The Father’s Heart

The heart of the father burns with an immense desire to bring his children home. . . .

God, creator of heaven and earth, has chosen to be, first and foremost, a Father.

As Father, he wants his children to be free, free to love.  That freedom includes the possibility of their leaving home, going to a “distant country,” and losing everything.  The Father’s heart knows all the pain that will come from that choice, but his love makes him powerless to prevent it.  As Father, he desires that those who stay at home enjoy his presence and experience his affection.  But here again, he wants only to offer a love that can be freely received.  He suffers beyond telling when his children honor him only with lip service, while their hearts are far from him.  He knows their “deceitful tongues” and “disloyal hearts,” but he cannot make them love him without losing his true fatherhood.

As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.  That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart.  There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not caused immense grief to his heart.  The grief is so deep because the heart is so pure.  From the deep inner place where love embraces all human grief, the Father reaches out to his children.  The touch of his hands, radiating inner light, seeks only to heal.

Here is the God I want to believe in:  a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting, never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders.  His only desire is to bless.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 95-96

Joy Is Essential.

Are you beginning to see now how essential joy is?

Because we live in a world at war.  Because the enemy is relentless.  Because we are “hard pressed on every side” (2 Corinthians 4:8).  For these very reasons we need joy.  Lots and lots of joy.  Bucketfuls.  Wagonloads.  Joy can counter the effect of all this unrelenting other stuff.  Without it we’ll get drained from the battle, sucked dry.  We won’t have anything to draw upon.  No inner reserves.  We’ll waste away.  Throw in the towel.  Or we’ll fall into an addiction because we are absolutely starved for joy.

— John Eldredge, Walking With God, p. 114

A New Song

I would count on this:  God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.

— Dr. Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 82

Forgiving the Unrepentant

It is possible to close ourselves to grace, both human and divine.  But only grace can pry open the door that has been shut in its face.  So God continues to give to the ungrateful and to forgive the unrepentant.  Christ stands before the closed door of a grace-resistant heart and knocks gently with a nail-pierced hand.

So should we.  When things go well, gifts engender gifts, and forgiveness gives birth to forgiveness.  That’s the power of giving and forgiving.  When things go ill, gifts fall on hard soil, and forgiveness remains barren.  That’s the impotence of givers and forgivers, for they can only “knock at the door” by giving and forgiving.  And then they must wait . . . and knock again and wait — trusting that the Spirit of the resurrected Christ will make the seed of their forgiveness bear fruit.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 205

Gratitude Makes Things Right.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.  It can turn an existence into real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Gratitude makes things right.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 218

Life Is Story.

The deepest convictions of our heart are formed by stories and reside there in the images and emotions of story. . . .

Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes.  As Eugene Peterson said, “We live in narrative, we live in story.  Existence has a story shape to it.  We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have characters.”  Story is the language of the heart.  Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract propositions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of story.  Contrast your enthusiasm for studying a textbook with the offer to go to a movie, read a novel, or listen to the stories of someone else’s life.  Elie Wiesel suggests that “God created man because he loves stories.”  So if we’re going to find the answer to the riddle of the earth — and of our own existence — we’ll find it in story.

— Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p. 38-40

The Opposite of Resentment

Along with trust there must be gratitude — the opposite of resentment.  Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift.  My resentment tells me that I don’t receive what I deserve.  It always manifests itself in envy.

Gratitude, however, goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift.  In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline.  The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.  I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment.  It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.  I can choose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness.  I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.  I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 85