Tag Archives: Lev Grossman

words have power

We are called to be different so we should stand out in both our actions and our words.

Think then talk.

We are called to encourage. I’ve written before about encouragement, and how it means to GIVE courage, and it works the other way too.

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Here’s a quote from “The Magician King” by Lev Grossman that definitely exemplifies this thought. It’s written from the perspective of a broken relationship with low expectations, and is something I never want to cause other people to feel.

Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.

That’s tough.

 

what you want

I’ve been ill the last few days and spent a lot of time lying in bed or on the couch trying to rest as much as possible and get better. And as a result, I’ve been powering through some books.

I re-read “The Magicians” by Lev Grossman, a book primarily about getting what you want, and realising that it wasn’t worth it. It’s an excellent piece of literature, kind of a cross between “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “Harry Potter” for an older adult audience, but the main theme of the book hits too close to home for (and I’m making a huge generalisation here) all of us.

The main character Quentin Coldwater goes through the book moving from one thing to another, and hoping to find his fulfilment in the subsequent season of his life. He doesn’t find it in Brooklyn, so he looks for it in Brakebills. He doesn’t find it there, and he actually doesn’t even find it in Fillory (a once-thought-to-be mythical land much like Narnia).

And I’m reminded (again) of a sermon from Furtick, where he talks about disability and desire.

We all have a disability. A guest speaker at our Church yesterday said, “we all have a limp”. Maybe it’s public, like a problem with temper, or a depression, or maybe it’s a hurt of the heart, but it’s there, and we all face our individual weaknesses. And it’s not just about our disability, but also our desires.

Great things can happen when our desire is greater than our disability.

But the corollary to this is that our desire needs to be for something that’s worth it.

So the challenge I’m faced with again today is, what do I want?