Excerpts

Mrs. Frisk graciously allowed me to borrow her copy of From the Library of C.S. Lewis: Selections from writers who influenced his spiritual journey (compiled by James Stuart Bell). This book had writings from authors such as G.K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkein, Dorothy L. Sayers, Marting Luther, St. Augustine and many more. The following are some excerpts from the works included in this book that I found striking, encouraging, or both.

"Choose which you will: if you love the world, you shall perish with it: if you love Christ, with Him shall you reign." Richard Rolle, Selected Works

"The Christian religion, then, teaches these truths; that there is a God whom man can know and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him...The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of atheists, who kmow their own wretchedness but not the Redeemer." Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

"Nothing makes a man so great among men, nothing makes a man so necessary to God that he can escape affliction." John Donne, Donne's Sermons (I find great encouragment in this quote)

"Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a godly Christian's weapon, which no man knows or finds, but only he who has the spirit of grace and prayer." Martin Luther, Table Talk

"May He do with me what He pleases: I desire only Him, and want to be wholly devoted to Him." Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God. (Wow! I want this to be the heartbeat of my own heart!)

"[On Prayer] To bring His child to His knee, God withholds that man may ask." George MacDonald, Creation in Christ. (I have loved MacDonald! He has a clear cut way of thinking that is very profound. I'm seriously considering reading his Phantastes which C.S. Lewis said "baptized my imagination.")

"It is the little love with which they love each other, the great love with which they love themselves, that hurts the heart of their father." George MacDonald, Donal Grant

"Every act of worship is a holding up to God of what God has made us." George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons