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The Soul of Shame (Curt Thompson, MD)

Ten Takeaways:

“One way to approach [shame’s] essence is to understand it as an undercurrent of sensed emotion, of which we may have either a slight or robust impression that… I am not okay.”

“… shame is not just a consequence of something our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. It is the emotional weapon that evil uses to (1) corrupt our relationships with God and each other, and (2) disintegrate any and all gifts of vocational vision and creativity… Shame is a primary means to prevent us from using the gifts we have been given.”

“And all sin, all idolatry, all coping strategies in which I indulge are ways for me to satiate my hunger for relationship, my longing to be known and loved, my desire to be desired.”

“Long before we are criticising others, the source of that criticism has been planted, fertilized and grown in our own lives, directed at ourselves, and often in ways we are mostly unaware of.”

“Our vulnerability, ultimately to potential abandonment (of which shame is the herald), is simultaneously both the source of all that is broken in our world as well as its redemption.”

“In reality, vulnerability is not something we choose or that is true in a given moment, while the rest of the time it is not. Rather, it is something we are. This is why we wear clothes, live in houses and have speed limits. So much of what we do in life is designed, among other things, to protect us from the fact that we are vulnerable at all times. To be human is to be vulnerable... The question, then, is not if we are or will be vulnerable but rather how and when we inter into it consciously and intentionally for the sake of creating a world of goodness and beauty.”

“[God] is asking us to be as vulnerable as he was in creating us in the first place. He is looking for us because he longs for us to be with him even as he is with us, for us to know his delight with us which is present at all times, even in the presence of other things he may simultaneously feel. He is not asking [Adam and Eve] their whereabouts to acquire their geographic location, nor simply information about the state of their souls. His question is a means of connecting… vulnerability is the state we must pass through in order to deepen our connection with God and others, given our condition. There is no other way.”

“We hear of a God who comes to pitch his tent among ours. A God who in Jesus is not merely with us as a chair is with us, but who sees us, speaks with us, sits at our table for a meal and asks us questions.”

“What emotion coursed through [Jesus] as he revealed these deeply intimate parts of who he saw himself to be? These words were not mere declarations of truth. They were acts of vulnerability, for in his context he opened the door to ridicule, rejection and eventual subjection to tortuous death.”

“To ‘fix our eyes on Jesus’ means watching him and doing what he did. It is to intentionally seek out our shame, expose it and reframe it in light of our Father telling us that we are his daughters and sons in whom he is well-pleased. For this to happen, we must practice embodied acts of imagination that enable all our sensations, images, feelings, thoughts and physical actions to reflect our sense of God’s delight in us… Concretely, this means regularly and intentionally revealing our most hidden shame in the context of those relationships that comprise the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. In this literal embodied act, our whole self is liberated from shame.”

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The Divine Conspiracy (Dallas Willard)

Twenty Takeaways:

“Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of the faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate. Eternity is now in flight and we with it, like it or not.”

“In its deepest nature and meaning our universe is a community of boundless and totally competent love.”

“The obviously well kept secret of the ‘ordinary’ is that it is made to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows.”

“[Jesus] was himself the evidence for the truth of his announcement about the availability of God’s kingdom, or governance, to ordinary human existence.”

“So when Jesus directs us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come’, he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social and political order where it is now excluded: ‘On earth as it is in heaven.’ With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence.”

“What must be emphasised in all of this is the difference between trusting Christ, the real person Jesus, with all that naturally involves, versus trusting some arrangement for sin-remission set up through him – trusting only his role as guilt remover. To truth the real person Jesus is to have confidence in him in every dimension of our real life, to believe that he is right about and adequate to everything.”

“Undoubtedly [God] is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy.”

“With this magnificent God positioned among us, Jesus brings the assurance that our universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.”

“Draw any cultural or social line you wish, and God will find his way beyond it.”

“The condition of life sought for by human beings throughout the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus.”

“When the heart is ready, the action will occur as occasion offers.”

“Our treasure focuses our heart… It is what gives orientation to everything we do.”

“we are always to respect other people as spiritual beings who are responsible before God alone for the course they choose to take of their own free will.”

“We forgive someone of the wrong they have done us when we decide that we will not make them suffer for it in any way.”

“If I am Jesus’ disciple that means I am with him to learn from him how to be like him.”

