Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace

"How can you look longingly upon Satan's offerings when the cross of Christ is in front of your eyes? Christ's love constrains our hearts to seek holiness... Only a deep grasp of the gospel has the power to bring about a deep change in your heart. It is knowing the terrible price that has already been paid for your sin that enables you to say no to sin." Iain Duguid

"This is the lesson I try to communicate to my students. Our mountaintop experiences of God and His grace are wonderful, and cause for gratitude and rejoicing. But God never leaves us on the mountaintop. Once we have been nourished and learned to obey in the sunlight of God's felt presence, surrounded by His hedge of protection, He then sends us outside the camp, into the wilderness, where the heat of temptation saps our strength and spiritual refreshment is hard to come by... This is God's way, the way of the cross, and the proper response is to rejoice in the sufferings so that we may rejoice in the glory when it is revealed. We must learn the biblical lesson that God often sends lions to chase us so that we, like Bree, can discover that we weren't going quite as fast as we could. Like Shasta, we must learn to fall off the horse and "get up again without crying and mount and fall again and yet not be afraid of falling" (Ch 1.)."

On Trumpkin the Dwarf

"Trumpkin shows us that coming to faith is not always like getting knocked off your horse by a blinding light. Sometimes it's a slow process filled with unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes those who protest the loudest are nearest to the kingdom. Sometimes the heart prepares the way for the mind to follow."

On Edmund, in the Chronicles of Narnia

"Edmund thus stands as a warning, a cautionary tale to everyone who reads the book. We are always becoming who we will be. We are, all of us, en-storied creatures, living our lives in a narrative, which means our lives have directions, trends, and trajectories. And these trajectories are guided by an Author who teaches us that we will reap what we sow. Right this minute, we are headed somewhere, and sooner or later, we are bound to end up there... Given the present trajectory of my life, what would happen if I should find myself stumbling through the wardrobe into Narnia? Will Providence guide me to meet a faun who becomes a friend, or a Witch who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy (or freeze, enchant, and murder)? Given the kind of person that I am right now becoming, what would be my reaction if I heard Aslan's  name for the first time?"

On Narnia and C.S. Lewis's use of "magic"

"This is the true picture of magic in Narnia, and its magic is mirrored in our own world. Conflicts of power and enchantments are real, and they matter. But beneath the power encounters and magical warfare is Deep Magic and Deeper, the inflexible solidity of the Moral Law and the breathtaking beauty of Sacrificial Love. Lewis reminds us that substitution is a kind of magic, a mysterious and supernatural force that transforms the world, overcoming every form of treachery. In Narnia, as in our world, Deeper Magic triumphs over Deep Magic. Through sacrifice, Mercy triumphs over Judgment." - Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles by Joe Rigney

“Naomi’s problem is like the struggle many of us experience. In the dark night of our souls, we imagine and worry about the worst possible scenario. In fact, we often conjure up contradictory worst case scenarios to worry about, events that cannot all happen to us. We persuade ourselves that God has abandoned us and that we have no prospects. How much unnecessary turmoil do we put ourselves through! God doesn't promise to give us the grace to survive all the scenarios we can dream up—but only to give us the grace to enable us to make it through whatever He actually brings into our lives. In fact, much of what we worry about turns out in the end not to be part of God’s plan for us after all; our worry was wasted work!” –p. 156

“The result of that attitude in our hearts may be that our lives become filled with such bitterness that we completely miss the providential marks of God’s continuing goodness to us in the midst of our difficulties. Like Naomi, we may be so busy complaining about our emptiness that we miss the fact that God has emptied our hands only in order to fill them with something so much better. Without Naomi’s emptiness, she would never have left Moab behind and returned to the land of promise.” –p.148-149

“God sometimes takes away the things that have become precious to us because they are supporting us in our life of sin and hardness of heart toward Him. Alternatively, He sometimes takes away things that were good in themselves because He wants to use our lives as a powerful testimony of the sufficiency of His relentless grace in the midst of our weakness and loss.” –p. 149

“The roads we choose for ourselves often make our deepest heart commitments plain for all to see.” – p. 133

“Once entered upon, the road to continued and deepened disobedience is often smoothly paved and provides little resistance.” – p.134

Watch! And pray.

