Thy Will Be Done

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says in the end, 'Thy will be done.' "

- C. S. Lewis

Source: Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce. Harper Collins, 2001: p. 75.

Prayer

"If our prayers were heard only in accordance with the idea of God to which we seem to ourselves to pray, how miserably would infinite wants wants be met!"

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 132.

Denying the Self

"There is no forgetting of ourselves but in the finding of our deeper, our true self—God's idea of us when He devised us—the Christ in us. Nothing but that self can displace the false, greedy, whining self, of which most of us are so fond and proud. And that self no man can find for himself...'but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.'"

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 151.

Contentment

"I do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the world holds, and be content without it."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 131.

Desiring God

"I do not mean that God would have even His closest presence make us forget or cease to desire that of our friend. God forbid! The Love of God is the perfecting of every love. He is not the God of oblivion but of eternal remembrance. There is no past with Him."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 110.

Condemnation

"No man is condemned for anything he has done: he is condemned for continuing to do wrong. He is condemned for not coming out of the darkness, for not coming to the light."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 109.

Willing

"He gives us the will wherewith to will, and the power to use it, and the help needed to supplement the power:...but we ourselves must will the truth and for that the Lord is waiting....The work is His, be we must take our willing share. When the blossom breaks forth in us, the more it is ours the more it is His."

- George MacDonald

Source: Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 101.

Thirsting for God.

"Let him who would know the truth of the Maker, become sorely athirst, and drink of the brook by the way—then lift up his heart—not at that moment to the Maker of oxygen and hydrogen, but to the Inventor and Mediator of thirst and water, that man might foresee a little of what his soul might find in God."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 96.

The Act of Believing

"Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because He said, 'Do it,' or once abstained because He said, 'Do not do it.' It is simply absurd to say you believe or even to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you." 

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 86.

Christ's Knowledge of Temptation

"A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means.—the only complete realist."

- C.S. Lewis

Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 1980. 142. Print.

His Yoke is Easy

"The will of the Father is the yoke He would have us take, and bear also with Him. It is of this yoke that He says, 'It is easy,' of this burden, 'It is light.' He is not saying, 'The yoke I lay upon you is easy, the burden is light'; what He says is, 'The yoke I carry is easy, the burden on My shoulders is light.' With the garden of Gethsemane before Him, with the hour and the power of darkness waiting for Him, He declares His yoke is easy, His burden light."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 83.

Self-Denial

"The self is given to us that we may sacrifice it: it is ours, that we, like Christ, may have somewhat to offer—not that we should torment it; but that we should deny it; not that we should cross it, but that we should abandon it utterly: then it can no more be vexed....It is to be no longer the regent of our action. We are no more to think, 'What should I like to do?' but 'What would the Living One have me do?'"

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 81.

The Best

"Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give best, and man will not take it."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 68.

The Miracles of Jesus

"The miracles of Jesus were the ordinary works of His Father, wrought small and swift that we might take them in."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 38.

God's Greatest Gift

"For the real good of every gift is essential first, that the giver be in the gift—as God always is, for He is love—and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of God is but a harbinger of His greatest and only sufficing gift—that of Himself."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 48.

Prayer and Desire

"Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon: the thought of Him to whom that prayer goes will purify and correct the desire."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. Pg 50.

God At The Door

"Nor will God force any door to enter in. He may send a tempest about the house; the wind of His admonishment may burst doors and windows, yea, shake the house to its foundations; but not then, not so, will He enter. The door must be opened b the willing hand, ere the foot of Love will cross the threshold. He watches to see the door move from within. Every tempest is but an assault in the siege of Love."

- George MacDonald

Source: Lewis, C. S. George MacDonald: An Anthology. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York: 1946. P 44.

Christianity in Culture

"When it [Christianity] tells you to feed the hungry it does not give lessons in cookery. When it tells you to read the Scriptures it does not give you lessons in Hebrew or Greek, or even in English grammar. It was never intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts and sciences: it is rather a director which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life, if only they will put themselves at it's disposal."

- C.S. Lewis

Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 1980. 82. Print.

Eternal Perspective

"Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live forever."

- C.S. Lewis

Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 1980. 32. Print.

Truth Leads to Comfort

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."

-C.S. Lewis

Source: Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 1980. 32. Print.