain here, why not sell them now and obtain the profit? You are not disappointed when you must spend gold in order to purchase a horse. But when you have the opportunity to exchange corruptible things for the Kingdom of Heaven, you shed tears, spurning the one who asks of you and refusing to give anything, while contriving a million excuses for your own expenditures.
—St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice
SO GOOD QUOTES 