United States or Micronesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And yet I read, I talk, I teach, I write, but to no effect; it is as though I were walking in my sleep. The Buddhist tendency in me blunts the faculty of free self-government and weakens the power of action; self-distrust kills all desire, and reduces me again and again to a fundamental skepticism.
The purpose and end of self-contemplation which becomes aware of our own feebleness is to lead us to the contemplation of God, our immortal strength. Abijah's assurance that 'God is with us at our head' rang out triumphantly. Faith has an upper and an under side: the under side is self-distrust; the upper, trust in God.
That confidence involves the abandonment of all the 'refuges of lies. There must be utter self-distrust and forsaking and turning away from every dependence upon anything else, if we are to trust ourselves to Jesus Christ. But the figure of a foundation which gives security and stability to the stones laid upon it, does not exhaust all the blessedness of this building upon Christ.
We must learn to watch and pray, to lie low in humility and self-distrust, and to be strong in the grace which awaits all tempted ones in God. And where could Peter go to weep his bitter tears but to Gethsemane! He would surely seek out the spot where his Master's form was still outlined in the crushed grass, and his tears would fall where the bloody sweat had fallen but a few hours before.
The difference between secret night and candid morning lay in the two proceedings the difference between self-distrust and self-confidence. Then he had been a creature newly created, looking upon himself and all the world with a sensitive distrust; now he was an individual accepted of others, assured of himself, already beginning to move and have his being in happy self-forgetfulness.
"I have been compelled to take part in political affairs," said she, "because the king, in his noble, good-humored way, has too little confidence in himself, and, out of his self-distrust, lets himself be controlled by the opinions of others.
And at least I cannot reproach myself with having ever attempted to destroy the moral force of others; my reverence for life forbade it, and my self-distrust has taken from me even the temptation to it. This kind of temper is very dangerous among us, for it flatters all the worst instincts of men indiscipline, irreverence, selfish individualism and it ends in social atomism.
The question for both Englishmen and Americans to ask themselves is whether, recognising the responsibility that already rests upon it, the Anglo-Saxon race dare or can for conscience' sake or still more, whether one branch of it when the other be willing to push on, dare or can for conscience' sake hang back and postpone the advent of the Universal Peace, which it is in its power to bring about to-day, no matter what the motives of jealousy, of self-interest, or of self-distrust may be that restrain it.
On the contrary, in genuine human self-distrust, but also in genuine heroism, he gave himself to his vocation, accepting all that went therewith, and finished the work of God which he had made his own. This is the more wonderful because it lay so much nearer to him than it can lie to us, to pray for special evidence of the love of God and to set his faith on the receiving of it.
The main impulse of his life at this time was his self-distrust. He fancied that by returning home he might regain confidence. He longed to rid himself of the conviction that he was "set aside" by some fate or other, call it God or not as you please. He thought that he hurt all those whom he loved when his only longing was to do them good.
Word Of The Day