“The God who empties us and strips away, however painfully, those precious things in which we are trusting knows what it is to be stripped of all His possessions, left alone and abandoned by His friends, and hung empty on a cross. Every tear of loss that God inflicts on us is a tear whose cost He Himself understands. The pain of God’s chastening work is therefore never harsh; it is never more than is absolutely necessary to turn us to Himself. It is measured and designed to show us the emptiness of the paths we have chosen for ourselves, so that we may return to His ways. What is more, when we do return to Him, we discover that it is His delight to fill the void we have created.” –p.138

“There should constantly be a note of celebration and joy in our worship too, for we remember the death from which we have been spared.” p. 126

“Our hearts are sometimes condemned by what we rejoice in, as well as what we worry about.” p. 125

Here's a good reminder for the upcoming holidays. :)

“But if the reversal of Purim was worth celebrating annually, as a reminder of God’s intervention in history, how much more should those who understand the Greatest Reversal of all celebrate. How much more should we find ourselves on our knees with thankfulness to God, not simply that life has gone well for us this year (if it has), but because death has been transformed into life for us in Christ.” p. 125

“The eye of faith is constantly looking beyond the visible circumstances of this world to the unseen heavenly reality, where even now Christ is enthroned for us.” P.124

“God’s sovereignty operates in such a way that our freedom and responsibility to act are not compromised, yet the result is still exactly what God has purposed from the beginning… What is more, God achieves His perfect goals not just through our best intentions and most self-sacrificing acts, but even through our greatest sins and compromises.” p. 69

“There are no guarantees of success when we stand up for God, if success means getting what we want.” – p.57

“…when we step out in faith, however weak and trembling…we cannot know ahead of time how God will choose to use us. He may heal our diseases, transform our breaking marriages, and plant thriving ministries through us. Or He may sustain us in obedient submission to Him as our earthly hopes are dashed and our lives poured out for apparently little purpose. Either way, though, we have the guarantee that He will use even our faint faith as the means of bringing glory to Himself.” p.57

“Esther’s actions raise serious questions for each of us to answer. Am I still blind to the true nature of the world and the plight of many of God’s people around me? Do I know enough about what is going on in the world to mourn and lament the situation of God’s persecuted people? Often we do not know the burdens of our brothers and sisters in the church well enough or care about them deeply enough to fast and pray. We do not even know enough about what is going on in our own hearts to mourn and lament our sin. We are so blinded by our own good lives that we neither hear nor heed the cries of God’s people…What do our speech and our silence say about who our people are?” p.56

“God’s sovereignty operates in such a way that our freedom and responsibility to act are not compromised, yet the result is still exactly what God has purposed from the beginning… What is more, God achieves His perfect goals not just through our best intentions and most self-sacrificing acts, but even through our greatest sins and compromises.” p. 69

“In the harsh light of hard problems, however, we need to choose whose we are and whom we serve—and the nature of those choices cannot but be public. In the midst of the storm, everyone will see where we are seeking refuge.” p.54

“When our eyes are set on our heavenly bridegroom, we will see through the empty charade of the empire. When our hearts are comforted by the knowledge of God’s love for us in the gospel, we will be insulated from the temptation to despair.” – Esther, p. 30

Rejoice, then, ye sad-hearted,

Who sit in deepest gloom,

Who mourn o'er joys departed

And tremble at your doom.

Despair not, He is near you,

Yea, standing at the door,

Who best can help and cheer you

And bids you weep no more.

"His pain was the prerequisite for our beauty."

I never thought about this before. We so often talk about beauty because we live in a world where human beings are consumed with self-image. Women go to crazy lengths to look beautiful. We have ingrained in us this "fairy-tale" idea that Prince Charming will only fall in love with us if we are beautiful. And yet our Heavenly Bridegroom loved us by suffering for us so that we would be made beautiful. We did not capture His eye because we were something special! I'll let the commentary continue...

“As we suffer loss, and as He pries our fingers off the idols to which they are so desperately attached, then our hearts are prepared more and more to be with Christ, and to see in Him our only good in this world… What a husband we are being prepared for! Christ is no despot in the mold of Ahasuerus, eager to use us and dispose of us, like so many discarded toys… 

But our husband is Jesus Christ, who has loved His bride, the church, with an everlasting love. For our sake, He took on a form utterly without beauty, was despised and rejected by those He came to save, was cut off from the land of the living. In contrast to Esther’s twelve-month-long course of beauty treatments, our divine husband undertook a thirty-three-year pilgrimage, stripped of His eternal radiance. No comfortable beds and fattening food for Him, nowhere to lay His head and nothing to call His own. His pain was the prerequisite for our beauty…. 

