sleep

"It'll be nice when we all wake up from this life which has indeed something like a nightmare about it." -C.S. Lewis

pain

"Pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hairshirt or getting out of a dungeon. What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." -C.S. Lewis

lilies care

"I suppose living from day to day ("take no thought for the morrow") is precisely what we have to learn- though the Old Adam in me sometimes murmurs that if God wanted me to live like the lilies of the field, I wonder He didn't give me the same lack of nerves and imagination as they enjoy! Or is it that just the point, the precise purpose of this Divine paradox and audacity called Man- to do with a mind what other organisms do without it?" -C.S. Lewis

changes

"In all our efforts to find God, to please Him, to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part." -A.W. Tozer

self-will

"We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. " -Oswald Chambers

dialogues with silence

This night, and every night, it is the same question.

Here, now, by night, with this huge clock ticking on my right hip and the flashlight in my hand and my sneakers on my feet, I feel as if everything has been unreal. It is as if the past had never existed. The things I thought were so important- because of the effort I put into them- have turned out to be of small value. The things I never thought about, the things I was never able either to measure or to expect, they were the things that mattered.

But in this darkness I would not be able to say, for certain, what is was that mattered. That, perhaps, is part of Your unanswerable question!

-Thomas Merton

What Can I Give Him?

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise-man I would do my part;

Yet what can I give Him? Give Him my heart.

-Christina Rossetti

give thanks

"Give him thanks, if you please, with me for His great goodness towards me, which I can never sufficiently marvel at, for the many favors He has done to so miserable a sinner as I am." -Brother Lawrence

I'm a bird

"My Soul is like a Bird; my Flesh, the Cage" -Francis Quarles

fear

"Fear is horrid, but there's no reason to be ashamed of it. Our Lord was afraid (dreadfully so) in Gethsemane. I always cling to that as a very comforting fact." -C.S. Lewis

another world

"If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world" -C.S. Lewis

peace

I did not come to bring peace but a sword —Matthew 10:34

Never be sympathetic with a person whose situation causes you to conclude that God is dealing harshly with him. God can be more tender than we can conceive, and every once in a while He gives us the opportunity to deal firmly with someone so that He may be viewed as the tender One. If a person cannot go to God, it is because he has something secret which he does not intend to give up— he may admit his sin, but would no more give up that thing than he could fly under his own power. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with people like that. We must reach down deep in their lives to the root of the problem, which will cause hostility and resentment toward the message. People want the blessing of God, but they can’t stand something that pierces right through to the heart of the matter.

If you are sensitive to God’s way, your message as His servant will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message home so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide, but must apply its truth. Deal with people where they are, until they begin to realize their true need. Then hold high the standard of Jesus for their lives. Their response may be, "We can never be that." Then drive it home with, "Jesus Christ says you must." "But how can we be?" "You can’t, unless you have a new Spirit" (see Luke 11:13 ).

There must be a sense of need created before your message is of any use. Thousands of people in this world profess to be happy without God. But if we could be truly happy and moral without Jesus, then why did He come? He came because that kind of happiness and peace is only superficial. Jesus Christ came to "bring . . . a sword" through every kind of peace that is not based on a personal relationship with Himself.

-Oswald Chambers

the best

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be" -C.S. Lewis

a new thought

something I sort of realized today- God's active will for me must take a life time.

VIII

"Humans are amphibians- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time." -C.S. Lewis

A House Built on Sand

Do not foget this. At first it is natural for a baby to take its mother's milk without knowing its mother. It is equally natural for us to see the man who helps us without seeing Christ behind him. But we must not remain babies. We must go on to recognize the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die. We must be thankful to all people who have helped us, we must honour them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.

-C.S. Lewis

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." 1 Corinthians 13:12

carriers

"Men are mirrors, or 'carriers' of Christ to other men. Sometimes unconscious carriers. This 'good infection' can be carried by those who have not got it themselves. People who were not Christians themselves helped me to Christianity. But usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important." -C.S. Lewis

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Screwtape said it-

"The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart - an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage and inconstancy in friendship." -C.S. Lewis

"Everything in the heavens and earth is Yours O Lord, and this is Your kingdom. We adore You as being in control of everything. Riches and honor come from You alone, and You are the Ruler of all mankind; Your hand controls power and might and it is at Your discretion that men are made great and given strength." 1 Chronicles 29:11-12

we're all birds

"Yes, I too think there is lots to be said for being no longer young; and I do most heartily agree that it is just as well to be past the age when one expects or desires to attract the other sex. It's natural enough in our species, as in others, that the young birds should show off their plumage- in the mating season. But the trouble in the modern world is that there's a tendency to rush all birds on to that age as soon as possible and then keep them there as late as possible, thus losing all the real value of the other parts of life in a senseless, pitiful attempt to prolong what, after all, is neither its wisest, its happiest, or most innocent period. I suspect merely commercial motives are behind it all: for it is at the showing-off age that birds of both sexes have least sales-resistance!" -C.S. Lewis

help

"The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even remain themselves and do what they promise to do without God's help." -C.S. Lewis

cold comfort

"whatever I can desire or imagine for my own comfort I look for not here but hereafter. For if I alone should have all the world's comforts and could enjoy all its delights, it is certain that they could not long endure." -Thomas a Kempis

hope

"If you will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet, because Jesus Christ is come to seek and to save sinners." -C.H. Spurgeon

memory too

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered." -C.S. Lewis

chrome devils

can I propose this, as a pretty good description, of what we have working against us?

Hell is Chrome by Jeff Tweedy, Wilco

When the devil came, He was not red, He was chrome and he said

Come with me, You must go, So I went, Where everything was clean, So precise and towering

I was welcomed, With open arms, I received so much help in every way, I felt no fear, I felt no fear

The air was crisp, Like sunny late winter days, A springtime yawning high in the haze, And I felt like I belonged, Come with me

Come with me, Come with me, Come with me, Come with me, Come with me, Come with me, Come with me

love

"If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had." -C.S. Lewis

will

"God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them." -C.S. Lewis

death

"After death what? After death, to the Christian, is a glorious life, incomparably beautiful and precious, with Jesus our Lord in heaven. For to me to live is Christ and to die is a gain." -W.A. Criswell

awe

"the believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, 'God.'" -A.W. Tozer