I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows, and pains, and griefs, is altogether incalculable … Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister’s library.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the value of suffering and hardship, suggesting they provide greater lessons than comfort and happiness.
Charles Spurgeon's quote reflects on the profound insights gained through adversity, contrasting the fleeting nature of joyful experiences with the enduring wisdom cultivated from hardships. He emphasizes that while comfort and happiness are fleeting, the lessons learned from sorrows are invaluable, making adversity an essential part of personal growth and understanding.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience, you can quote this to emphasize the lessons learned from hardships.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Doubt is invariably the result of want or weakness of faith.
A Warrior of Light never resorts to trickery, but he knows how to distract his opponent.
No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it.
We have to unclutter our brains from worries that maybe people don't like us. Women tend to worry about popularity; it doesn't matter if they like you. They need to respect you. They need to show that respect for you in your pay check. And that needs to be okay.
"Softly, softly, catchee monkey," is the West African rendering of a very valuable precept. An awful lot of men fail through lack of patient persistence.
We must master our good fortune, or it will master us.
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