Gold Nugget 279 - Pride and Patience

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      Patience is to be distinguished from a dull indiscriminateness and from insensibility, to which one treatment is much the same as another; it is the calm endurance, the quiet, hopeful waiting on the part of the intelligent and sensitive spirit.  Pride is to be distinguished from self-respect; it is an overweening estimate indulged by a man respecting himself – of his power, or of his position, or of his character. …

      Few things are more spiritually beautiful than patience.  When under long-continued bodily pain or weakness, or under grievous ill-treatment, or through long years of deferred hope and disappointment, the chastened spirit lives on in cheerful resignation, the Christian workman toils on in unwavering faith, there is a spectacle which we can well believe that the angels of God look upon with delight.  Certainly it is the object of our admiring regard.

      On the other hand, pride is an offensive thing in the eyes of man, as we know it is in the sight of God.  Whether a man shows himself elated about his personal appearance, or his riches, or his learning, or his strength (of any kind), we begin by being amused and end by being annoyed and repelled; we turn away as from an ugly picture or from an offensive odour.

The Pulpit Commentary, Ecclesiastes p. 185-186, Ecclesiastes 7:8, (W. Clarkson)

See also:  Proverbs 8:13

Gold Nugget 279

Pride and Patience

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