Grievances Have an Expiration Date.

Grievances don’t make you happy: Sometimes we hold on to grievances because we are afraid that our past was our best chance for happiness. However, you can’t continue to carry a grievance and hope to be happy. To be truly happy, you have to be willing to make love more important than your grievances, your ego, and your past. There comes a time, then when you have to accept that every grievance has an expiration date. By being willing to forgive, you come to see that there is life after a grievance.

— Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 182

Questions

I believe it is not only permissible but a religious obligation to question the existence of God if you are troubled by some of the things you were taught, to question the divine origin of things that are said in God’s name, and then to go on and search for answers to your questions. The only religiously unacceptable response is to reject religion entirely and close your mind to further speculation. I cannot believe that God would bless us with a critical intelligence, with the ability to extend the frontiers of knowledge and understanding when it comes to biology and psychology, and then say to us, “Stop, go no further” when it comes to theology. For me, the alternative to faith is not doubt but despair, the conclusion that we are alone in a cold and unreliable world.

— Harold S. Kushner, Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life, p. 120-121.

Motivating Joy

In the parable of the treasure hidden in a field, Jesus’ purpose was not to explain the gospel in theological terms but rather to emphasize its dramatic effect on the believer. “In his joy,” we read, the man in the story gave up everything he had in exchange for his newfound treasure. He would never have done this for the sake of doubt or guilt, which are poor motivators. Though a man may feel ever so justified for his doubts, and though he may feel ever so virtuous about the load of guilt he carries – for doesn’t this show how well he understands his sinfulness? – still such feelings can never motivate him to live as God wants him to.

To follow and obey God, we need joy. We need to catch a glimpse of the greatest treasure of all – the “inexpressible and glorious joy” (I Peter 1:8) of believing in Christ.

— Mike Mason, Champagne for the Soul, p. 13-14