What motivated Jesus in His pursuit of us? Certainly not our radiant beauty and sweet spirit! … 

Yet we are all too reluctant to give ourselves to Him and to submit to whatever beautifying sufferings and disciplines He would have us undergo. Our hearts are quick to grumble about the course His providence has charted for us. We are so slow to prepare to meet with Him day by day and spend time in His presence along the way. We are so reluctant to fix our eyes on the heavenly banquet He has prepared. Yet what on earth could be sweeter than that heavenly meal?”

Oh to love Christ more!

“God demands and will exercise complete sovereignty over our beings. Of course, this is relatively easy to confess in the abstract. What is much harder is to continue to confess that sovereignty joyfully when God takes our lives and the lives of those around us in directions different from those we had hoped and prayed for, and of which we had dreamed. When God brings trials into our lives and calls us to submit willingly to the loss of the very things this world calls most precious – money, friends, reputation, health, strength, dreams and aspirations – how do we respond? With Esther’s sweet and compliant spirit? On the contrary, our hearts swiftly revolt against God whenever things do not go our way, whenever our will is not done.” Esther, p.30

How would I have responded if I had lived in Tacloban? How would you have responded? Food for serious thought and reflection.

Esther

“So also in our own lives, we may well have no idea what God is doing. He may seem hidden and remote, refusing to answer our prayers and to give us what we so earnestly ask of Him. Wait! The end of our story has not yet been told, and who knows how the pieces of the jigsaw that at present seem to have no logical connection with one another will ultimately come together? Even though we cannot see God acting, it does not follow that He is not doing anything. God’s work is not all slam-bang action; sometimes it is a quiet faithfulness to His promises in the seemingly ordinary providences of life, bringing about in the hearts of His people what He has purposed.” Esther, p.14-15

These words jumped out at me as I was reading. I am a person of action. I want to see everything laid out so I can reason through it all. I get frustrated when I can't make sense of my present or even my future. And yet, He is there. He is acting. He is quietly orchestrating all the little details in my life, the little details I bypass because I am restlessly looking for big, immediate, and obvious answers. I have often tried to piece my own life's jigsaw puzzle together and I can't make sense of it and it frustrates me. What a good reminder that God is on His throne and He sees the whole picture!

Esther & Ruth by Iain M. Duguid

My friend recently gave me a commentary book on Esther and Ruth from the Reformed Expository Commentary Series. I've always loved the books of Esther and Ruth, but the commentator has a way of really bringing the books to life and his closing applications in each chapter are so thought-provoking and applicable to our times and needs. The following book quotes will probably be mostly from the book as I read through it. :)

“…we too struggle with the invisibility of God. The God who can part the Red Sea and raise Jesus from the dead does not choose to exercise that same power very often in our experience. We struggle when the goals and dreams we had for our lives are trampled underfoot by circumstances, even though they were good and godly dreams that God could have easily brought to fruition…We cried out to God, asking what cosmic scheme would be disrupted by answering our prayers, but there was no response. God remained hidden, His will inscrutable. Like the Jews of Esther’s time and the Russian diaspora, we too may find ourselves ‘fiddlers on the roof,’ struggling desperately to keep our balance in a confusing world…Remember that this world is not our home: one day, when Jesus returns, our balancing act on the roof will be over and the true banquet will begin.” Esther, Chapter 1

I never really thought too much about God not being extremely visible in the book of Esther. In the face of the recent tragedy down in the Visayas due to Typhoon Yolanda, this is a very timely reminder. I often expect God to exercise that kind of "Red Sea" power or wonder why the "good and godly" dreams I've had are not brought to fruition. And yet there is a God in Heaven who sees, who hears, and who knows what He is doing and that is a great comfort indeed.

If ever there has been a religion that has called people to use their minds, it is the Christian faith. If ever there has been a religion that has emphasized the importance of teaching, it is the Christian faith. If we are to live with virtue in this digital age, we need to recognize that we are engaged in a battle, at war with distraction. We must learn to discover what distracts us, destroy it, cultivate concentration, and seek out solitude regularly and habitually.

