Giving

Faith, God, Gratitude, Trust 0

The act of giving best reminds me of my place on earth. All of us live here by the goodness and grace of God — like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, Jesus said. Those creations do not worry about future security and safety; neither should we. Giving offers me a way to express my faith and confidence that God will care for me just as God cares for the sparrow and lily.

— Philip Yancey, Grace Notes, p. 359

Outward Forms

Compassion, Faith, Growth 0

We dare not forget G. K. Chesterton’s aphorism: while a coziness between church and state may be good for the state, it is bad for the church. Herein lies the chief danger to grace: the state, which runs by the rules of ungrace, gradually drowns out the church’s sublime message of grace….

A state government can shut down stores and theaters on Sunday, but it cannot compel worship. It can arrest and punish KKK murderers but cannot cure their hatred, much less teach them love. It can pass laws making divorce more difficult but it cannot force husbands to love their wives and wives their husbands. It can give subsidies to the poor but cannot force the rich to show them compassion and justice. It can ban adultery but not lust, theft but not covetousness, cheating but not pride. It can encourage virtue but not holiness.

— Philip Yancey, Glimpses of Grace, p. 357

Transformative Reconciliation

Forgiveness, Healing 0

True reconciliation shows the innocent extending love and grace in a way that is truly transformative, and that mirrors the divine nature of self-giving love. True reconciliation means evil humans turning from evil ways and walking in a way of goodness. It shows the brokenness of the world, like a fractured bone, being set back into its rightful position. True reconciliation lets us glimpse a world where both the victim and the offender desire that the other be blessed and flourish. In our world we only get glimpses of such true reconciliation, but I believe that such glimpses are all that we need to take that vision back into the brokenness of our daily lives. That glimpse of shalom can change the way we act and react.

— Catherine Claire Larson, As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda, p. 263

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

God Can Handle It.

God, Prayer, Trials 0

One bold message from the book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at God your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment — God can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenet of modern psychology: you can’t really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. God cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore God or act as though God does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job.

— Philip Yancey, Grace Notes, p. 348