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“Six days shall you labor
The seventh is the Lord’s
In six He made the earth and all the heavens
But He rested on the seventh
God rested
He said that it was finished
In the seventh day, He blessed it
God rested”
— Andrew Peterson, “God Rested”
“We must… give up any thought that we have any claims upon God… But Jesus Christ has great claims on God, and we should go to God in our prayers not on the ground of any goodness in ourselves, but on the ground of Jesus Christ’s claims.”
— R.A. Torrey
“With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming, like pure snow in the twinkling of the leafy sunlight. ‘Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?’ he said.
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What happened to the world?’
‘A great shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh. Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear. Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer. Spirit, help my unbelief.”
—Isaac Wardell, “Lord, I Believe”
“The experience of ‘being in error’ so inevitably accompanies the perception of beauty that it begins to seem one of its abiding structural features. … Something beautiful fills the mind yet invites the search for something beyond itself…”
—Elaine Scarry
“He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me.”
—Charles Wesley, “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”
“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
—The Apostle Paul to the Christians in Ephesus
“Lord, while we see whole nations die,
Our flesh and sense repine and cry,
Must death for ever rage and reign?
Or hast thou made mankind in vain?
Where is thy promise to the just?
Are not thy servants turned to dust?
But faith forbids these mournful sighs,
And sees the sleeping dust arise.”
—Isaac Watts
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
—Psalm 119:11 (NIV)
“When He took the three disciples to the mountainside to pray
His countenance was modified, His clothing was aflame
Two men appeared, Moses and Elijah came
They were at his side
The prophecy, the legislation spoke of whenever he would die”
— Sufjan Stevens, “The Transfiguration”