“We do not drift into discipleship.”

“genuine beliefs are made obvious by what people do… beliefs are the rails upon which our life runs.”

“Very little of our being lies under the direction of our conscious minds, and  very little of our actions runs from our thoughts and consciously chosen intentions. Our mind on its own is an extremely feeble instrument, whose power over life we constantly tend to exaggerate. We are incarnate beings in our very nature, and we live from our bodies. If we are to be transformed, the body must be transformed, and that is not accomplished by talking at it.”

“Intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of scripture on oneself throughout the week, in church or out, will not reorder one’s mind and spirit – just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once and a for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word…. One’s life as a whole had to be arranged in such a way that this would be possible.”

“Events in a human life are like that, and so is a human life as a whole, as well as human life itself. They resemble the opening words in an unfinished sentence, paragraph, chapter or book. In a sense we can identify them and  grasp them, but we cannot know what they mean and really are until we know what comes later.”

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The Signature of Jesus (Brennan Manning)

Ten Takeaways:

“The God of Abraham, who is the God and Father of Jesus Christ, is not a threat. The certainty that he wants us to live, to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life is the basic premise of authentic faith.”

“We are not travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited. We are faith-explorers of a country without borders, one we discover, little by little, not to be a place but a person.”

“Power forces us to change; only love can move us to change. Power affects behaviour; love affects the heart.”

“The conversation of most middle-class Americans, we are told, revolves around consumption: what to buy, what was just bought, where to eat, what to eat, the price of the neighbour’s house, what’s on sale this week, our clothes or someone else’s, the best car on the market this year, where to spend a vacation. Apparently we can’t stop eating, shopping or consuming. Success is measured not in terms of love, wisdom and maturity but by the size of one’s pile of possessions.”

“The experience of not having to judge cannot co-exist with the fear of being judged, and the experience of the non-judgemental love of the crucified Saviour cannot co-exist with a need to judge others.” – Henri Nouwen

“A Christian’s simplicity of life is striking proof that he has found what he seeks, that he has stumbled onto the treasure hidden in the field.”

“Simplicity of life does not depend upon simplicity of environment. The real problem lies within. Outer distractions reflect a lack of inner integration.”

“The church of the Lord Jesus starts to decay when the members who comprise it forfeit their willingness to risk.”

“It is not enough that we behave better; we must come to see reality differently.”

“Praying for others is shedding our blood, spending ourselves without counting the cost in empathy and compassion. It is also sinking into the mind of Jesus, uniting ourselves in his prayer of intercession. We experience the unutterable groans of the Spirit in our own hearts.”

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Deepening the Soul for Justice - Bethany H. Hoang (November - December 2017)

10 Truths to Live By:

“Seeking justice [is] bringing right order and exerting life-giving power to protect the vulnerable.”

“Contrary to what might seem logical, sabbath stopping is not meant primarily to help us “rest up” so that we are ready for the next challenge; it is not meant to be pragmatic toward another end. The resting and stopping of sabbath are intended as being good in and of themselves - complete. They are a declaration of all that has come before as belonging to God, and a declaration that all that is left undone and all that lies ahead also belongs to God. All is from God and for God and by God. Sabbath is a declaration that it is God alone who reigns supreme in this day.”

“Foolish as it seemed, it became clear to me that this command to “stop”, to “rest”, to “cease” from work and to be still is a command that pervades Scripture. Nearly every issue that the Israelites faced - idolatry, murder, coveting, grumbling, lying - could be linked to their root disobedience of not keeping the sabbath and therefore not trusting God above all else… Compelled by Scripture, I decided to trust God and, for a full day each week, stop the flurry of activity that I believed defined who I was and seek to be more intentionally attentive to the reality of who God is… sabbath is an intentional declaration of the reality of God’s reign, of the reality of God’s finished work on our behalf.”

“Prayer in many moments can all too easily feel like an interruption. It feels inefficient and ineffective. Sometimes it might even feel irresponsible in the face of truly urgent matters. And that it exactly why the sabbath rhythm exists. When we least feel that we have time to stop is likely when we most need to do precisely that - stop. Without moments and days of intentional sabbath, I am bound again to the treadmill of what Gary Haugen has called “prayerless striving.””

