If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all.
Interpretation
Perfection in any institution is unattainable; we must accept flaws in our pursuit of belonging.
This quote by Charles Spurgeon highlights the idea that if one were to wait for the perfect church—or any perfect institution—before joining, they would be left in a state of perpetual solitude. It emphasizes the importance of community and participation over the unrealistic expectation of finding perfection, reminding us that flaws are inherent in all groups and that the act of joining is a step towards growth and connection.
In practice
During a discussion on finding a place of worship, one might say this quote to encourage open-mindedness.
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.
Don't you know that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?
The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
For in grief nothing 'stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. _x000D_ Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?
My books are not about how it feels to be a black man. My books are about how it feels to be a human being, and part of what I'm trying to sort out is what we mean - what I mean, what you mean, what everybody in the culture means - when they say 'black man,' or they say 'white person.'
It happened, as many things do, imperceptibly, in many ways at once. I date it - the slow crumbling of my faith, the pulverization of my fortress - from the time, about a year after I had begun to preach, when I began to read again. I justified this desire by the fact that I was still in school, and I began, fatally, with Dostoyevsky.
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