The Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that any challenges or hardships we face are balanced by the support we receive, reflecting our inner state of heart.
George Muller emphasizes the idea that the challenges or chastisements we experience in life are proportionate to what our hearts require for growth and development. He conveys a profound belief that while we may undergo difficulties (symbolized by being 'smitten'), there is also divine support available to us that helps us endure and overcome those challenges, suggesting a balance between hardship and aid.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
A child rightly trained may be a world-wide blessing, with an influence reaching onward to eternal years. But a neglected or misdirected directed child may live to blight and blast mankind, and leave influences of evil which shall roll on in increasing volume till they plunge into the gulf of eternal perdition.
The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on Earth, and that this one life is but a brief life, for sowing, in comparison with eternity, for reaping.
The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.
I desire many things concerning myself; but I desire nothing so much, as to have a heart filled with love to the Lord. I long for a warm personal attachment to Him.
The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts.
If honest of heart and uprightness before God were lacking or if I did not patiently wait on God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow-men to the declarations of the Word of God, I made great mistakes.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.
We are the prisoners of history. Or are we?
The material body has a practical reality that is accessible. It is here and now, and we can do something with it. However, we must not forget that the innermost part of our being is also trying to help us. It wants to come out to the surface and express itself.
Much work is merely a way to make money; much leisure is merely a way to spend it.
In order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn't mean you give up your intention to create your desire...and you don't give up the desire. You give up your attachment to the result.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.