“If we pursue life in the midst of friends who are also listening intently both to God’s Word and God’s Work in this world, then this community surrounding us will further confirm the convictions we ourselves are discerning. Our daily, intentional openness and pursuit of God will bring the deepening and clarifying of our soul’s conviction that is so necessary for persevering in the work of justice to be done in our world… we need to open ourselves to doing justice in community.”

“Ask God to remove the despair-driven question “But what could I possibly do to make a difference?” and turn this question into an unceasing prayer - a prayer asking God to show you injustice with God’s very own eyes, asking God to let you live from the mind of Christ that is within you, and asking God to bring his glory in greater measure as you step forward in daily obedience to God above all else.”

“Every day, each one of us receives “letters”... we encounter great discouragement in our lives that… threaten to lock down our hearts into deep burden. As we pursue justice as integral to our daily lives, there will be times when we will be tempted to believe that our God does not hear, that our God does not see, that our God is not able to intervene. But as these “letters” come our way, these discouragements that threaten our commitment to seeking justice, even our own disbelief in God’s power or willingness to act, we are invited like Hezekiah to spread all of this out before the Lord.”

“Were we all fools, ignorantly moving past the pain in the eyes of modern day slaves as we sang of God’s goodness and blessings? Or were we beginning to engage in an act of protest, a community act of opposition to the oppression we were seeing?”

“The entirety of Scripture emphasises that true worship, by definition, must always have us thinking about our neighbours in need, just as loving our neighbour should always flow out of our worship. Justice is always connected to worship, because both worship and justice are about the right ordering of the world.”

“Worship - the declaration of who God is over and against any reality that would vie to mock God’s reign - this was the power for… countless others across the ages, to keep seeking their God against the greatest obstacles, and it will be our power as well.”

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Deepening-Soul-for-Justice-Bethany-H-Hoang/9780830834631

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When Sinners Say “I Do”: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage - Dave Harvey (February - April 2018)

10 Truths to Live By:

“What we believe about God determines the quality of our marriage… How a husband and wife build their marriage day-by-day and year-by-year is fundamentally shaped by their theology.”

“Although we have been blessed by God, sin would have us think of ourselves as victimised by God. That’s how sin works now. That’s how it worked “in the beginning.”... Through its gentle coaxing, sin delivered the first couple - just like it delivers us - to an utterly insane conclusion: that the God who made us and holds every breath and every moment is not to be trusted!”

“Scripture does not give me permission to make the sins of my spouse my first priority. I need to slow down, exercise the humility of self-suspicion, and inspect my own heart first.”

“Have you ever considered why there are no accounts of Jesus slamming a door in angry frustration or inflicting the “silent treatment” on someone who hurt him? Why didn’t Jesus get irritated or bitter or hostile? The simple but astounding answer is that when his engine was heated by circumstances, what was in his heart came out: love, mercy, compassion, kindness. Christ didn’t respond sinfully to the circumstances in his life - even an undeserved, humiliating, torturous death - because the engine of his heart was pure. What was in his heart spilled over. It was love.”

“According to Scripture, the source of angry words, unforgiving looks, and cold shoulders is not unmet needs. It’s unsatisfied desires… It’s not wrong to desire appropriate things like respect or affection from our spouses. But it is very tempting to justify demands by thinking of them as needs and then to punish one another if those needs are not satisfied.”

“Mercy changes the flavour of our relationships. Mercy sweetens the bitterness out of relationships - especially marriage… Deep, profound differences are the reality of every marriage. It’s not the presence of differences but the absence of mercy that makes them irreconcilable.”

“Kindnesses sown into the normal routine of life… are the grace moments that we draw on in times of trial.”

“Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit… We begin by mentally assigning a motive to the crime of our defendant-spouse. In a flash of mere moments we usher in the internal jury, present the case, and instantly get back a most unsurprising verdict: “Guilty.” Of the actual defendant no questions have been asked, no opportunity for testimony has been given, and no review of the circumstances provided.”

“The people we love need to know we are more confident in God’s ability to break through than in sin’s ability to deceive.”

“Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half so persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way.” - Cornelius Plantiga

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/When-Sinners-Say-I-Do-Dave-Harvey/9780976758266

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Why You Do the Things You Do - Dr. Tim Clinton & Dr Gary Sibcy (December 2017 - March 2018)

10 Truths to Live By:

“Are you really there for me? Can I count on you? Do you really care about me? Am I worthy of your love and protection? What do I have to do to get your attention, your affection, your heart? … Our answers to these questions significantly impact why we do the things we do in our relationships.”

