Consoling Thoughts From Father Faber

There is a source of rest of which it is hard to speak, because words cannot tell it. They only stand for signs, which give some idea of it. It is a rest which comes from the bare thought of God. Sometimes, in a beautiful climate, we come upon a scene which by its surpassing beauty so satisfies the mind, heart, and senses, that we sit entranced, taking it in without understanding it, and resting in the simple enjoyment of the sight. It cannot be analysed or explained. We are taken in the nets of a beauty which masters us, and the sheer thought of it is a joy without thought for hours. This is a poor way of typifying the rest which is in the glorious overshadowing thought of God. It is a self-sufficing rest, not only because He is almighty, all-holy and all-wise, nor because He is our own near and fatherly God, but simply and sheerly because He is God. But in whatever measure God visits us with this sort of light, true it is that such is the normal state of our spiritual life - struggle and fatigue; and not only after these, but also during these, there remaineth a sabbath for the people of God, for they rest in the languors of love here till their rest deepens into His eternal bosom hereafter.