Shattered Dreams

God, Life, Trials 0

God goes to work to help us see more clearly.  One way He works is to allow our lower dreams to shatter.  He lets us hurt and doesn’t make it better.  We suffer and He stands by and does nothing to help, at least nothing that we’re aware we want Him to do.

In fact, what He’s doing while we suffer is leading us into the depths of our being, into the center of our soul where we feel our strongest passions.

It’s there that we discover our desire for God.  We begin to feel a desire to know Him that not only survives all our pain, but actually thrives in it until that desire becomes more intense than our desire for all the good things we still want.  Through the pain of shattered lower dreams, we wake up to the realization that we want an encounter with God more than we want the blessings of life.  And that begins a revolution in our lives.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 4

Repentance and Rest

God, Life, Prayer 0

The Lord spoke through Isaiah when he said, “In repentance and rest is your salvation” (30:15).  I love how those two words go together — repentance and rest.  When we repent, we can rest in the Lord.  We can’t rest peacefully in God’s presence if we haven’t repented, and so the continual process of repentance is key to staying close to Him in our daily lives….

A. W. Tozer wrote, “Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.”  Ouch!  He saw that we often pray that we will obey — we pray for patience, for compassion, or that we would be free from covetousness — yet we do not take the actions necessary to actually abide by Christ’s teachings in those areas.

— Brooke Boon, Holy Yoga, p. 43-47

Our Greatest Pleasure

God, Joy, Life 0

Not only do we want what immediately feels good and dislike what in fact is good for us, but we’re also out of touch with what would bring us the most pleasure if it were given to us….

The highest dream we could ever dream, the wish that if granted would make us happier than any other blessing, is to know God, to actually experience Him.  The problem is that we don’t believe this idea is true.  We assent to it in our heads.  But we don’t feel it in our hearts.

We can’t stop wanting to be happy.  And that urge should prompt no apology.  We were created for happiness.  Our souls therefore long for whatever we think will provide the greatest possible pleasure.  We just aren’t yet aware that an intimate relationship with God is that greatest pleasure.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 2

Discontent Fuels Growth.

Life, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Discontent is what fuels growth — in marriage, in oneself, and in institutions.  It’s what propels you to come up with creative solutions and to seek novelty and change.  Merely accepting this represents a huge step in keeping a marriage alive and frees you to move onward, out of the dark side.

— Ellyn Bader and Peter T. Pearson, Tell Me No Lies:  How to Stop Lying to Your Partner — And Yourself — In the 4 Stages of Marriage, p. 81

God wants to bless us.

God, Life, Trials 0

There’s never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us.  At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good.  He never stops.  It gives Him too much pleasure.  God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end.  He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles.  At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.

There, of course, is the rub.  He gives us what He thinks is good, what He knows is good.  We don’t always agree.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 1-2

Why Christ Died

God, Life 0

Christ did not die to save us from suffering but from ourselves.  He did not die to save us from injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust.

He died that we might live — but live as he lives, by dying as he died, who died to himself that he might live unto God.  If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God.  And he that does not live to God is dead.

— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 149-150

With Every Choice

Life 0

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, p. 85

Christian Art

Life, Truth 0

When we look at a painting, or hear a symphony, or read a book, and feel more Named, then, for us, that work is a work of Christian art.  But to look at a work of art and then to make a judgment as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous.  It is something we cannot know in any conclusive way.  We can know only if it speaks within our own hearts, and leads us to living more deeply with Christ in God.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, compiled by Carole F. Chase

Unenforceable Rules

Forgiveness, Life, Marriage 0

Nearly all relationship problems begin when our partners break an unenforceable rule.  Your frustrated attempt to enforce such a rule is at the root of your anger toward your loved one.  Feelings of anger, helplessness, or depression are all indications that you are trying to enforce something that cannot be enforced.  Your anger is telling you that things are not working out the way you want them to.  These situations are painful because you are not able to control them, even though you try over and over to do so….

If most of your partner’s actions cause you a good deal of emotional distress, you may be trying to enforce an unenforceable rule.  We cling to our unenforceable rules and refuse to accept our partner’s mistakes, flaws, and disagreeable traits, thinking that we should not have to put up with them.  This is like clinging to the anchor of a ship you fell off of.  As you gasp your last breath, you’re still complaining that the anchor was there to keep your boat safe, and damn it, dragging you to the bottom of the sea isn’t helping.  The anchor is wrong.  It hasn’t read the anchor rulebook and doesn’t know the right way to do its job….

When you try and fail to enforce one of your unenforceable rules, you become angry, bitter, despondent, and helpless.  Trying to force something that you cannot control to go your way is an exercise in frustration.  You can’t force your spouse to love you or to stop cheating; nor can you force your kids to treat you respectfully.  The more unenforceable rules you have, the more likely you are to feel agitated and disappointed with your marriage.  When you cling to unenforceable rules, you leave yourself open to pain every time one of them is broken.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 111-112

Our Way of Living

Compassion, God, Gratitude, Life 0

If we believe that God has given us everything, then giving will be our way of living.  We’ll still work to earn, because the gift of work is the primary means by which God gives what we have.  But earning and possessing will become folded into giving.  God gives us life, powers, abilities, and so we earn and possess.  We’ll earn and possess so we can give, as when we share our food with the hungry; we’ll give even while earning, as when we create goods and offer services with dedication, care, and wisdom; and we’ll give even by possessing, as when we open our home for others to enjoy.  Earning and possessing are not just a bridge between our desires and their satisfaction.  They are a midpoint in the flow of gifts:  from God to us, and through us to others.  We give because we have been given to; we don’t let others simply fend for themselves because we haven’t been left to fend for ourselves.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge:  Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, p. 107-108