“But for those of us who have been taught that our emotional needs are not legitimate - that to feel upset, to feel hurt, and to feel helpless are signs of weakness - the message of God’s everlasting love is a difficult one to accept. Some people can accept that truth on a rational, cognitive level, but emotionally they feel otherwise. To make matters worse, these people too often believe that if they don’t emotionally feel accepted by God, if they doubt His loving-kindness and benevolence, then they should question their salvation… Those with an ambivalent relationship style tended to doubt their salvation very frequently, wondering if they had really said the right thing to God when they were saved or if they had somehow committed the unpardonable sin.”

“Interactions… during a child’s first several years of life… lay the groundwork for how children respond to God in the future. These interactions with Mom answer questions like is God present? Is He accessible? Will He welcome us into His lap for comfort, or will He trivialise the pain and send us with a bony, accusing finger from His throne room? Is God trustworthy and dependable?”

“We understand from our earliest childhood experiences that our greatest fear is separation - being left alone, left at the mercy of the surrounding, hostile elements. As we mature and become more self-reliant, that ever-present fear of being left alone morphs into the fear of death. One of Jesus’ chief resurrection goals was to free us from the fear of death and provide us with a place of refuge. So He hands us the keys to heaven where we will serve Him forever in the halls of His love. That’s ultimate security.”

“People who constantly have the gas pedal to the floor are doomed to be godless.”

“The rationale for this discipline [secrecy of good works] is to help us “lose or tame the hunger for fame, justification, or just the mere attention of others.” As we practice this discipline, we learn to focus on what’s above, not the adoration of man, and even to accept misunderstanding without the loss of the true peace, joy and purpose we get solely from God, through Jesus.”

“Paul told the Thessalonians, “Pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)... the admonition refers to a state of mind where we constantly talk with God about our ideas, thoughts, feelings and concerns… We filter everything through his perspective… Another dimension to the discipline of simple prayer is that we look for God’s presence, His comfort, and His security in the nooks and crannies of our lives. And as we talk to Him and include Him constantly in our consciousness, we come to Him as we are, not as we think we should be, believing that He can, and will, meet us where we are.”

“When we meditate we learn to listen to God, to discern that still, small voice that directs us and comforts our souls.”

“Those who totally restrict their emotions can’t just choose from the gut; they get caught up in endless cycles of pondering the pros and cons.”

“It follows that when we disavow our raw emotions, we deny that Christ is powerful enough to help us deal with them honestly, and our denial pushes Him away. If we push Him away enough, we come to experience Him as a distant, uninvolved, even uncaring Engineer of the universe. We become emotional atheists, denying the reality of God’s ability to touch our hearts and heal our deepest wounds.”

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Why-You-Do-Things-You-Do-Tim-Clinton/9781591454205

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Somewhat ironically, perhaps, all of the “spiritual” disciplines are, or essentially involve, bodily behaviours… For the body is the first field of energy beyond our thoughts that we have direction over, and all else we influence is due to our power over it. Moreover, it is the chief repository of the wrong habits that we must set aside, as well as the place where new habits are to be instituted… The main task [of spiritual disciplines] is, by engaging in ways of using the body differently, to disrupt and conquer habits of thought, feeling, and action that govern our lives as if we or someone other than God were God and as if his kingdom were irrelevant or inaccessible to us… [and so] to make our body a reliable ally and resource for the spiritual life. From the stage of early discipleship, where “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” we increasingly pass to the stages where the flesh - think of that as what we more or less automatically feel, think, and do - is with the spirit and supportive of its deepest intentions.

