A good man is willing to know the worst of himself, and particularly under affliction, desires to be told wherefore God contends with him and what God designs in correcting him.
Matthew HenryRead
What peace can they have who are not at peace with God?
Interpretation
Inner peace is rooted in one's relationship with a higher power.
Matthew Henry emphasizes that true peace cannot be achieved without reconciliation with God. This suggests that regardless of external circumstances, an individual's spiritual peace or turmoil directly influences their overall well-being and sense of tranquility.
In practice
During a sermon about finding inner peace, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of spiritual connection.
A good man is willing to know the worst of himself, and particularly under affliction, desires to be told wherefore God contends with him and what God designs in correcting him.
There is a burden of care in getting riches; fear in keeping them; temptation in using them; guilt in abusing them; sorrow in losing them; and a burden of account at last to be given concerning them.
To wait on God is to live a life of desire toward Him, delight in Him, dependence on Him, and devotedness to Him.
Scriptures were written, not to satisfy our curiosity and make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints.
What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise.
No attribute of God is more dreadful to sinners than His holiness.
I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as be wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
Adam hid in the Garden of Eden. Moses tried to substitute his brother. Jonah jumped a boat and was swallowed by a whale...Man likes to run from God. It's a tradition.
Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.
When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.
There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction, or as fuel for ambition, or as a kind of reflexive secular religion that, paradoxically, unites us with others in a shared sense of complete isolation: you feel at home in the world only by never feeling at home in the world.
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