God Is Not Mean.

God, Gratitude, Joy, Life 0

Today, though, I choose to worship a God whose justice is beyond my understanding in all particulars but this one that my children have taught me:  God is not mean.

God gave me a husband who loves me and children who are not horribly sick and a job I like and a mother-in-law who passes on her cars to us for their bluebook prices and, two Sundays ago, eight newborn Labrador puppies who are just now opening their eyes….  God hears my prayers and answers them in my best interest, every one of them, although I sometimes don’t recognize that he has or agree with him about what my best interest might be….

God is not mean.  He chose me, despite my own frequent meanness.  He chose me when there were better people.  Better mothers.  Better writers.  Better Christians.  Better cooks, probably.  There are so many others that he could have chosen, others that I hope he will choose, every one of them.  And after he chose me he has kept on choosing me:  rewarding me, reassuring me, burying me in blessings.

Our God, I have learned from my daughters, is the God of promises — promises of healing and happiness and all good things — for those who look forward to their own fulfillment.  Promises available not only in the Word of God but in all creation, in newborn puppies with their eyes still closed and ditches and frothed milk and silly games.  In children.  In our ability to imagine heaven.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 229-232

Opportunities for God to Love Me

God, Life 0

And so, I believe I’m wrong to expect disasters, which isn’t to say they won’t happen.  But if they do, they won’t be payback, but rather — I try to believe this — new opportunities for God to show his very particular love for me.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 226

A Perfect Parent

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Most of all, though, I need what I never realized I had all along:  a perfect Parent in addition to my fallible earthly ones.  A Father who honors me and loves me, despite my failings, and takes my troubles seriously.  A Father entirely worthy of my honor.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 195

God Doesn’t Dwell on our Errors.

Forgiveness, God, Healing 0

When Jesus spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul had just helped murder Stephen and possibly many other Christians.  But Jesus merely said to Paul that the way he had chosen was difficult, and to follow him instead.  Jesus didn’t discuss Paul’s mistakes.  Nor did the father of the prodigal son discuss his boy’s “sins against heaven.”  God doesn’t dwell on our errors.  Do we know better than God what to think about?  All any mistake requires is correction.

— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 138

Even If Not

Forgiveness, God, Trials, Trust 0

He knows your heart, dear one.  He has not left you alone.  And by trusting in His sovereign wisdom, goodness, and love, you, too, may one day see the sweet restoration of everything you’ve prayed for.

But even if not, you will have found a refuge in His will and in His care — a blessed place that is reached only by those who trust His heart — and keep trusting it even when the darkness closes in around them.

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Forgiveness, p. 165

True Safety

God, Trust 0

Our distress over money doesn’t come so much from a lack of it as from our belief that it can protect us.  And yet, no bank account can be fat enough nor health potion strong enough to protect anyone.  The world is a place of fear and danger.  You can feel safe, but only in God.  As our place in God’s heart dawns on us, we see money as one of the world’s more amusing preoccupations, and we become more generous with the little of it we have.

— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 25

God loves to forgive.

Forgiveness, God 0

Jesus invites us to pray:  “Forgive us our debts.”  He teaches us in this way because he knows how very much God loves to forgive.  It is the one thing he yearns to do, aches to do, rushes to do.  At the very heart of the universe is God’s desire to give and to forgive.

— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 186

Overwhelmed

God, Trials, Trust 0

First Corinthians 10:13 is certainly a promise — but it isn’t talking about trials.  It’s talking about temptation.  The promise is that God will always, always give you the power to say no to sin.  But when it comes to heartaches, physical problems, and disappointments — things out of your control, difficult circumstances suddenly thrust upon you — you may very well be overwhelmed beyond what you can bear.  There is a kind of suffering that rips your world apart and leaves you bewildered and wounded.  There are trials that overwhelm.

I drew a deep breath, showing my friend the context of the promise — and her brow furrowed.  “But take heart,” I told her.  “It’s when we are at the end of our strength . . . that’s when we fall helplessly into the everlasting arms of God.  That’s when God floods our hearts with sustaining grace.”

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, January 31 entry

Give Us Our Daily Bread.

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When we think about it for a moment, though, we realize that this prayer is completely consistent with Jesus’ pattern of living, for he occupied himself with the trivialities of humankind.  He provided wine for those who were celebrating, food for those who were hungry, rest for those who were weary (John 2:1-12; 6:1-14; Mark 6:31).  He went out of his way to find the “little people”:  the poor, the sick, the powerless.  So it is fully in order that he invites us to pray for daily bread.

In doing so Jesus has transfigured the trivialities of everyday life.  Try to imagine what our prayer experience would be like if he had forbidden us to ask for the little things.  What if the only things we were allowed to talk about were the weighty matters, the important things, the profound issues?  We would be orphaned in the cosmos, cold, and terribly alone.  But the opposite is true:  he welcomes us with our 1,001 trifles, for they are each important to him.

— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 185

He Likes to be Asked.

God, Prayer 0

Do you know why the mighty God of the universe chooses to answer prayer?  It is because his children ask.  God delights in our asking.  He is pleased at our asking.  His heart is warmed by our asking….

We like our children to ask us for things that we already know they need because the very asking enhances and deepens the relationship….

Be encouraged that God desires authentic dialogue, and that as we speak what is on our hearts, we are sharing real information that God is deeply interested in….

Here we must see the Abba heart of God.  In one important sense nothing is more important to him that the anxiety we feel over the surgery we must face tomorrow and the exasperation we feel today over our child’s irresponsibility and the desperation we feel over the plight of our aging parents.  These are matters of great magnitude to him because they are matters of great magnitude to us.  It is a false humility to stand back and not share our deepest needs.  His heart is wounded by our reticence.  Just as we long for our own children to share with us the petty details of their day at school, so God longs to hear from us the smallest matters of our lives.  It delights him when we share.

–Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 179-181