The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard

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Prayer: Communing With God in Everything – collected insights from A. W. Tozer (Compiled by W. L. Seaver) (October-December 2017)

10 Truths to Live By:

“When the Holy Spirit comes He takes the things of God and translates them into language our hearts can understand.” –The Counselor (2009)

“All else being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives.” - The Root of the Righteous (1955)

“Long practice in the art of mental prayer (that is, talking to God inwardly as we work or travel) will help to form the habit of holy thought.” - Born After Midnight (1959)

“The prayer of faith engages the heart of God.” - Tragedy in the Church (1990)

“We must never forget that the highest kind of prayer is never the making of requests. Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God to a place of such blessed union as to make miracles seem tame and remarkable answers to prayer appear something far short of wonderful by comparison.” - The Set of the Sail (1986)

“Faith is only genuine as it eventuates into prayer.” - The Set of the Sail (1986)

“When Tennyson wrote, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” he probably uttered a truth of vaster significance than even he understood. While it is not always possible to trace an act of God to its prayer-cause, it is yet safe to say that prayer is in back of everything that God does for the sons of men here upon earth. One would father as much from a simple reading of the Scriptures. What profit is there in prayer? “Much every way.” Whatever God can do faith can do, and whatever faith can do prayer can do when it is offered in faith. An invitation to prayer is, therefore, an invitation to omnipotence, for prayer engages the omnipotent God and brings Him into our human affairs. Nothing is impossible to the man who prays in faith, just as nothing is impossible with God. This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women.” - The Set of the Sail (1986)

“Whatever a dreamy idealism may say, we are forced to deal with things down on the level of practical reality. If when we come to prayer our hearts feel dull and unspiritual, we should not try to argue ourselves out of it. Rather, we should admit it frankly and pray our way through… We cannot afford to stop praying until we have actually prayed.” - The World: Playground or Battlefield? (1989)

“Let us not be afraid to take that cross ourselves and trust God to provide the crown in His own time. Why should so many in our day try to short-circuit their spiritual lives by eliminating the cross in route to the crown?” - edited sermon, Southwest Alliance Church, Chicago

“Now this is what I want to emphasize and lay upon your conscience that you practice anticipatory prayer because battles are lost before they are fought… Back in the Old Testament times you would find that when Israel went in righteous and prayed up, she never lost a battle. But when she went in filled with iniquity and prayerlessness, she never won a battle… It was true of the disciples here in Gethsemane. They didn’t lose in the morning when one of them cursed and said he was not a disciple. When even John, who loved Him, forsook Him and fled and every disciple sneaked away and melted into the night, that was not when the collapse came. The collapse had started the night before when, tired and weary, [three of the disciples] lay down and slept instead of listening to the voice of their Saviour and staying awake to pray. If they had stake awake and prayed alongside Him and hard His groans and seen His bloody sweat, it might’ve changed the history of the world, and certainly it would’ve changed their history.” - edited sermon, presented on June 9, 1957, at Southwest Alliance Church, Chicago

Find out more at: https://www.koorong.com/search/product/prayer-communing-with-god-in-everything-aw-tozer/9780802413819.jhtml

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God’s Smuggler – Brother Andrew with John and Elizabeth Sherill (October 2017)

10 Truths to Live By:

 “The real purpose of this training’, Mr Dinnen told me, ‘is to teach our students that they can trust God to do what He has said He would do… They cannot be effective if they are afraid, or if they doubt that God really means what He says in His word.’

‘If I were going to give my life as a servant of the King, I had to know that King. what was He like? In what way could I trust Him? In the same way I trusted a set of impersonal laws? Or could I trust Him as a living leader, as a very present commander in battle? The question was central. Because if He were a King in name only, I would rather go back to [working in] the chocolate factory. I would remain a Christian, but I would know that my religion was only a set of principles, excellent and to be followed, but hardly demanding devotion. Suppose on the other hand that I were to discover God to be a Person, in the sense that He communicated and care and loved and led. That was something quite different. That was the kind of King I would follow into any battle.’

“But how would I go about strengthening anything?’ I said. ‘what kind of strength do I have?’ Mr Whestra shook his head. He agreed with me that one lone Dutchman was scarcely an answer to the kind of need I had been describing. It was Mrs Whestra who understood. ‘No strength at all!’ she answered me joyously. ‘And don’t you know that it is just when we are weakest that God can use us most? Suppose now that it wasn’t you but the Holy Spirit who had plans behind the Iron Curtain? You talk about strength…’’

‘A missionary church is an alive church’

‘How faithful God is, how utterly trustworthy, how good beyond imagining! He asks for so little in order to give us so much.’

‘A group is the right size, I would guess, when each member can pray every day for every other member, individually and by name, interceding for his personal needs as well as for the success of a particular mission.’

‘Surely this is what God has had in mind all along, that the brave remnant of His church scattered through many lands gain strength through coming together, and lose their own fears in reaching out to help one another.’

