“God is all right.  Therefore, why should we mind standing in the dark for a minute outside his window?  Of course we miss the inness.  But there is a bliss of its own in waiting.  What if the rain be falling, and the wind blowing?  What if we stand alone, or, more painful still, have some dear one beside us, sharing our outness?  What even if the window be not shining because of the curtains of impenetrable good drawn across it?  Let us think to ourselves, or say to our friend, ‘God is.  Jesus is not dead.  Nothing can be going wrong, however it may look to our hearts that are unfinished in childness.’

“Let us say to the Lord, ‘Jesus areyou loving the Father in there?  Then we out here will do his will, patiently waiting till he open the door.  We shall not mind the wind or the rain much’…

“In a word, let us be at peace, because peace is at the heart of things–peace and utter satisfaction between the Father and the Son — in which peace they call us to share, in which peace they promise that at length, when they have their good way with us, we shall share.”

— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 51