We need to be Christians who take time to give sustained focus to one thing -- the worship of the living God. He does not call us to study His Word or to worship Him more efficiently. God calls us to read His world meditatively, to give it the time and attention it needs -- the attention we need -- if the Word is to pierce 'to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart' (Hebrews 4:12).

As our technologies promote speed and capacity, the ability to do more in less time, they may promote a new form of idolatry. They push us to make productivity and efficiency ends in themselves, idols we worship and serve. We elevate efficiency -- the need to get many things done, and to get them done quickly -- to the realm of the ultimate. We willingly sacrifice quality, relationships, and our devotion to those we love in order to fill this twisted mandate.

==

True virtue is found not by getting a task finished quickly but by getting it done and doing it well.

We need to relearn how to think, and we need to discipline ourselves to think deeply, conquering the distractions in our lives so that we can live deeply. We must rediscover how to be truly thoughtful Christians, as we seek to live with virtue in the aftermath of the digital explosion.

In all the ways we communicate today, we may use our technologies to destroy relationship instead of foster it, to tear down instead of build up. If we are to use them well, we must use them deliberately, thoughtfully, and in a distinctly Christian way.

Words are powerful. In fact, it was words that brought the universe into being, and it is the Word who now brings life to the dead heart. Words accomplish; words carry weight; words have meaning; words lift up and words beat down. They bring life and they bring death. 

Could we with ink the ocean fill;
And were the skies of parchment made.
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky. (Frederick Lehman)

Today he might forgo the parchment and quills to remind us that even if every man were to e-mail and blog and text for all time, we would never tire of communicating about this amazing love. A trillion text messages a year would only scratch the surface.

God's Word teaches us a key principle that underlies our ability to communicate: The tongue is connected to the heart. The words that come out of a person's mouth or are typed on his keypad and texted to a friend are an expression of what is in his heart.

'When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.' (Proverbs 10:19) If such a warning was important in the days of Solomon, how much more is it needed in our day of near-constant communication?

Use of Words

When our words (written or spoken) serve an idol, they try to distract us from what matters most. They encourage us to focus on quantity over quality. Our communication begins to lack substance and the constant flow of words keeps us from focusing our hearts and minds on the truth... But when our words serve God, they draw our hearts to the things that are of greatest importance. Such words are full of meaning and life. They call us out of the shallows and into the depths of knowing God. Our technological advances in communication provide us with opportunities to use words in ways that will honor God, thoughtful words that speak with substance and truth and give life to people made in God's image.

Learning through images and visual media is directly opposed to learning by reading, which requires a more sustained focus and actually generates new skills and capabilities in the brain.

Our task... is not to avoid technology but to carefully evaluate it, redeem it, and ensure that we are using it with the right motives and for the right goals.

Technology and Idolatry

There is an unmistakable connection between technology and idolatry. John Calvin once remarked that the human heart is an idol factory. The heart is the seat of our emotions, our will, and our desire, and because of human sin and rebellion, it lies in direct opposition to God. The heart is eager to raise up new gods, putting other things and people in the place reserved for the one true God. Most of our idols are not simple objects of wood and stone, the kinds of images the ancient pagans used to bow before, believing these objects controlled the weather patterns and enabled a good harvest. Instead, our modern idols reflect our inner desires for comfort, security, significance, and ultimately salvation.

==

We become tools of our tools; rather than owning our gadgets, we become owned by them. We begin to structure our lives around them, and our actions and choices are motivated by our need and desire for the blessings and benefits that idol provides for us.

==

The trouble with each of these is not the things themselves, but in the position we give to them in our lives. Each of these becomes an idol when we take something good and make it into something ultimate.

iPhone = evil?

That iPhone in your pocket is not an "evil" device. Yet it is prone to draw your heart away from God, to distract you and enable you to rely on your own abilities rather than trusting God.

==

It is not technology itself that is good or evil; it is the human application of that technology.

==

Rather than changing the technology to fit our understand of what is right and wrong, we change ourselves and our society's rules and mores, and we reshape ourselves in the image of the mobile phone.

Tim Challies

The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion

The upcoming book quotes will all be coming from the same book by Tim Challies. I highly recommend reading this book.