‘Our mission is called Open Doors because we believe no doors are closed to the gospel.’

‘The best thing we can do for Israel is to win her enemies to Christ. How do you do that? First you need to become friends. You can never win an enemy to Christ. As long as we see any person as an enemy, whether they be Communist, Muslim, or terrorist, then the love of God cannot flow through us to reach them.’

‘For the most part I feel Christians are afraid and therefore on the defensive. God did not call us to defend ourselves or our Church or Christianity in general. He calls us to be on the offensive. From Matthew 28, Jesus says go therefore, aggressively, and make all nations my disciples – that includes all the ethnic minorities and majorities. In other words, we must do everything possible to reach people and advance the cause of the gospel. The very first generation of Christians did just that. That’s why they were unbeatable!’

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Gods-Smuggler-John-Sherrill-Brother-Andrew-Elizabeth-Sherill/9780340964927?ref=grid-view&qid=1512719649309&sr=1-1

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The Return of the Prodigal Son - Henri J. M. Nouwen (August – September 2017)

10 Truths To Live By:

“Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: “You are my Beloved, on you my favour rests” – the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear. As the Beloved of my heavenly Father, “I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear.” As the Beloved, I can “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.” Having “received without charge,” I can “give without charge.” As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved, I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved, I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved, I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.”

“As long as I keep running about asking: “Do you love me? Do you really love me?” I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with “ifs.”… The world’s love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain “hooked” to the world – trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.”

“The eternal Son became a child so that I might become a child again and so re-enter with him into the Kingdom of the Father… I am touching here the mystery that Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake. He left the house of his heavenly Father, came to a foreign country, gave away all that he had, and returned through his cross to his fathers home. All of this he did, not as a rebellious son, but as an obedient son, sent out to bring home all the lost children of God. Jesus, who told the story to those who criticized him for associating with sinners, himself lived the long and painful journey that he describes… Jesus is the prodigal son of the prodigal Father who gave away everything the Father had entrusted to him so that I could become like him and return with him to his Father’s home.”

“The parable that Rembrandt painted might well be called “The Parable of the Lost Sons.” Not only did the younger son, who left home to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country, get lost, but the one who stayed home also became a lost man. Exteriorly he did all the things a good son is supposed to do, but, interiorly, he wandered away from his father. He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled all his obligations but became increasingly unhappy and unfree… obedience and duty have become a burden, and service has become slavery… The more I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realise how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is and how hard it is to return home from there. Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being. My resentment is not something that can be easily distinguished and dealt with rationally.”

“Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for the conversion of the elder son… Without trust, I cannot let myself be found. Trust is that deep inner conviction that the Father wants me home. As long as I doubt that I am worth finding and put myself down as loved less than my younger brothers and sisters, I cannot be found. I have to keep saying to myself, “God is looking for you. He will go anywhere to find you. He loves you, he wants you home, he cannot rest unless he has you with him.”… Along with trust there must be gratitude – the opposite of resentment… There is always a choice between resentment and gratitude because God has appeared in my darkness, urged me to come home, and declared in a voice filled with affection: “You are with me always, and all I have is yours.” Indeed, I can choose to dwell in the darkness in which I stand, point to those who are seemingly better off than I, lament about the many misfortunes that have plagued me in the past, and thereby wrap myself up in my resentment. But I don’t have to do this. There is the option to look into the eyes of the One who came out to search for me and see therein that all I am and all I have is pure gift calling for gratitude.”

“In a world that constantly compares people, ranking them as more or less intelligent, more or less attractive, more or less successful, it is not easy to really believe in a love that does not do the same. When I hear someone praised, it is hard not to think of myself as less praiseworthy; when I read about the goodness and kindness of other people, it is hard not to wonder whether I myself am as good and kind as they; and when I see trophies, rewards and prizes being handed out to special people, I cannot avoid asking myself why that didn’t happen to me. The world in which I have grown up is a world so full of grades, scores, and statistics that, consciously or unconsciously, I always try to take my measure against all the others. Much sadness and gladness in my life flows directly from my comparing, and most, if not all, of this comparing is useless and a terrible waste of time and energy. Our God, who is both Father and Mother to us, does not compare.”

