I looked forward to sleeping in today but I slept all of 20 minutes extra. Habits die hard. At least I don't need to make breakfast and pack lunches, so I logged in to review a poem I'm writing. Before I got to it I checked email. Habits die hard.
I receive a devotional thought daily by email excerpted from Elisabeth Elliot's work. Today comes this quote from George Macdonald. It echoes what I wrote in my last post. There seems to be a theme this week.
"Man has a claim on God, a divine claim for any pain, want, disappointment, or misery that will help to make him what he ought to be. He has a claim to be punished, and to be spared not one pang that may urge him toward repentance; yea, he has a claim to be compelled to repent; to be hedged in on every side, to have one after another of the strong, sharp-toothed sheep-dogs of the Great Shepherd sent after him, to thwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate him of any hope, until he comes to see at length that nothing will ease his pain, nothing make life a thing worth having, but the presence of the living God within him; that nothing is good but the will of God; nothing noble enough for the desire of the heart of man but oneness with the eternal. For this God must make him yield his very being, that He himself may enter in and dwell with him."
"nothing...but the presence of the living God within him."
And that is the greatest right and privilege of all.
Who needs to sleep in?
Bring on the sheepdogs.
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