Spurgeon and fainting fits

The Lesson:“be not dismayed by soul-trouble.” “Cast the burden of the present, along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the Lord, who forsaketh not his saint. Live by the day–ay, by the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings. Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement….Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world….Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet, but it is all provided for by our covenant Head….Come fair or come foul…be it ours, when we cannot see the face of our God, to trust under the shadow of his wings.”

http://wisecounsel.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/spurgeon-on-depression/

Quick review: Gaudy Night

...by Dorothy L Sayers

The Peter Wimsey novels seem to get bigger as you go along, which is worth noting given that Wimsey doesn't really show up til more than halfway through this one.  To a great extent this is a novel about Harriet Vane, the woman he saved from the gallows five years before and who has steadfastly resisted his marriage proposals ever since. But if there is a love song in this book, then it seems to me it is to Oxford, the spires, the spring, the joy of scholarship - all things which it seems Sayers loved and maybe missed?  And Harriet certainly does.  Against this backdrop - or woven through it - a case arises which requires her investigation sans Wimsey, but the elements of which allow us to get to know Harrier properly whilst she works through the shadows of her past, and even what on earth has been going on in her mind these last five years since encountering Wimsey.

Very different from the other novels - but one which, if ever I have the fortune to have a holiday in Oxford again, I would re read there as a fitting soundtrack.

Bunyan: Hopeful stands against fears in the dungeon

Hopeful: My brother, said he, rememberest thou not how valiant thou hast been heretofore? Apollyon could not crush thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What hardship, terror, and amazement hast thou already gone through; and art thou now nothing but fears! Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with thee, a far weaker man by nature than thou art. Also this giant hath wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the bread and water from my mouth, and with thee I mourn without the light. But let us exercise a little more patience. Remember how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast neither afraid of the chain nor cage, nor yet of bloody death: wherefore let us (at least to avoid the shame that it becomes not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as well as we can. 

Christian remembers the key of Promise:

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon-door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. They then thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction.  

In my personal copy, that last lock is described as "damnable" hard to open...but in the end it does.

Pilgrim's Progress

Maxwell on Spurgeon on anxiety

...CH Spurgeon stated, "Our anxiety does not empty today of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths."  A person cannot allow fear to master him and become the master of his strengths at the same time.  It just doesn't happen.

John C Maxwell, The Difference Maker, p130.

Bunyan: prayer and the emptiness of all things

When shall we come and appear before God?  We pray when we see the emptiness of all things under heaven  We see that in God alone their is rest and satisfaction for the soul. "The widow that is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and ask God for help". (!TM.5:5)...to pry rightly you must make God your hope, stay and all.  Right prayer sees nothing substantial or worth being concerned about except God.  And that, as I said before, it does in a sincere, sensible and affectionate way.

John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Prayer Book, quoted in "Come Boldly", p18.