Strong Words

God, Life 0

Some words are strong for a reason. We need those words to be that intense, loaded, complex, and offensive, because they need to reflect the realities they describe.

And that’s what we find in Jesus’s teaching about hell — a volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors that describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity. Something we are all free to do, anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

He uses hyperbole often — telling people to gouge out their eyes and maim themselves rather than commit certain sins. It can all sound a bit over-the-top at times, leading us to question just what he’s so worked up about. Other times he sounds just plain violent.

But when you’ve sat with a wife who has just found out that her husband has been cheating on her for years, and you realize what it is going to do to their marriage and children and finances and friendships and future, and you see the concentric rings of pain that are going to emanate from this one man’s choices — in that moment Jesus’s warnings don’t seem that over-the-top or drastic; they seem perfectly spot-on.

Gouging out his eye may actually have been a better choice.

Some agony needs agonizing language.
Some destruction does make you think of fire.
Some betrayal actually feels like you’ve been burned.
Some injustices do cause things to heat up.

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 72-73

God’s Healing

God, Healing 0

The range of our prayers to God is in direct ratio, always, to our willingness to have God be central. As we move ourselves out of the center of our consciousness, as we move God toward center, we begin to experience a new openness with God and, as a result, a new freedom and a new happiness. We experience the transformative power of God. We do not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it. We see how God can use our experiences to benefit ourselves and others. This brings us to a great mystery.

When we turn our will and our life over to the care of God, we begin to experience the “care” of God. With a tender solicitude, God reaches into our past, transforming its wounds and wreckage. Many things we deeply regret and feel certain cannot be changed are changed by the grace of God touching them. Miraculously, God has the power to act not only in the present and the future but also in the past. God’s healing is not bound by time. As we watch with wonder, old relationships are gently repaired. New understandings are reached. Where once there was only ruin, we are given the opportunity to mend broken relationships and forge new ones. We see that the care of God embodies a gentleness and tact that we can only marvel at: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 130-131

Twinkle Lights

Faith, Gratitude, Inspiration, Joy, Trust 0

Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy. Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments — often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down extraordinary moments. Other times we’re so afraid of the dark that we don’t dare let ourselves enjoy the light….

I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 80-81

Transformation

Growth 0

Jesus makes no promise that in the blink of an eye we will suddenly become totally different people who have vastly different tastes, attitudes, and perspectives. Paul makes it very clear that we will have our true selves revealed and that once the sins and habits and bigotry and pride and petty jealousies are prohibited and removed, for some there simply won’t be much left. “As one escaping through the flames” is how he put it.

It’s very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who “gets in” or how to “get in.” What we find Jesus teaching, over and over and over again, is that he’s interested in our hearts being transformed, so that we can actually handle heaven. To portray heaven as bliss, peace, and endless joy is a beautiful picture, but it raises the question: How many of us could handle it, as we are today? How would we each do in a reality that had no capacity for cynicism or slander or worry or pride?

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 50

A Badge of Honor

Growth, Life, Trials 0

In many cultures, a person is not considered a man or a woman until they have endured certain rites of passage that challenge them much in the way that what you went through challenged you. In these cultures, survivorship is a badge of honor, to be worn with pride. It may be a journey to see yourself as someone who has endured a rite of passage and grown because of it, but you deserve to wear that badge of honor, too.

The ability to reframe trauma as a rite of passage, one that inoculates you and from which you emerge stronger and better, is a common theme among resilient survivors. What happened to you may be completely senseless, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t find meaning in the ways we have grown because of what we lived through. You are changed, yes. But it is time now to appreciate and celebrate the person you’ve become since the trauma.

— Alicia Salzer, Back to Life, p. 25-26

God Dependency

Core Value, God, Love, Relationships 0

God dependency corrects all other faulty dependencies. God keeps us right-size and allows us to go through the ebb and flow of our work day without overreacting. We are able to see our co-workers as separate and equal. We treat them with dignity, and we behave with dignity ourselves. God is our source. We remember that, and it draws everything to scale. We are able to see our true employer as God and our boss as a stand-in. We perform our work well because that is doing God’s will for us. We do the best we can and let the chips fall where they may.

God allows us, too, detachment in our love relationships so that every shift of our partner’s mood is not an indictment of our lovability. As our relationship comes to include God, the ebb and flow of personalities becomes far less personal. We lead our life each day in relationship first to God and then to our partner. We treat our partner with loving courtesy, but those attributes are grounded in our relationship to God. Secure in God, we turn less to our human companions to supply something they are not able to supply. God is the source of our emotional security. That established, we are able to love others with a less-demanding neediness. This is attractive to people. We have an inner compass, a personal gravitational field that circles us back, always, to God. Our partners may love us, but they cannot supplant God for us. We may love our partners, but we cannot supplant God for them. When this is clearly understood, when God is the primary relationship and all others, however cherished, are secondary, then we begin to have right dependency. “Thy will be done” we pray, and we include our relationships within the range of the prayer.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 129-130