The things we create can -- and will -- try to become idols in our hearts. Though they enable us to survive and thrive in a fallen world, the very aid they provide can deceive us with a false sense of comfort and security, hiding our need for God and His grace.

Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick

"First you need to invent a time machine," I say. "So you can go back there and give all the cavemen a hard time about indoor plumbing."
Freak goes, "You don't need a time machine if you know how to remember."
Which is something I'll always remember, him saying that and me trying to figure it out.

I read that out loud three times this week. Each time I read it, I wanted to stop and reread it over and over again, but I had 20+ students who would give me a hard time if I started to wax eloquent on what that quote means to me. (By the way, one of the rewards of teaching is watching 78 children read like me: gripping the book, eyes wide, hanging on every word. I also feel like the book is successful when a number of wanna-be cool middle schoolers are sniffling over one of the characters dying.)

Anyway, I love that quote. I think I like it because I often want to turn back time and go to different worlds again. Sometimes I want to go back to that water tower in Zimbabwe where we would spend many a brown-out night by watching the shooting stars, only I couldn't see the shooting stars because my eyes are too bad. Sometimes I want to go back to being behind the counter at a fast food chain, serving chicken at 80 miles an hour. Sometimes I want to go back to having 15 commentaries open on one huge table in the library as I try to write about the whole book of Hebrews. Sometimes I want to go back to that night in Busay when I stepped out of the dark house and saw a real-life planetarium in the sky above me and the next day I read a verse about the stars in the sky and I marked the date in the margin because I'll never forget that sight. Sometimes I want to go back to the times when my grandfather was still alive and well and he would call me "ReBAYcca" and swing me up on his shoulders like we were just as amazing as Barnum and Bailey's circus acrobats.

But like Freak says, we don't need that time machine. God doesn't allow us to go back in time. But He gave us a memory which is almost a time machine.

"Lack of responsibility on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

That's a quote from my professor and it will be in my future-book called Surviving Grade Six: The Drama Years.

In other news, Becky's Book Quotes has taken a break in order to survive the last 3 weeks of the term. All the other posts were typed at the same time and pre-scheduled for daily posting. Haha. :) See you later, alligator!

Expository Thoughts on Mark

Fathers and mothers... cannot give their children new hearts. They can give them Christian education, and show them the way of life; but they cannot give them a will to choose Christ's service, and a mind to love God. Yet there is one thing they can always do; -- they can pray for them... Even when they will not let us speak to them about religion, they cannot prevent us speaking for them to God. p.146

Expository Thoughts on Mark

We ought to remember this in the training and education of children. In all our management we must never forget, that the seeds of all mischief and wickedness are in their hearts... They carry within them a heart ready for any sin, and until that heart is changed they are not safe, whatever we do... But no bad companion teaches a boy or girl half as much sin as their own hearts will suggest to them, unless they are renewed by the Spirit.

Expository Thoughts on Mark

But while we live, let us pray for others. It is the greatest kindness we can do to any one, to speak for him to our Lord Jesus Christ. p.148

The great Shepherd of the sheep makes no mistakes. He leads every lamb of His flock by the right way to the city of habitation. p.152

Expository Thoughts on Mark by J.C. Ryle

Let us spare no pains in labouring to bring men and women to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that they may be saved. It is a comfortable thought, that "as many as touch Him will be made whole." p.133

External observances alone feed no conscience and sanctify no hearts. p.135

Thoughts are the parents of words and deeds. Let us pray daily for grace to keep our thoughts n order and let us cry earnestly and fervently, 'lead us not into temptation.' p.144

The man who never speaks to God about his own soul, can know nothing of praying for others. p.147

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right -- int he way that's best for us.

The Holy War by John Bunyan

Remember, therefore, O my Mansoul, that thou art beloved of me. As I have, therefore, taught thee to watch, to fight, to pray, and to make war against my foes; so now I command thee to believe that my love is constant to thee. O my Mansoul, how have I set my heart, my love upon thee! Watch. Behold I lay none other burden upon thee than what thou hast already. Hold fast, till I come.

Soul Depths and Soul Heights by Octavius Winslow

'I must confess,' says holy Baxter, 'as the experience of my soul, that the expectation of loving my friend in heaven powerfully kindles my love to them while on earth. If I thought I should never know, and consequently never love them after this life, I should remember them with temporal things, and love them as such, but now I delightfully commune with my pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall commune with them forever.'

