Nothing Else Will Do

My brother, Matt, shared this with me today. I've already put one passage from George MacDonald on this blog. He was apparently a very sharp guy. C.S. Lewis called him his "master." I love people like MacDonald (and Lewis) whose brilliance does not overshadow their passion for Christ. When you read a poem like this, you know the writer has gotten ahold of the real thing.

The worst power of an evil mood is this—

It makes the bastard self seem in the right,

Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.

But if the Christ-self in us be the might

Of saving God, why should I spend my force

With a dark thing to reason of the light—

Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?

Back still it comes to this: there was a man

Who said, “I am the truth, the life, the way”—

Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?

“Come to the Father but by me none can”:

What then is this?  Am I not also one

Of those who live in fatherless dismay?

I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near.

My Lord I find that nothing else will do,

But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet,

And where I have thee not, still run to meet.

Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,

Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns,

If thou, the Truth, do not make them true:

Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.

--George MacDonald