Sunday, January 19, 1997
Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095

It was his steadfast and unalterable conviction that for a man who has wrapped his will in God’s will, put his life consciously in the stream of the divine Life, freed his soul from all personal ambitions, taken his life on trust as a divine gift—that for such a man there is an over-ruling Providence which guards and guides him in every incident of his life, from the greatest to the least. He held that all annoyances, frustrations, disappointments, mishaps, discomforts, hardships, sorrows, pains, and even final disaster itself, are simply God’s ways of teaching us lessons that we could never else learn. That circumstances do not matter, are nothing, but that the response of the spirit that meets them is everything; that there is no situation in human life, however apparently adverse, nor any human relationship, however apparently uncongenial, that cannot be made, if God be in the heart, into a thing of perfect joy; that, in order to attain this ultimate perfection, one must accept every experience and learn to love all persons... that the worth of life is not to be measured by its results in achievement or success, but solely by the motive of one’s heart and the effort of one’s will.

... George Seaver (1890-1976), The Faith of Edward Wilson, London: J. Murray, 1948, quoted in A Treasury of the Kingdom: an anthology, Emmeline Alethea Blackburn, ed., Oxford University Press, 1954, p. 183 (see the book; see also Heb. 12:5-11; Deut. 8:5; Pr. 3:11-12; Rom. 8:38-39; Heb. 5:7-10; Jas. 1:2-4,12; 1 Pet. 1:15-16; Rev. 3:19; more at Achievement, Adversity, Ambition, Conviction, Guidance, Heart, Historical, Life, Providence, Success, Trust)

 
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
        with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.

Last updated: 04/14/16

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