November 10
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeSeventeenth Sunday after Trinity
Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness. Ephesians 4:1, 2.
"He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away." He was the mightiest of the mighty. He put Himself down from His seat in heaven, and because of this His surpassing humility and meekness God exalted Him. True peace is only to be found by patient abiding in that condition wherein God has placed us. In spiritual as in temporal things our chief aim should be to abide where God has placed us, all our misfortunes arising because we stray from this Divine will; and if so, it follows that the sickness, or loss, or temptation, or spiritual dryness which often trouble you, is precisely the condition in which God wills you to be, that wherein your safety lies. If, then, you are sick, strive to accept sickness as better for you than health; if despised, welcome contempt as more profitable than any possible praise of men. If you feel as though God were absent from you, accept the exile as better for you than the glow of His conscious presence. Be like a little child who cannot walk, and so remains tranquilly where his mother places him, certain that she will not leave him uncared for. Look upon your present condition as a cross to which God Himself has nailed you. He who heartily makes this his rule is content. All his happiness lies in God's will, and with the eye of faith he sees his Father's Hand in everything.
Like Thy blest self, Lord, teach me to submit
To all my heavenly Father shall think fit;
To yield the full subjection of a son,
Pray, "Father, not my will, but Thine be done."