KILLING PRIDE
“[T]he most heavily laden branches bow the lowest down” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p132).
GOD has to continue afflicting us because every minute we are un-afflicted we head toward pride, forgetting who rules the world. When un-afflicted we revel in our accomplishments.
“When you discipline us for our sins, you consume like a moth what is precious to us” (Ps 39:11 NLT)!
“This vanity [God] cannot better repress than by proving to us from experience not only our folly, but also our extreme frailty. Therefore he afflicts us with humiliation, or poverty, or loss of relatives, or disease, or other calamities” John Calvin (ref#313, p47).
“[T]he Lord himself, as he deems fit, uses the cross to oppose, restrain, and subdue the arrogance of our flesh” John Calvin (ref#313, p53).
“[T]he Lord, by pain, sickness, and disappointments weakens our attachment to this world, and makes the thought of quitting it more familiar and more desirable” John Newton (ref#322, p173).
“Take up your own daily cross. It is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective in making you perfect. Down meddlesome self and proud impatience! It is not for you, but only for the Lord of Love, to choose!
Trials must and will befall—
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all;
This is happiness to me” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Nov 11th PM).
Bonnie's Prayer Affair 