A Glimpse of Starlight

It’s been too long since I’ve done a quote post, and I’m out to remedy that. I’ve done this before on books, and then on writing, and once just on overall encouragement. Today? Let’s talk about faith, in all its usages—belief, religion, trust. Most of these come from fiction because I found them by perusing my great big Scrivener document of quotes that I copy down from the books I read. Enjoy the variety of genres, styles, and takes on this topic, and let them encourage you to keep the faith.

{Keep the faith}

“I will keep faith, Walter,” she said steadily.  “I will work – and teach – and learn – and laugh, yes, I will even laugh – through all my years, because of you and because of what you gave me when you followed the call.

~ Rilla in L. M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside

{Afraid to believe}

Johnny imagined himself standing in a busy city square, Times Square, shouting out his belief for all the wayward to hear. It was a terrifying thought. Why? Because he didn’t believe? Or because he was ashamed to believe?

Because he didn’t want to be a freak. He wanted to be normal, accepted. His desire to be accepted was stronger than his belief.

~ Ted Dekker, Saint

{Faith in failure} 

“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure? … Anyone can believe in someone, or something, that always succeeds, Mistress. But failure … ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value, I think.”

~ Sazed in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire 

{The evidence of things not seen … } 

But as I walked back to the camp, I looked at the moon and the stars. They are gods, they had told me. But I no longer believed it. And if they and the sun and the earth and the sea and the rivers were not gods, what God had made them? And who, indeed, could picture such a One as that?

“How manifold are Thy works,” Ahmoses had sung, “oh sole God like Whom there is other.”

And I decided that I did not have to see Him, and that He did not have to send me a sign.

~ Uriah in Joan Williamson’s Hittite Warrior 

{When you feel nothing}

Simple perseverance might just be the essence of authentic faith: showing up to pray when you feel nothing, continuing to confide in God when he answers you with silence, loving and serving him even after you accept that he may never give you what you so desperately want or answer the question that confounds you most.

~ Colleen Caroll Campell, My Sisters the Saints 

{Even in dim shadows} 

The eyes of faith are not always bright. At times they can see only dim shadows, like rough shapes reflected in a worn and dusty mirror. Yet even then, especially then, the faithful are called to trust in the promises of old and to believe that the time and place of their birth were no accident. For faith sees not only that history is meaningful, that it is going someplace, but also understands its own limited role within that history.

~ Louis Markos, On the Shoulders of Hobbits 

{What is “Religion”?}

For still she thought that “Religion” was a kind of exhalation or a cloud of incense, something streaming up from specially gifted souls towards a receptive Heaven.  Then, quite sharply, it occurred to her that the Director never talked about Religion; nor did the Dimbles nor Camilla.  They talked about God.  They had no picture in their minds of some mist streaming upward: rather of strong, skillful hands thrust down to make, and mend, and perhaps even to destroy.  Supposing one were a thing after all—a thing designed and invented by Someone Else and value for qualities quite different from what one had decided to regard as one’s true self?

~ Jane in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength

{Faith, hope, & love}

Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the window that hope has opened.

~ Charles Spurgeon

Have faith this week, friends.

What are your favorite quotes on faith? Did any of these stand out to you or open your eyes to a new aspect of faith? Do tell!