Don't aspire to be like the gilded weather vane on top of a great building. However much it may glitter, however high it may be, it adds nothing to the firmness of the structure. Rather be like an old stone block hidden in the foundations, under the ground where no one can see you. Because of you, the house will not fall.
The more I am exalted, my Jesus the more you must humble me in my heart, showing me what I've been and what I'll be if you forsake me.
If you were to obey the impulse of your heart and the dictates of reason, you would always lie flat on the ground, prostrate, a vile worm, ugly and miserable in the sight of that God who puts up with so much from you!
Pride? Why? Before long (maybe years, maybe days) you'll be a heap of rotting flesh, worms, foul-smelling fluids, your shroud in filthy shreds... and no one one earth will remember you.
"Father, how can you stand so much filth?" you asked me after a contrite confession. I said nothing, thinking that if your humility makes you feel like that--like filth, a heap of filth!--then we may yet turn all your weakness into something really great.
Obey, as an instrument obeys in the hands of the artist--not stopping to consider the why and the wherefore of what it is doing. Be sure that you'll never be directed to do anything that isn't good and for the greater glory of God.
How well you've been told to do something that seems difficult and useless. Do it. And you'll see that it's easy and fruitful.
How well you understand obedience when you write: "Always to obey is to be a martyr without dying!"
Your obedience is not worthy of the name unless you are ready to abandon your most flourishing work whenever someone with authority so commands.
Don't forget it: he has most who needs least. Don't create needs for yourself.
As a man of God, put the same effort into scorning riches that men of the world put into possessing them.
Detach yourself from the goods of this world. Love and practice poverty of spirit: be content with what is sufficient for leading a simple and temperate life.
Don't forget that you are just a trash can. So if by any chance the divine gardener should lay his hands on you, and scrub and clean you, and fill you with magnificent flowers, neither the scent nor the colors that beautify your ugliness should make you proud. Humble yourself: don't you know that you are a trash can? But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Cor. 4:7)
No comments:
Post a Comment