Let's Study Philippians by Sinclair Ferguson

We must reserve in our hearts a sanctuary of love for Jesus Christ -- a sanctuary from which everything but trust in Him and love for Him is barred.

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

For you a thousand times over.

Self-Raised by E.D.E.N. Southworth

Boys, you know, are about as grateful as pigs, who devour the acorns without ever looking up to see whence they came.

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

"Papa," I said, "of all the things in the world to see, I reckon the heavens at sundown has got to be my favorite sight..."

Cry, the Beloved Country

Msimangu opened the book, and read to them first from the book. And Kumalo had not known that his friend had such a voice. For the voice was of gold, and the voice had love for the words it was reading. The voice shook and beat and trembled, not as the voice of an old man shakes and beats and trembles, nor as a leaf shakes and beats and trembles, but as a deep bell when it is struck. For it was not only a voice of god, but it was the voice of a man whose heart was golden, reading from a book of golden words. And the people were silent, and Kumalo was silent, for when are three such things found in one place together?

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Duncan's War by Douglas Bond

"Stumbling's of more than one kind, Duncan, m'lad." He stopped cutting and looked earnestly at his son. "Stumblings of heart, mind ye, break more than bones. Aye, guard yer heart, lad; guard yer heart. Ye can seem to keep the Covenant with yer hands and feet. that's the easy part, but if yer not keeping Covenant with yer heart, ye can't be honoring King Jesus."

The Teacher's Funeral by Richard Peck

Us Methodists said dancing was nothing but hugging to music.

~~~

She had the longest nose in North America. It stood up against the yawning lid, shiny and sharp with a flaring nostril. She had a snout on her long enough to drink water down a crawdad hole.

Evidence Not Seen

I was assured that my faith rested not on feelings, not on moments of ecstasy, but on the Person of my matchless, changeless Savior, in Whom there is no shadow caused by turning.

Great God of Wonders

The manner in which men know God is reflected in the degree to which they appreciate His claim on their lives.

Great God of Wonders

If the gospel of the love of God in Christ does not lift us up to love God's law and God's righteousness, it has not entered into our hearts savingly.

~~~

Whenever a race of men becomes obsessed with a sense of the love and righteousness of God, the world is turned upside down.

Great God of Wonders by Maurice Roberts

To lose truth is to lose God, heaven and the gospel itself. If truth is lost, all that matters is lost.

Evidence Not Seen

I realized how little I knew of what makes a true missionary statesman; of a faith that never staggers at the promise of God, no matter how incredible to the natural man its fulfillment seems; of a trust in the Unchanging One, Who keeps the heart at rest and unperturbed in a changing world; of a burning love that counts not life dear until itself, but is expendable for God; and of a vision that is never dimmed.

Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose

I was to discover, however, that when I took my eyes off the circumstances that were overwhelming me, over which I had no control, and looked up, my Lord was there, standing on the parapet of heaven looking down. Deep in my heart He whispered, "I'm here. Even when you don't see Me, I'm here. Never for a moment are you out of My sight."

The Price of Stones by Twesigye Jackson Kaguri

The internet was like a rumor in rural Uganda. Everyone pretended to know all about it, but few actually had any idea.

The Glory of Christ

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in Heaven who does not, it some measure, behold it by faith in this world.

The Glory of Christ by Maurice Roberts

Only a sight of His glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God's people. The hearts of believers are like a magnetized needle which cannot rest until it is pointing north. So also, a believer, magnetized by the love of Christ, will always be restless until he or she comes to Christ and beholds His glory. The soul which can be satisfied without beholding the glory of Christ, that cannot be eternally satisfied with beholding the glory of Christ, is not a soul for whom Christ prays.

The Thought of God

Those who are not heavenly-minded are of little earthly good.

~~~

All happiness is the enjoyment of God in one way or another... And where God is not enjoyed, either directly or indirectly, nothing is enjoyed. Without God there is nothing to enjoy. The supreme excellence of the Christian's happiness in heaven will be that there at last he will enjoy God fully.

The Thought of God

When God's ways do not appear to match His promises, our duty is not to be inactive under the plea of His sovereignty, but to copy this psalmist in an intense intercession that this sovereign God would graciously vindicate His truth by raising up His cause.

Understanding Buddy by Marc Kornblatt

There we were, laughing on the couch, me with tears in my eyes I was howling so hard, when I realized that some things in life are just like Charlies [Chaplin] song. They make no sense, and no matter how hard you try to understand them they may never make sense, but they can still make you laugh. Or cry.

The Last Battle

And as he spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried: "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

"Got to start by finding it, have we?" answered Puddleglum. "Not allowed to start by looking for it, I suppose?"

