GOD GAVE THE INCREASE Saints are never giants
Who hoped to do God favors.
They are only souls
Whose needs took root
In shallow dust,
Becoming redwoods grown
From dandelion spores.
—Calvin Miller in
A Symphony in Sand
DOWNSIZING GOD
Our evangelical culture tends to take the awesome reality of a transcendent God who is worthy to be feared and downsize Him so He could fit into our "buddy system." The way we talk about Him, the way we pray, and, more strikingly, the way we live shows that we have somehow lost our sense of being appropriately awestruck in the presence of a holy and all-powerful God. It's been a long time since we've heard a good sermon on the "fear of God."
If God were to show up visibly, many of us think we'd run up to Him and high-five Him for the good things He has done.
—Joseph M. Stowell in
Moody (Nov./Dec. 1997)
THE RIGHT KIND OF FEAR
The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.
—Oswald Chambers in
The Highest Good
READING AHEAD
It is a good thing that we are not God; we do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all.
But we do have to know in the very depths of our being that the ultimate end of the story, no matter how many aeons it takes, is going to be all right.
—Madeleine L'Engle in
Glimpses of Grace
THE BIG PICTURE
God's mercy was not increased when Jesus came to earth, it was illustrated! Illustrated in a way we can understand. Jesus knows.
—Eugenia Price in
Share My Pleasant Stones.
SIN'S GOOD NEWS
To deny sin is bad news, indeed. The only good news is sin itself. Sin is the best news there is, the best news there could be in our predicament.
Because with sin, there's a way out. There's the possibility of repentance. You can't repent of confusion or psychological flaws inflicted by your parents—you're stuck with them. But you can repent of sin. Sin and repentance are the only grounds for hope and joy. The grounds for reconciled, joyful relationships. You can be born again.
—John Alexander in
The Other Side (Jan.-Feb. 1993)
THE GREATEST DRAMA EVER STAGED
The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama. That drama is summarized quite clearly in the creeds of the Church, and if we think it dull it is because we either have never really read those amazing documents or have recited them so often and so mechanically as to have lost all sense of their meaning. The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: What think ye of Christ?
—Dorothy Sayers in
Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life
NO PLACE FOR FAITH
At its best, our age is an age of searchers and discoverers. At its worst, it is an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it. The fiction that celebrates this last state will be the least likely to transcend its limitations, since, when the religious need is banished successfully, it usually atrophies, even in the novelist. The sense of mystery vanishes. A kind of reverse evolution takes place. The whole range of feeling is dulled.
—Flannery O'Connor in
Mystery and Manners
FALSE GODS
The soul of the covetous is far removed from God, as far as his memory, understanding and will are concerned. He forgets God as though He were not his God, owing to the fact that he has fashioned for himself a god of Mammon and of temporal possessions.
—Saint John of the Cross in
The Dark Night of the Soul
LOVE IS THE CURE
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick in
Riverside Sermons
PERVERSE PURSUITS
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
The plan would organize UMC churches in four global regions, with each given more leeway around same-sex marriage and other theological issues.
