Let the winds blow We cannot be established except by suffering. It is of no use our hoping that we shall be well-rooted if no March winds have passed over us. The young oak cannot be expected to strike its roots so deep as the old one. Those old gnarlings on the roots, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of many storms that have swept over the aged tree. But they are also indicators of the depths into which the roots have dived.-Charles Haddon Spurgeon in “A New-Year’s Benediction” (War Cry, Jan. 1, 1994)
So number your days He that would pass the latter part of his life with honor and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.
-Samuel Johnson in The Rambler
Necessary follow-up After a Christmas comes a Lent.
-John Ray inEnglish Proverbs
God with us—year ’round [My husband] came back down from the attic for another load of decorations. “Haven’t you finished packing up the manger?” he asked.
“I think we’ll just leave it out this year,” I answered. “Sometimes the world seems out of control and Christmas seems very far away. When it does, we can look at the mantel and remember that God is with us and that He’ll make good on His promise of peace.”
–Isabel Wolseley inDaily Guideposts, 1997
I am as I am Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another man, for as you are, you are.
–Thomas a Kempis inThe Imitation of Christ
Who am I? Behind much of the rat-race of modern life is the unexamined assumption that what I do determines who I am. In this way, we define ourselves by what we do, rather than by any quality of what we are inside. It is typical in a party for one stranger to approach another with the question “What do you do?” Perhaps we wouldn’t have a clue how to reply to the deeper question, “Who are you?”
-James Houston inThe Transforming Power of Prayer
Not weighed The repeated promises in the Qur’an of the forgiveness of a compassionate and merciful Allah are all made to the meritorious, whose merits have been weighed in Allah’s scales, whereas the gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.
-John Stott inAuthentic Christianity
“Success” beats integrity America’s integrity dilemma: we are all full of fine talk about how desperately our society needs it, but, when push comes to shove, we would just as soon be on the winning side.
-Stephen L. Carter inIntegrity
Bored with a boring God? I do not know why so much of mainline Protestantism has become a joyless religion. Perhaps we are more impressed by the problems of the world than by the power of God. Perhaps we have become so secular that we indeed think that now everything depends on us; that surely ought to make us depressed. Perhaps we have simply gotten bored with a boring God whom we substituted for the God of the Bible. We sometimes sing the Doxology as if it were a dirge. Even the Eucharist, despite the words of the Great Thanksgiving, is rarely the thankful, joyous foretaste of the Great Banquet with the One who triumphed over Death, but mostly a mournful occasion for introspection. A joyless Christianity is as clear a sign that something is amiss as a dirty church.
-Leander Keck inThe Church Confident
Misspent independence European democracy was originally imbued with a sense of Christian responsibility and self-discipline, but these spiritual principles have been gradually losing their force. Spiritual independence is being pressured on all sides by the dictatorship of self-satisfied vulgarity, of the latest fads, and of group interests.
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn inFrom Under the Rubble
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