When we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with great sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the deep emotional journey of personal transformation, highlighting both sorrow for past mistakes and joy for personal growth.
Charles Spurgeon's quote emphasizes the dual nature of self-reflection in the process of personal conversion or transformation. It suggests that while we must recognize and lament our former selves and the mistakes of our past, we should also celebrate our current state with joy and gratitude for the growth we have achieved, even acknowledging that we may not have fully earned such blessings. This balance of sorrow and joy creates a profound understanding of our own journey and the importance of humility in our progression.
In practice
During a personal testimony at a church gathering.
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.
Meditation cannot be purchased and no one can give it to you. You have to achieve it. It is not something outer, it is something inner, a growth, and that growth comes through awareness.
There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the sting from every loss, and quenches the fire of every pain, and only faith can do it.
You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
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