An Encouraging Word
No wonder people like Joel Olstein. I’m continuing my slog through “The Imitation of Christ” and today’s reading offers this:
Consider your sins with great displeasure and sorrow, and never think yourself to be someone because of your good works. You are truly a sinner. You are subject to many passions and entangled in them. Of yourself you always tend to nothing. You fall quickly, are quickly overcome, quickly troubled, and quickly undone. You have nothing in which you can glory, but you have many things for which you should think yourself vile, for you are much weaker than you can comprehend.1
Perhaps you prefer:
When you are tempted to get discouraged, remind yourself that according to God’s word, your future is getting brighter; you are on your way to a new level of glory. You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.2
Or this:
Be more splendid, more extraordinary. Use every moment to fill yourself up.3
Me? I’ll go with this:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Rom 15:13 ESV)
- Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1996), 101-02. ↩
- Joel Osteen, “Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential,” http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/55044.Joel_Osteen ↩
- Elizabeth Fry, “Oprah Quotes on Living Your Best Life,” http://oprah.about.com/od/oprahquotes/a/bestlife.htm ↩
