If riches increase, set not your hearts upon them: so if friends increase, set not your hearts upon them, but trust in the living God, let it be the living God that you rest on even for all outward things in this world.
Interpretation
Value spiritual trust over material wealth and social connections.
This quote emphasizes the importance of not becoming overly attached to wealth or even friendships, suggesting that true trust and rest should be placed in a higher power, specifically the living God. The message encourages individuals to seek inner peace and stability through spiritual faith rather than through external and often transient sources like money or social status.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of relying on faith rather than wealth.
Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so come to receive contentment.
You may think you find peace in Christ when you have no outward troubles, but is Christ your peace when the Assyrian comes into the land, when the enemy comes?...Jesus Christ would be peace to the soul when the enemy comes into the city, and into your houses.
I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. ... Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.
I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.
Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.
It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.
I'm not patient - and I'm getting more impatient as I get older - but I am disciplined about writing, and I want that on my tombstone: 'He wasn't patient, but he was disciplined.'
For my victory over Capablanca I am indebted primarily to my superiority in the field of psychology. Capablanca played, relying almost exclusively on his rich intuitive talent. But for the chess struggle nowadays one needs a subtle knowledge of human nature, an understanding of the opponent's psychology.
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