God Can Redeem Anything.

God, Guidance, Healing, Marriage 0

Our experience has taught us that God can redeem anything, so we never give up on anyone….

What we wanted to do with this book was offer hope for marriages through a paradigm shift. It comes from taking a different perspective — getting your eyes off yourself and putting them on the Lord.

We have a passionate desire to see marriages changed, made whole, and restored. Our prayer is that more and more marriages will epitomize God’s plan, not society’s. Although the world seems to hold virtually no hope for marriages and families being restored, we want to spread the word that “by his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope” (Ephesians 3:20, NLT). It is possible for a marriage to be made brand-new!

If you can trust God to show you the bigger picture of your marriage, he will do it. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” In other words, he will direct you and make it clear where you are to go.

— Cheryl & Jeff Scruggs, I Do Again, p. 178, 183

Walking With God

God, Guidance, Life, Obedience 0

From the Spirit come both wisdom and revelation. We need them both to walk with God, need them in generous doses to navigate the dangerous waters of this world. If you’re the sort of person who tends to lean toward revelation (just asking God for direct guidance), then you need to balance your approach with wisdom. If you lean toward a wisdom approach to life, you must deliberately and consciously include revelation. Ask God….

Knowing that, we need to admit that risk is always involved when we encourage others to walk with God. People have done a lot of really stupid things in the name of following Jesus. For that reason there are folks in the church who don’t want to encourage this sort of risk, this “walking with God.” Over the centuries they have tried to eliminate the messiness of personal relationship with Jesus by instituting rules, programs, formulas, methods, and procedures. Those things may have eliminated some of the goofy things that happen when people are encouraged to follow God for themselves. But they also eliminated the very intimacy God calls us to.

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 204

What Will Happen

Guidance, Obedience 0

“To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan.  “No.  Nobody is ever told that.”

“Oh dear,” said Lucy.

“But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan.  “If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me — what will happen?  There is only one way of finding out.”

— C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, p. 142-143

My Ability to Hear from God

God, Guidance, Life 0

We don’t know on any given day all that’s playing into why we can’t seem to hear from God. . . .  But I do know this:  it can’t be the verdict of how I’m doing with God or how he feels about me in this moment. . . .

My ability to hear God’s voice on any given day does not change my position in Christ one bit.  I share this because the last thing I want to introduce into your faith is shame or doubt or some other attack because you’re not hearing clearly right now.  Taking the journey toward an intimacy with God that includes conversational intimacy is a beautiful thing, full of surprises and gifts from him.

But it can also send us reeling if we are basing our relationship with God on our ability to hear from him in this moment or on this particular issue. . . .

So, if you’re not yet hearing, don’t worry.  It’s okay.  Keep praying.  Keep listening.  Notice what God might be up to other than answering the immediate question.

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 48-50

The Shepherd

God, Guidance, Joy, Life 0

I’m back to the shepherd and the sheep.  When the sheep follow the shepherd, they find pasture.  They find life.  Life doesn’t just magically come to us.  We have to make ourselves available to it.  There is a lifestyle that allows us to receive the life of God.  I know that if I will live more intimately with Jesus and follow his voice, I will have a much better chance of finding the life I long for.  I know it.  If I will listen to his voice and let him set the pace, if I will cooperate in my transformation, I will be a much happier man.  And so a new prayer has begun to rise within me.  I am asking God, What is the life you want me to live?

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 28

What God Is Up To

God, Guidance, Life 0

Jesus says that as our Good Shepherd, he is leading us.  What an encouraging thought.  Jesus is leading you, and he is leading me.  He is shepherding us.  I can feel something in my heart loosening even now as I consider this.  Okay, I don’t have to make life happen on my own.  Now, if Christ takes it upon himself to lead, then our part is to follow.  And you’ll find that it helps a great deal in your following if you know what God is up to. . . .

Whatever else is going on, we can know this:  God is always up to our transformation. . . .

God has something in mind.  He is deeply and personally committed to restoring humanity.  Restoring you.  He had a specific man or woman in mind when he made you.  By bringing you back to himself through the work of Jesus Christ, he has established relationship with you.  And now, what he is up to is restoring you. . . .

Oh, the joy, the utter relief it would be to be transformed.  That in itself would be more happiness than most of us ever experience.  And — as if that were not enough — it would free us to live the life God has for us to live.

My friends, this is what God’s up to.  This is where our Shepherd is headed.  Whatever else is going on in our lives, this is going on.  He is committed to our transformation.  So, if this is what God’s up to, wouldn’t it make sense that we be more intentional in partnering with him in our transformation?

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 19-21

A Conversational Walk with God

God, Guidance 0

An intimate, conversational walk with God is available.  Is normal, even.  Or, at least, is meant to be normal.  I’m well aware that a majority of people do not enjoy that . . . yet.  But it is certainly what God desires and what he offers.  My assumption is based on the nature of God and the nature of man made in his image.  We are communicators.  My assumption is also based on the nature of relationship — it requires communication.  It is based on the long record of God speaking to his people of various ranks in all sorts of situations.  And finally, it is based on the teachings of Jesus, who tells us that we hear his voice.

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 17-18

A Conversational Walk with God

God, Guidance, Life 0

I’ll tip my hand to one assumption I am making.  I assume that an intimate, conversational walk with God is available, and is meant to be normal.  I’ll push that a step further.  I assume that if you don’t find that kind of relationship with God, your spiritual life will be stunted.  And that will handicap the rest of your life.  We can’t find life without God, and we can’t find God if we don’t know how to walk intimately with him.

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 7

The Will to Walk

God, Guidance, Obedience, Trust 0

Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless.  He cannot ravish.  He can only woo.  For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.  He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning.  He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation.  But He never allows this state of affairs to last long.  Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives.  He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs — to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.  It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.  Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. . . .   He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice.  He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles.

— Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, p. 136