“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home. In all three parables which Jesus tells in response to the question of why he eats with sinners, he puts the emphasis on God’s initiative. God is the shepherd who goes looking for his lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost coin until she has found it. God is the Father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home… God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects his children to come to him, apologize for their aberrant behaviour, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them. I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.”

“God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found. What I am called to is to enter into that joy… I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand…. Joy has [always] been the mark of the people of God.”

“All I had learned about the Father’s love had not fully enabled me to let go of an authority above me who had power over me and would use it according to his will. Somehow, God’s love for me was limited by my fear of God’s power, and it seemed wise to keep a careful distance even though the desire for closeness was immense. I know that I share this experience with countless others. I have seen how the fear of becoming subject to God’s revenge and punishment has paralyzed the mental and emotional lives of many people, independently of their age, religion or lifestyle. This paralyzing fear of God is one of the great human tragedies.”

“Still… the truth is that, in a spiritual sense, the one who has offended me belongs to my “kin”, my “gen.”… This term, from the Latin genus and the Greek genos, refers to our being of one kind. Generosity is a giving that comes from the knowledge of that intimate bond. True generosity is acting on the truth – not on the feeling – that those I am asked to forgive are “kinfolk,” and belong to my family. And whenever I act this way, the truth will become more visible to me. Generosity creates the family it believes in.”

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son-Henri-J-M-Nouwen/9780232520781?ref=grid-view&qid=1506291361616&sr=1-2

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Being the “best you can be” is really only possible when you are deeply connected to another. Splendid isolation is for planets, not people.

Sue Johnson, Love Sense

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The Irresistible Revolution – Shane Claiborne (June-August 2017)

10 Truths to Live By:

“I came to realise that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren’t giving me anything to pick up. A lot of us were hearing “don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t sleep around” and naturally started asking, “Okay, well, that was pretty much my life, so what do I do now?” Where were the do’s? And nobody seemed to have much to offer us. Handing out tracts at the mall just didn’t seem like the fullness of Christian discipleship, not to mention it just wasn’t as fun as making out at the movies… People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live… I remain convinced to this day that if we continue to lose young people in the church, it won’t be because we made the gospel too hard but because we made it too easy. We will lose them not because the foosball table was broken or we didn’t have the latest Xbox game in the youth room but because we didn’t dare them to take Jesus seriously and connect the gospel to the world we live in.”

“But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus’ love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers. And the incredible thing about that love is that it now lives inside of us… Christ is living inside of you and me, walking the earth. We shall do even greater things because the love that lived in the radical Christ now lives within millions of ordinary radicals all over the planet.”

“Community is what we are created for. We are made in the image of a God who is community, a plurality of oneness. When the first human was made, things were not good until there were two, helping one another. The biblical story is the story of community, from beginning to end.”

“As we consider what it means to be “born again”, as the evangelical jargon goes, we must ask what it means to be born again into a family in which our brothers and sisters are starving to death… Redistribution is not a prescription for community. Redistribution is a description of what happens when people fall in love with each other across class lines.”

“Afterward, they explained to me that that pulpits are not for political messages. I thought about what would have happened if Reverend King hadn’t allowed the gospel to get political… Anything involving humans living together purposefully is political, a polis. As the people of God, we are building a new society in the shell of the old, a new polis, the New Jerusalem, the city of God. This is essentially a political act. Without a doubt, envisioning the radical countercultural values of God’s kingdom is by its essence political. Imagine the Gospels with every mention of king, kingdom, Lord, Savior, crowns, banners, and thrones (all words from the imperial lexicon) all edited out. A gospel that is not political is no gospel at all. The root of the word allegiance means “Lord”: that’s exactly what the early Christians were executed for, for pledging an allegiance to another kingdom, another Lord – treason.”

“Whenever someone tells me they have rejected God, I say, “Tell me about the God you’ve rejected.” And as they describe a God of condemnation, of laws and lightning bolts, of frowning gray-haired people and boring meetings, I usually confess, “I too have rejected that God.””

“We need more of the prophetic imagination that can interrupt violence and oppression. The biblical prophets are always doing bizarre things to get folks to listen to God. Moses turns a staff into a snake. Elijah hits a rick and fire comes out of it, and he brings fire down on an altar (pyro). Jeremiah wears a yoke to symbolize imperial captivity. (He’s eventually arrested.) Ezekiel eats a scroll. Hosea marries a prostitute and stays faithful to her to show God’s love for Israel. John the Baptizer eats locusts and makes clothes out of camel skin. Jesus pulls money out of a fish’s mouth, flips over tables in the temple, and rides a donkey into Passover… We are disarmed by a gentle revolution.”

