It will serve the same purpose if we frequently raise our minds toward heaven, and picture to ourselves those pleasures that endure forever.
If our heavenly country is much in our thoughts, it will make us "strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul" (1 Peter 2:11).
✦ Strangers and Pilgrims
The soul that thinks often of its heavenly country becomes a pilgrim here. Not because the world is hated — but because the world is seen for what it is. The pilgrim who knows where she is going walks differently through where she is. 🙏
We must make sure our idea of heaven is not crude or worldly. But when we understand rightly those pure and spiritual pleasures — when the happiness we look forward to is the sight, and love, and enjoyment of God — oh, how cheap and worthless will everything here below appear!
The real heaven: the sight, the love, the enjoyment of God. Not streets of gold. God Himself — seen, loved, enjoyed forever. Everything below becomes cheap — not forbidden but outshone. Not the absence of desire but the presence of a better desire.
All our failings may help to pull down that inflated opinion we hold of ourselves.
The thoughts that pass through our hearts on the best day of our life, if exposed, would make us either hateful or ridiculous.
Holy men thought worse of themselves — because they were far more attentive to their own failures than to their neighbors'.
✦ The First Kind of Humility
Honest self-examination. Looking at our own faults — not our neighbor's. This humility is real. But it is restless. 🙏
The deepest and purest humility does not so much arise from the consideration of our own faults, as from a calm and quiet contemplation of the divine purity and goodness.
Our stains never show so clearly as when we hold them up against that infinite light; and we never seem so small as when we look down at ourselves from above.
The humility from seeing our sinfulness is more restless and troubled; but this other kind lays us just as low, and is free from that anguish and turmoil.
Humility from a calm and quiet contemplation of the divine purity and goodness. 🙏
Two kinds of humility. The first from looking at yourself: restless, troubled. The second from looking at God: calm, quiet, free from anguish. The stains show clearest against the infinite light — not because the light condemns but because the light reveals. The soul does not need to torment itself into humility. It only needs to look at God. A candle next to the sun. Psalm 8 — when I consider Your heavens, what is man? Not self-hatred. God-seeing. The humility that comes from gazing — not from grinding.
"The deepest and purest humility does not so much arise from the consideration of our own faults, as from a calm and quiet contemplation of the divine purity and goodness."
Henry Scougal · Humility from beholding, not from grindingHeaven Rightly Understood
Not a material paradise. The sight, the love, the enjoyment of God. Not forbidden — outshone.
The Restless Humility
From self-examination: seeing our faults. Real — but troubled, because the soul is looking at itself.
The Calm Humility
From contemplating divine goodness. Lays us just as low — without the turmoil. A candle next to the sun. God-seeing.
Strangers and Pilgrims
The hope of heaven purifies. The destination shapes the journey. The pilgrim walks differently through where she is.