When Depressed, Discontent and Suicidal, Seek LIFE! Thoughts from George MacDonald

"I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."    John 10:10

Some thoughts from George MacDonald's Life.

"What does the infant need but more life? What does the bosom of his mother give him but life in abundance? What does the old man need, whose limbs are weak and whose pulse is low, but more of the life which seems to be ebbing from him? Weary with feebleness, he calls upon death, but in reality it is life he wants."

"Low-sunk life imagines itself weary of life. But it is death, not life, it is weary of. Why does the poor, worn suicide seek death? Is it not in reality to escape from death- from the death of homelessness and hunger and cold, the death of failure and disappointment and distraction, the death of the exhaustion of passion, the death of crime and fear of discovery, the death of madness- of a household he cannot rule? He seek the darkness because it seems a refuge from the death which possesses him. He is a creature possessed by death. What he calls life is but a dream full of horrible phantasms."

"All things are possible with God, but all things are not easy. I imagine that from the first he has willed and labored to give existence to other creatures who should be blessed with his blessedness... The whole history is a divine agony to give divine life to creatures. The outcome of that agony, the victory of that creative and continually creative energy, will be radiant life.. This life exists for all who will receive it. ...the man to whom God is all and all, who feels his life-roots hid with Christ in God, who knows himself the inheritor of all wealth, worlds, ages, and power- that man has begun to be alive indeed."

"Let us in all the troubles of life remember that our one lack is life, that what we need is more life- more life making presence is us making us more, and more largely, alive. When most oppressed, when most weary of life, as our unbelief would phrase it, let us remind ourselves that it is in truth the inroad and presence of death we are weary of. When most inclined to sleep, let us rouse ourselves to live. Of all things let us avoid the false refuge of a weary collapse, a hopeless yielding to things as they are. It is the life in us that is discontented. We need more of what is discontented, not more of the cause of its discontent. Discontent, I repeat, is the life in us that has not enough of itself. He has the victory who, in the midst of pain and weakness, cries out, not for death or for repose of the forgetfulness, but for the strength to fight, for more power, more consciousness of being, more God in him."

Ref. George MacDonald (Edited by Michael Phillips)- Your Life in Christ: The nature of god and His works in the human heart. Bethany House, 2005.