George Matheson Quotes on Suffering, Prayer, Doubt and God's Love
George Matheson lost his sight as a young man and spent the rest of his life writing about light. He's best known for the hymn "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go," but his books of short meditations are full of lines just as memorable. He liked to turn a verse upside down and find a truth on the other side, and he often put that truth in one sentence.
Many Matheson quotes online come without a source. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and meditation it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For his life story, see who was George Matheson. For a guide to all seven books, see George Matheson books.
On suffering and the dark places
This was Matheson's great subject. He believed God's light is found inside the cloud, not after it lifts.
Thy cloud is thy fire-chariot; thy trial is thy triumph.
Moments on the Mount, The Bright Light in the Clouds
The best gift of divine love to thee has been thy pain; it has taught thee what is the difference between being virtuous and being innocent.
Moments on the Mount, The Bright Light in the Clouds
What He searches for in thy heart is not the pain, but the pearl.
Times of Retirement, God's Place for Adversity
The advantage of the fires of sorrow does not lie in the things which they consume, but in the things which they cannot consume.
Times of Retirement, God's Place for Adversity
God sends a cloud, not to arrest, but to stimulate, my progress.
Rests by the River, The Comfort of Religious Depression
I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory.
Moments on the Mount, The Thorn
He does not promise to arrest depression, but He promises that depression shall not arrest thee.
Searchings in the Silence, Permanent Elation
The stone of the sepulchre is not less heavy; but the weight of affliction has become a weight of glory.
Times of Retirement, The Value of Easter Day
We want to see Him glorified, not by His exaltation above the cross, but by His exaltation on the cross.
Studies of the Portrait of Christ, Volume 2, chapter XXIV, Has the Crown Superseded the Cross?
On prayer
Matheson cared about the heart behind a prayer more than its words. He thought joy, and not only need, sends prayer up to God.
Not the word but the wish, not the sound but the sympathy, not the kneeling but the need, makes mine a prayer.
Rests by the River, The Abuse of Religious Faith
Thou hast required the prayer of faith because faith is joy, and joy alone can pray.
Searchings in the Silence, The Accompaniment of Prayer
Lord, do not judge me by what I find, but by what I wish to find!
Rests by the River, The Secret of Reverent Research
The fault in Adam is not that he seeks the apple but that he seeks it from the wrong garden.
Searchings in the Silence, Asking in Christ's Name
Thy cry for God is the voice of God within thee, thy thirst for the heavenly air is the breath of heaven in thy heart.
Moments on the Mount, Life
If I do not taste of God I shall cease to thirst for Him; the Spirit will be quenched.
Voices of the Spirit, The Quenching of the Spirit
On doubt and seeking
He wrote gently about doubt. He believed honest searching is already a kind of prayer.
It is not yet the prayer of faith, but it is the prayer for faith.
Searchings in the Silence, Doubt
To every form of truth the student must come by night; he must accept evidence which is less than demonstration.
The Representative Men of the New Testament, Nicodemus the Instructed
Do not search for Him in the universe, but search the universe through Him.
The Representative Men of the New Testament, Nicodemus the Instructed
The manger will not lead me to the star; but the star can lead me to the manger.
Searchings in the Silence, How to Search for Truth
On sin and temptation
Matheson saw sin clearly, but he always looked at it in the light of the Father's love.
No man can see his sin by looking at it; he can only see it by looking away from it.
Rests by the River, Christ the Revealer of Sin
I never find that I am in rags until my Father brings forth the best robe.
Rests by the River, Christ the Revealer of Sin
I did not know that I did not get my sin from my circumstances, but that I gave my sin to my circumstances.
Moments on the Mount, Temptation
The sorest temptations are not those spoken, but those echoed.
Times of Retirement, Satan's Choice of a Locality
I never choose sin because it looks bad, but because it looks manly.
Times of Retirement, Christian Simplicity
On God in everyday life
He had no patience with a faith kept for Sunday. Christ, he said, is found in the street as much as in the sanctuary.
Say not, I must cease betimes from work that I may worship; thy work must itself be a worship, a rest in God.
Moments on the Mount, Heaven Without a Temple
Say not, I must give one portion of my time to God; thy God claims all thy time — thy heart and soul and strength and mind.
Moments on the Mount, Heaven Without a Temple
Not in the forest but in the forum, not in the solitude but in the street, not in the void but in the vortex, does He find His acceptable year.
Rests by the River, The Change in Religious Aspirations
My soul, do not refuse to see God in the events of thy life because thou canst trace human links between them.
Moments on the Mount, The Supernatural in the Natural
Thou art behind me in my past, Thou art before me in my future, Thou art in contact with me in the pressure of my present hour.
Moments on the Mount, The Omnipresent God
The world is wrong; we are never so natural as when we are Christians.
Times of Retirement, A Groundless Fear of God
On love and losing self
Matheson's hymn is about a love that won't let go. His prose says the same: we find ourselves only when we give ourselves away.
The only ocean in which a man loses himself is self-love; God's love gives him back his life that he may keep it unto life eternal.
Moments on the Mount, The Preservation of Personality in the Christian Life
The truth is, every one of us only begins to live by the act of dying.
Times of Retirement, Self-Surrender
It is not sober precepts that keep me sober; it is high flights of faith, bright visions of hope, deep pulses of love.
Times of Retirement, The Road to a Correct Life
Whatever else I lose, let me never lose my love — the sense that life holds something dear!
The Representative Men of the New Testament, Matthew the Exalted
Christ's is the only religion that spreads a table in the presence of its enemies.
Leaves for Quiet Hours, The Breadth of Christ's Religion
On the lonely and the aging
Matheson never married, and he wrote with great tenderness for those who walk alone or grow old.
Oh Thou who hast consecrated not only the nuptial torch but the want of it, make room for the solitary lives.
Searchings in the Silence, Ties for the Solitary
Memory may fade, fancy may droop, judgment may waver, perception may languish, but the eye of the heart shall grow brighter toward the close.
Moments on the Mount, Vision in Old Age
I am travelling, not to age, but to youth — not from joy to peace, but from peace to joy.
Searchings in the Silence, Childhood at the Last
On the people of the Bible
In his character studies, Matheson could sum up a life in a sentence.
He never would have wrestled at Peniel if he had not dreamed at Bethel.
The Representative Men of the Bible, First Series, Jacob the Aspiring
Christ produces a revolution in every soul with which He comes into contact; and yet in no two cases is the revolution precisely the same.
The Representative Men of the New Testament, Matthew the Exalted
His earliest meeting with Christianity was a meeting not with its cross but with its crown.
The Spiritual Development of St. Paul, Arabia: Autobiographical Reminiscences (Concluded)
The Bible never comments; it paints; it leaves the comment to you and me.
The Representative Women of the Bible, chapter V, Rachel the Placid
Where to read more Matheson
These lines come from eleven of the fifteen Matheson books in the library. If you want to read one first, try Moments on the Mount, a hundred short meditations that each end in prayer. If you're in a season of grief or doubt, Searchings in the Silence was written for you. All his books are on the George Matheson author page.