~~~

I know nothing so disagreeable as being kissed by a giantess.

~~~

"Don't you mind," said Puddleglum. "There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan; and he was there when the giant king caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would come of them; including this."

~~~

"Courage, friends," came Prince Rilian's voice. "Whether we live or die, Aslan will be our good lord."

~~~

"You cannot want wrong things any more, now that you have died, my son," said Aslan.

The Thought of God by Maurice Roberts

Repentance ought to be a believer's daily and hourly companion. Brokenness of heart and tenderness of spirit should be the hallmark of our whole character... We make no spiritual progress apart from repentance.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A slothful, unfeeling religion is not the faith we read of in the Bible. There is such a thing as following the Lord fully. There is such a thing as fearing the Lord greatly. There is such a thing as the wish to see God glorified here and now on earth. Then let all right-hearted men pray for grace to cast off the mantle of complacency and gird up their loins with fresh zeal for the task.

Pilgrim Street by Hesba Stretton

"Yes," murmured Tom, "We needn't be afraid of loving God."

The Thought of God by Maurice Roberts

To what then shall we liken the Higher Critics and the liberal theologians who have placed Christ on their Procrustean bed and lopped off His Godhead, glory and grace? They are like children playing with their father's car on a rainy day and who put on the windscreen wipers and say, 'See, we have stopped the rain!' but, unfortunately for those who find fault with a faultless Christ and who stumble over the stumblingstone of a Man who is also the incarnate God, Jesus is not in the smallest degree diminished by their low opinions of Him. He remains the Lord of glory still, after all that the demythologizers have done to cork Christ down firmly into their critical bottle.

Recycled Post

This is from the quote page that I attempted to start on my main blog but of course forgot all about.

"Even if we are killed, I would rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home." -- C.S. Lewis,The Last Battle

"She said earnestly and yet in her sweetest, tenderest way, 'Oh, my darling Katy! What you need is such a living, personal love of Christ to make the thought of being where He is so delightful as to fill your mind wiht the single thought!'" -- Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward, p. 38

"'Aslan,' said Lucy, 'You're bigger.'
'That is because you are older, little one,' he answered.
'Not because you are?'
'I am not. But every year you grow you will find me bigger.'" -- C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian


"The command to praise is a righteous command because God is the most infinitely valuable person in the whole universe, and not to praise Him would be cosmic treason and a moral violation of the highest good." -- Brian Borgman, Feelings and Faith, p. 176

"For she does not pretend not to grieve, but always says, 'It is repining that dishonors God, not grief.'" -- Stepping Heavenward, p. 211

"My son, by all means desist from kicking the venerable and enlightened Vizier: for as a costly jewel retains its value even if hidden in a dunghill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects. Desist, therefore, and tell us what you propose." -- C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy


"He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. The horse did not seem to be afraid of it or else could not see it. It was from the Lion that the light came. No on ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful... But after one glance at the Lion's face, he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything." -- The Horse and His Boy


"But the sweat of one's brow is no longer a curse when one works for God. It proves a tonic to the system, and is actually a blessing. No on can truly appreciate the charm of repose unless he has undergone severe exertion. -- Martin Duggard, Into Africa


"He was twenty-five years old, a squatty, dogged Civil War vet who fought for the blue and gray, but had otherwise achieved nothing remarkable in his lifetime. In fact, Stanley's life to that point was notable only for its mediocrity. He had tried and been found wanting as a soldier, sailor, gold miner, son, and lover. Yet there seemed no limit to the endeavors he was willing to attempt, then abruptly discard, without noteworthy accomplishment." -- Into Africa


"There is nothing about God's being, nature or ways which embarrasses us more than His gentleness... God's gentleness is somehow awesome and overwhelming to our minds. It catches us off balance and staggers us by its very wonderfulness." -- Maurice Roberts, The Thought of God, p. 16

"The most sublime of God's works are not His prodigious acts of power but His acts of grace... What, after all, is the highest expression of God's greatness and glory? It is not His outward displays of vast energy in the material world, wonderful as these are, but His inward acts of grace, performed silently in the hearts and lives of men." -- The Thought of God, p. 19


"And God saves none against His will... It is a secret exercise of omnipotence on the hidden man of the heart coaxing and alluring him to salvation and glory by Christ. It is always effectual but it is never brute strength." -- The Thought of God, p. 21

