Jake

“Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.”
― Richard Sibbes

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of
humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one
can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without
overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the
sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from
the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When
one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally
triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and
imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates]
that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of
God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”
― Miroslav Volf

“He was without any comforts of God — no feeling that God loved him — no
feeling that God pitied him — no feeling that God supported him. God was his
sun before — now that sun became all darkness… He was without God — he
was as if he had no God. All that God had been to him before was taken from
him now. He was Godless — deprived of his God. He had the feeling of the
condemned, when the Judge says: “Depart from me, ye cursed,” “who shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and
from the glory of his power.” He felt that God said the same to him. Ah! This is
the hell which Christ suffered. The ocean of Christ’s sufferings is
unfathomable… He was forsaken in the [place] of sinners. If you close with him
as your surety, you will never be forsaken… “My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?” [The answer?] For me — for me.”
― Robert Murray McCheyne

“Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.”
― Otto von Bismarck