Sunday, December 21, 2014

 Isaiah 32:9  Complacency - a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like.

"Benevolence is sometimes laid out upon an object that has no such present good in it as we can desire or delight in, but only some foundation of future good, or some capacity to be made good or agreeable. A pious man can never love wicked men with the love of complacency or delight, but he may exercise the love of benevolence towards them, to pity them, and to wish their recovery.

So our Savior could not love the bloody city of Jerusalem with complacency, because it killed the prophets, and blasphemed God and his Son; but he loved it with benevolence, and wept over it some tears of compassion. Isaac Watts. 

 This piece reminded me of one by Carl Sandburg that follows a similar theme.

  "I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be. I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals. I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little.

Not always shall you be what you are now. You are going forward toward something great. I am on the way with you and therefore I love you." Carl Sandburg.

1 comment:

Joseph Pulikotil said...

Complacency and security are very dangerous because it lulls person to slumber and when sudden reverses take place in life, the complacent person will suffer a lot.

Very interesting post. Best wishes