“And I think that’s what our world is desperately in need of – lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about. We are trying to raise up an army not simply of street activists but of lovers – a community of people who have fallen desperately in love with God and with suffering people, and who allow those relationships to disturb and transform them… Our big visions for multiculturalism and reconciliation will make their way into the church only when they are first lived out in real relationships, out of our homes and around our dinner tables and in our living rooms.”

“It raises a question: when Babylon falls, will we be weeping with the merchants and the kings, or rejoicing with the angels?”

“I think that is why Jesus said the most important thing in the world is this: Love God and love your neighbor. It’s one thing. They cannot be separated. Like two sides of a coin. Or two blades of the scissors – they only work together… One of the problems, as I look at history, is that not only have we putted things against each other that were never meant to be at odds, but we also end up overcorrecting when we’ve gone astray. When folks talk about the “social” gospel and the “evangelical” gospel, you see this. We end up emphasizing one thing at the expense of another. That is what most heresies were – focusing on one truth at the cost of neglecting other truths. It’s sort of like someone driving a car and running off the right side of the road, and then yanking the wheel so hard they run off the left side of the road. So let’s not be reactionary. Let’s refuse to create false dichotomies, and instead let’s say yes to the whole gospel. And the whole gospel is about loving God and loving people. It is about heaven and about earth. It is about saving souls and feeding bellies.”

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Irresistible-Revolution/9780310266303

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The way of being with another person which is termed empathic has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever, that he/she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his/her life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he/she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which the person is totally unaware, since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensings of his/her world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which the individual is fearful. It means frequently checking with him/her as to the accuracy of your sensing, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a confident companion to the person in his/her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his/her experience you help the person to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing.

Carl Rogers

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How sad that we fail to realise where true strength lies - the courage to claw one's way out of the pit. A recent survivor of cancer alleged that strength lies not in the ability to stand up to anything, but the capacity to crawl on your belly a long, long way until you can stand up again.

Paula Davis, ‘The Broken Strong’

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Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.

old Scandinavian saying

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The Four Loves – C. S. Lewis (June 2017)

10 Truths to Live By:

“Our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions.”

“But the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift… Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication.”

“We have seen only one such [natural, unfallen] Man. And He was not at all like the psychologist’s picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen.”

“Friendship exhibits a glorious ‘nearness by resemblance’ to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share in the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.”

“Every civilized religion began in a small group of friends. Mathematics effectively began when a few Greek friends got together to talk about numbers and lines and angles. What is now the Royal Society was originally a few gentlemen meeting in their spare time to discuss things which they (and not many others) had a fancy for. What we now call ‘the Romantic Movement’ once was Mr Worsdworth and Mr Coleridge talking incessantly (at least Mr Coleridge was) about a secret vision of their own. Communism, Tractarianism, Methodism, the movement against slavery, the Reformation, the Renaissance, might perhaps be said, without much exaggeration, to have begun in the same way… The little knots of Friends who turn their backs on the ‘World’ are those who really transform it.”

“If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less.”

“It is probably impossible to love any human being simply ‘too much’. We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinancy. But even this must be refined upon. Otherwise we shall trouble some who are very much on the right road but alarmed because they cannot feel towards God so warm a sensible emotion as they feel for the earthly Beloved. It is much to be wished – at least I think so – that we all, at times, could. We must pray that this gift should be given us. But the question whether we are loving God or the earthly Beloved ‘more’ is not, so far as concerns our Christian duty, a question about the comparative intensity of two feelings. The real question is, which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, or choose, or put first? To which claim does your will, in the last resort, yield?”

“In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give… God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them… God is a ‘host’ who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and ‘take advantage of’ Him. Herein is love.”

“For this tangled absurdity of a Need, even a Need-love, which never fully acknowledges its own neediness, Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence…. The consequences of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom, power, or worth, are real freedom, power and worth, really ours just because God gives them and because we know them to be (in another sense) not ‘ours’.”

“We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love.”

Find out more at: https://www.bookdepository.com/Four-Loves-C-S-Lewis/9780156329309