Thought provoking collection of letters. Here are some of my favorite lines:
“If we find ourselves rebelling and getting irritable, we should understand that this irritability under correction is worse than all our other fault put together. And we know that correction is not going to make us any more humbled than it finds us. If we have a resentment of being corrected, that just shows how deeply correction is needed.”
“I have no doubt that God considers you to be one of his friends; otherwise he would not trust you with so many crosses, suffering, and humiliations. Crosses, are God’s means of drawing souls closer to himself. And these crosses accomplish his purposes much more rapidly and effectively than all of our personal efforts put together. Crosses destroy self love at its very root, down in the depths of the human spirit where we can hardly detect it, but God knows where it is lodged, and he attacks it in its greatest strongholds.”
“It seems to me that you need to be a little more big hearted about the imperfection of other people…If there is onemark of perfection, it is simply that it can tolerate the imperfections of others. It is able to adjust. It becomes all things to all men.”
“I cannot express to you how deeply I sympathize with you and your time of suffering. I suffer right along with you, but still, it cheers me up to know that God loves you. And the very proof that God loves you is that he does not spare you but lay upon you the cross of Jesus Christ. Whatever spiritual knowledge or feelings we may have, they are all a delusion if they do not lead us to the real and constant practice of dying to self. And it is true that we do not die without suffering.”
“Though it sounds strange to say it, I am rejoicing that God has reduced you to a state of weakness. Your ego can neither be convinced nor forced into submission by any other means: it is always finding secret lines of supply from your own courage; it is always discovering Impenetrable retreats in your own cleverness. It was hidden from your eyes, while fed upon the subtle poison of an apparent generosity as you constantly sacrificed yourself for others.”