I. Man, among all his other weaknesses, is so prone to vanity, conceit, and pride that in teaching the lesson of self-respect, in pressing on you the truth that we are greater than we know, some might fear that we were but putting one more stumbling-block in the path of that humility which is the rarest, as it is the sweetest, of all Christian virtues. But the self-respect which God would have us yield is the parent of humility and the annihilation of pride; it is founded on just those things which every one of us enjoys, which none can monopolise, wherein no man differs from another. It is founded on the possession of that immortal soul which God has given alike to the prince and to the beggar.
II. All but a few of us have a lot in life all the harder to bear because in the pathos of it everything is below the level of tragedy, except the passionate egotism of the sufferer. Our complaints and miseries arise in no small measure from our failure to grasp the real meaning and to understand the universal experience of life; they rise because, dropping the substance, we grasp at the shadow; they rise because we take for solid realities the bubbles which burst at a touch. It is of infinite importance to ourselves and to the world that we should not yield to these feelings. We need for ourselves, the world needs for us as fellow-workers with God, all the joy, all the spring, all the elasticity, all the vigour, all the hope, which man will leave us.
III. Our lot is nothing exceptional, nothing to complain of, nothing to be depressed at. It is just the common, the all but universal, lot. Be good and true, and you cannot then be in reality or in the truth of things commonplace or insignificant. Each one of us is exactly as great as he is in God's sight, and no greater. You may think yourself nothing now and here, but for every good soldier of Jesus Christ all trumpets shall sound on the other side. The Psalmist deeply felt this truth when he wrote the words of the text: "I am small and of no reputation: yet "and what a burst of triumph, what a rush of hope, what a force of conviction, lies in that word "yet"! "yet do I not forget Thy commandments."
F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 337.
References: Psalms 119:144. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1572.Psalms 119:148. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1613.Psalms 119:151. Expositor,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 445.