Also Distant from the Father

God, Life 0

Elder brothers expect their goodness to pay off, and if it doesn’t there is confusion and rage. If you think goodness and decency is the way to merit a good life from God, you will be eaten up with anger, since life never goes as we wish. You will always feel that you are owed more than you are getting. You will always see someone doing better than you in some aspect of life and will ask, “Why this person and not me? After all I’ve done!” This resentment is your own fault. It is caused not by the prosperity of the other person, but by your own effort to control life through your performance.

— Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, p. 52-53

The Elder Brother’s Spirit

God, Life, Obedience, Trials 0

We see that the elder brother “became angry.” All of his words are dripping with resentment. The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter. Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try very hard to live up to standards.

What happens, then, if you are an elder brother and things go wrong in your life? If you feel you have been living up to your moral standards, you will be furious with God. You don’t deserve this, you will think, after how hard you’ve worked to be a decent person! What happens, however, if things have gone wrong in your life when you know that you have been falling short of your standards? Then you will be furious with yourself, filled with self-loathing and inner pain….

Elder brothers’ inability to handle suffering arises from the fact that their moral observance is results-oriented. The good life is lived not for delight in good deeds themselves, but as calculated ways to control their environment.

— Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, p. 49-50

Power of the Heart

Compassion, Core Value, Growth, Life, Love 0

Many of us have experimented with different kinds of power. At times we may have used force, brute strength. Certainly most of us have experimented with power plays — only to find that they aren’t the answer either. Along the way, some of us may have gotten hard, cold, rigid, even angry — thinking that was a way to own our power.

Often, these attempts don’t signal power. They signal fear. True, for many of us, learning to experience, express, and release our anger has been an important milestone on our path to power. But the power we’re seeking is different from force, coldness, hardness, or power plays. We aren’t learning to flex our muscles that way.

Open to a new kind of power — the power of the heart. Clarity. Compassion. Gentleness. Love. Understanding. Comfort. Forgiveness. Faith. Security with acceptance of ourselves, and all our emotions. Trust. Commitment to loving ourselves, and to an open heart. That’s the power we’re seeking. That’s true power, power that lasts, power that creates the life and love we want. In those situations that call for power, we can trust that brute strength, coldness, or rage won’t get us what we want.

— Melody Beattie, Journey to the Heart, p. 335-336

Respect

Life 0

There are many who think that to confess ignorance is to lose respect, and doubtless it is so with the ignorant who claim to know. There is a worse thing, however, than to lose respect — to deserve to lose it.

— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 153

A Divine Scheme

Faith, God, Life 0

When we make God a conscious part of our day, the day begins to unfold differently. We are not nudging for our own way. We are listening, trying to hear what path God would have us take. It begins to seem possible that we are in the right place at the right time and that our unfolding is happening according to a divine scheme.

“But what if there is no divine scheme of goodness for me?” This world is too large and too complex for everything to be accounted for, and I — and my life — may be one of the things that slips between the cracks. This is the great fear, and it is one that most of us can admit to. God’s eye may be on the sparrow, but it is not on us. We are the voice crying in the wilderness and our voice is not heard.

There will always be doubt. Doubt is the shadow side of faith. As we age and we see the unfolding of God’s arc through more lives, it is easier to believe that there is a plan and that each life does have an arc to it, an unfolding that is in harmony with God and the world around us. Joseph Campbell remarked that the arc of a life can begin to be seen at middle age, that we can then begin to see a tracery of what might be called destiny, shaping our trajectory.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 48-49

Renewed Vitality

Faith, Growth, Joy, Life 0

Faith is attractive. Far from having the joyless, resigned quality that we may fear from it, faith brings to the believer a renewed vitality, a sense of camaraderie and adventure. Seen through the eyes of faith, the world is a safe place. Life is a great unfolding adventure. Strangers are friends that we have not yet met. Optimism prevails. Seen through the eyes of faith, there is nothing to fear in this world. When challenges arise, we will have the inner strength to meet them. Walking through the valley of shadows, we will have the confidence in our God’s benevolent protection. We will not, perhaps, be shielded from all harm, but we will be given the wherewithal to meet any adversity.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 47

God’s Agenda

God, Growth, Letting Go, Life, Trials, Waiting 0

It is one of the ironies of the spiritual life that so much can be seen in retrospect as having been designed in our own best interest. When something finally does come to pass, it is often all we can do to manage it. “Why, if this had happened any sooner, I wouldn’t have been ready,” we catch ourselves thinking. “I needed every instant of preparation for this that I have had.” Many times we ask God for help with securing a certain agenda, then rage because God does not cooperate, only to have God’s agenda revealed later as far better.

It is in seeking to cooperate with God’s agenda for our life that we come to some sense of peace. Is it too much to think that God has an agenda for each of us? I don’t think so. Again, a look at the natural world tells us of the exquisite particularity of God’s care. The daffodil is given just what it needs to grow and we are asked only to cooperate. We must be willing to be either the daffodil or the violet, according to God’s will for us. We so often do not see the lineaments of our own character being formed. We have an idea of ourselves that may be counter to what God’s idea for our self is. I am in the midst of discovering this for myself right now.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 23-24