"Perhaps we are too frequently guilty of limiting God to methods of blessing us which are according to our own understanding." -- The Thought of God, p. 21

"Because, this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to one so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear." Reepicheep, C. S. Lewis,The Voyage of the Dawn Treader


"While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.." -- Reepicheep, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader


"'Oh, Aslan,' said Lucy. 'Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?'
'I shall be telling you all the time,' said Aslan. 'But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.'" The Voyage of the Dawn Treader


"'I daren't come and drink,' said Jill.
'Then you will die of thirst,' said the Lion.
'Oh dear!' said Jill, coming another step nearer. 'I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.'
'There is no other stream,' said the Lion." -- C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair


"You've got to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie." Puddleglum, The Silver Chair


"You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do." -- Puddleglum,The Silver Chair


"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side, even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." -- Puddleglum, The Silver Chair


"Addie said it was like the thrill she got shoving a raw plucked chicken into the oven and knowing that in a little while she'd have a soul-satisfying entree. It takes a great cook to pull life truth from poultry." -- Joan Bauer, Hope Was Here


"By spiritual elevation we do not... refer to the boisterous movement of the arms which in some circles appears to be deemed essential to public worship." The Thought of God


"It is unquestionably one of the tragic fruits of our fallen nature that we can grow in theological knowledge without growing perceptibly in appreciation of what that knowledge means." The Thought of God


"The Bible's message to us involves the breathtakingly good news that 'God is love.' Such a statement, were we not made of stone, would be so welcome to us in this dark world of misery that we should run to trumpet it from the housetops. Only our chronic deafness makes us so unresponsive to such transcendent glad tidings... when we still our minds to hear the good news of God's love, it beggars all our thoughts and swallows up all our fears. If God is love then every anxiety of believers is a lie. Over all the carange of war and above the ghastly spectacle of human woe, over every helmet of the warrior and garment rolled in blood there is the rainbow of God's covenanted grace. There is meaning to the most random events in life. There is a benign and wise Father in, through and over all things, even things filled with pain, suffering, and death." --The Thought of God, ch. 10

"Why else should these inspired writers call on inanimate nature to leap up in a chorus of song except to surprise us out of our inattention to the great goodness of God towards us in the gospel? Knowing our minds to be nine-tenths asleep to God's love, therefore, they aim to startle us from our lack of appreciation by calling on all nature, as it were, to sound a cannonade." --The Thought of God, ch. 10

"Let the believer think much and often of the love Christ." -- The Thought of God


"Let us recall with deepest mortification that if Christ is my life, I was His death... So let every believer think and ponder often in his heart till the fire burns and the heart of stone melts in solemn appreciation of what we owe to Him whose Name is above every name that ever shall be." -- The Thought of God


"You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin -- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours -- closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid -- but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds." -- J.R.R. Tolkien,The Fellowship of the Ring


"To run away from Jesus is to turn away from the fountain of all grace and love. To be religious but not crown Christ as Lord of all is to insult God and injure ourselves eternally." -- The Thought of God, ch. 11

For the love of books

Why another blog? It took me 8 years to finish a journal and I have several different blogs for different reasons, but why this one? Well, moving back and forth between the house and my apartment during the school week often causes me to forget to bring things back and forth. One such thing is my book quote. I mean, you never know when you need that book quote again! So rather than remember to bring my quote book back and forth, I now have an accessible online version all the time.

"A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it." -- William Styron

"Reading is powerful. Revolutions have started from reading. The Reformation didn't just promote reading; reading started and fueled it. When oppressors and tyrants want to squash freedom they burn books, with authors of the books soon to follow. There is something almost mystical about a book. There is something wondrous about reading." -- Feelings and Faith, page 201, Brian Borgman

"What refuge is there for the victim who is possessed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to read a hundred?" -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.