God Is Nearer than We Can Express
Title page of Diary of an Old Soul
Today's Devotional
What can there be so close as making and made?
Nought twinned can be so near; thou art more nigh
To me, my God, than is this thinking I
To that I mean when I by me is said;
Thou art more near me, than is my ready will
Near to my love, though both one place do fill;—
Yet, till we are one,—Ah me! the long until!
About the author and the source
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) considered George MacDonald (1824–1905) his master and read MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul as a devotional. The Diary consists of 365 stanzas directed to God, one for each day of the year. Above is the stanza for April 28. It conveys MacDonald’s often-expressed longing for more of God. For more on MacDonald, see Christian History 86, George MacDonald, and Christian History 113, Seven Literary Sages.
George MacDonald. Diary of an Old Soul. London, 1860.