..we must remember that the soul is but a hollow which God fills. Its union with God is, almost by definition, a continual self-abandonment – an opening, an unveiling, a surrender of itself. A blessed spirit is a mould ever more and more patient of the bright metal poured into it, a body ever more completely uncovered to the meridian blaze of the spiritual sun.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
House of cards
God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial he makes us occupy the dock, the witness box and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Liberation
The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
George Macdonald
Through C.S. Lewis and my supernal sister A.H, I have discovered the writings of George Macdonald. George Macdonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author and occasional minister. He is described by C.S Lewis as being the man who “batized his imagination” and led him out of atheism and towards God.
Every word from Macdonald drips with wisdom and sincerity. I find myself reading and re-reading each sentence. When I listen to his words, I have to drop everything and give him my complete focus. The depth and richness of his understanding and the devotion that you can feel in his work is quite staggering.
Presumption
"Faith is that which, knowing the Lord’s will, goes and does it;
or, not knowing it, stands and waits...
But to put God to the question in any other way than by saying,
‘What wilt thou have me to do?’
is an attempt to compel God to declare Himself, or to hasten His work...
The man is therein dissociating himself from God so far that,
instead of acting by the divine will from within,
he acts in God’s face as it were, to see what He will do.
Man’s first business is, ‘What does God want me to do?’,
not ‘What will God do if I do so and so?’”
Being a walking question mark 