Matthew Arnold was a fastidious social critic and hence an accomplished complainer. When he died, an acquaintance said: "Poor Matt, he's going to Heaven, no doubt – but he won't like God.
I asked God "Why, why, why?" I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.
They don't have to know the real you for you to keep being that amazing you! Don't let someone's negative spirit disrupt or corrupt yours. Be you for...you. God is the one that you want to see who you really are.
The crucial distinction can be discerned by differentiating between deification, an ontological sharing in the Godhead in which the human literally becomes divine, and theosis, a participation in the life of God the Father through union with Jesus Ch...
If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?
We are our stories - dozens, hundreds, thousands of them - sprayed across our memories, embedded in our identity. Calling them up for others or for ourselves or for God, can enlighten, crush, amuse, trap, or free us, depending on how we pay attention...
Oh, God. I'm in big trouble. Because I'm staring. I can't keep my eyes from ogling his chiseled triceps and biceps and every other "eps ' he has. The butterflies in my stomach have just multiplied tenfold as my wandering gaze meets his.
My characters will happily march off a cliff if it is in them to do so, but may the gods help me if I write that the character is an alcoholic when they are not. They will fight me at every turn and it is their domain. A writer cannot win against a s...
Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all. I was dying to talk to Jim and about Jim. But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffe...
I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell ...
The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance from it; he who will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should f...
The authority of the Scriptures does not depend on the decision of the church or the individual to validate it. To paraphrase the Westminster Confession, we receive it as the word of God because of what it is, not because of what we make of it.
Lord, Your Word is a love letter to me, showing me how much You love me. And every time I read it, I love You more.
When you visualized a man or a woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity . . . that was a quality God's image carried with it . . . when you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was imposs...
No one, by swearing, makes themselves an ounce more honest; any more than a man makes himself wealthy by counting his gold. Oaths may make a liar a liar yet again, having lied about the oath as well. But it cannot alter the worth of an honest man's w...
Do not be discouraged by the resistance you will encounter from your human nature; you must go against your human inclinations. Often, in the beginning, you will think that you are wasting time, but you must go on, be determined and persevere in it u...
I know we sort of said goodbye, but I don’t have anyone else to tell this to and I’m going to burst with it. You know EBB’s verse: God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed For in our face, A gauntlet wi...
Anytime you use your God-given abilities to help others, you are fulfilling your purpose of life. What matters is not the Duration of your life, but the Donation of it.
The apostle Paul wrote that he'd learned to be content in whatever circumstances he was in. I used to think I was content, but now I could see that my contentment was based upon how well I controlled the circumstances of my life, not upon my trust in...
On the one hand, if God is wiser than we His judgement must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil. What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil.
