Perspective

I've been reading George MacDonald's fictions lately as some of you know. I'm really excited to have found him. He's a contemporary of Mark Twain, so you can imagine the language difficulty. (It does help that some are edited into more contemporary language, but I'd prefer the original if I could get my hands on them!) Yet I keep going for more. His stuff is rich in eternal perspective coming alive, I crave it.

Here's some quotes I loved from the latest read: The Laird's Inheritance. (Originally published as Warlock o' Glenwarlock.)

To know oneself safe amid storm and darkness, amid fire and water, amid disease and pain, even during the approach of death, is to be a Christian, for that is how the Master felt in the hour of darkness, because he knew it as fact.
- George MacDonald

I can hardly wonder that so many reject Christianity when they see so many would-be champions of it holding their beliefs at arm's length = in their Bibles, in their theories, in their churches, in their clergymen, in their prayerbooks, in the last devotional page they have read - all things separate from their real selves - rather than in their hearts on their beds in the stillness. God is nearer to me than the air I breathe, nearer to me than the heart of wife or child, nearer to me than my own consciousness of myself, nearer to me than the words in which I speak to him, nearer than the thought roused in me by the story of his perfect son. The unbelievers might well rejoice in the loss of such a God as many Christians would make of him. But if he be indeed the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, then to all eternity let me say only "Amen, Lord, your will be done!"
- George MacDonald

...Cosmo's mind sank into thoughts about the shadows all about him. Almost without realizing it, before long he was comparing the similarity between shadow and evil and law. He saw how the Jews came to attribute evil to the hand of God as well as good, and how Pal said that the law gave life to sin - in the same way as the sun, which is nothing but blinding light, causes shadows though there is no darkness in it at all. He saw too that in the spiritual world, we need a live sun strong enough to burn up all the shadows by shining through the things that cast them, and compelling their transparency - and that live sun is the God who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all. And where there is no longer anything covered or hid, could sin live at all?
- George MacDonald through his main character Cosmo

Wise words, don't you think? Anyway, I keep trudging along to find these gems.

Talking of wise words, in one of the blogs I visit, she uploaded John Piper's wise words concerning the upcoming US election. He put it so well, I hope you enjoy it.