The cross is many things, but it is not a quid pro quo to mollify an angry God. Above all things, the cross, as the definitive moment in Jesus’s life, is the supreme revelation of the very nature of God. At the cross Jesus does not save us from God; at the cross Jesus reveals God as savior! When we look at the cross we don’t see what God does; we see who God is!
— Brian Zahnd, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, p. 82
[Photo: Glenveagh, Ireland, July 2001]
This openhanded, teachable attitude is what is implied in the word practice. Inherent in this word is the freedom to experiment, to try and try again with limitless humility to fail. Practice makes perfect, but the practice itself is not perfect. Practice is a patient, related process of finding out what works and what doesn’t. Practice leaves plenty of room for making mistakes; indeed mistakes are taken for granted. In practice it goes without saying that any success is only the fruit of many failures. Hence the failure is as important as the success, for the one could not happen without the other.
Many people avoid practice because of the fear of failure. Perfectionists have the mistaken idea that something is not worth doing if they cannot look good by getting it right the first time. For the perfectionist, any misstep is an unpleasant and embarrassing surprise. But for a humble person, the surprise is getting it right. Humility expects trial and error and so rejoices all the more at success. Humility is always being surprised by grace.
Either life is practice, or it is performance. It cannot be both. Do you love surprises, or do you prefer to stay in control? Are you a professional at life or an amateur? Do you live spontaneously and experimentally for the sheer love of it? Or are you an expert who takes pride in being right about everything? Would you rather be right than happy?
None of us can be perfect. But everyone can be free. Which will you choose?
— Mike Mason, Practicing the Presence of People, p. 180-181
[Photo: Dahn, Germany, July 1997]
Atonement theories are not the gospel. Across the New Testament, while metaphors do appear to hint at the “how” of atonement, the emphasis is not on these symbolic explanations, but on the story itself. Preaching the gospel never meant theorizing how atonement happens but, rather, proclaiming good news: the events and impacts of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
— Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God, p. 230
[Photo: Meadowlark Gardens, Virginia, April 3, 2012]
Though it may seem counterintuitive to our inner perfectionist, recognizing our mistakes as valuable lessons (not failures) helps to lay the groundwork for later success.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 68
[Photo: Meadowlark Gardens, Virginia, April 3, 2012]
When Isaiah throws out the higher-ways-of-God argument [in Isaiah 55:6-9], it isn’t to defend the vengeful punishment of God, it is to defend the abundant mercy of God! To take this text and use it to defend a conception of divine justice and goodness that certainly seems much worse than any human understanding of justice and goodness is to use this text for the opposite purpose than it was originally intended. If we take the context seriously, and we should, the higher-ways-of-God argument can be more appropriately used to defend the universalist position than the traditionalist one. God’s ability and desire to pardon is beyond our understanding!
— Heath Bradley, Flames of Love, p. 22
[Photo: Riverbend Park, Virginia, April 20, 2018]
It’s hard to like someone who doesn’t return the favor. In order to rejoice in the Lord, it helps to know that He also rejoices in us. More than just rejoicing, He delights in us. Delight is a good, honest word that circumvents any phony spiritualizing of the word rejoice. If we rejoice in the Lord for theological reasons rather than with frank warm-heartedness, we’ll presume that He’s the same way — rejoicing in His people out of covenantal obligation, while in His heart barely able to tolerate our waywardness. How absurd! When the Bible says “The Lord takes delight in his people,” we should picture a big, sloppy smile on God’s face and fireworks going off around His throne — all for you and me!
— Mike Mason, Champagne for the Soul, p. 61
[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 29, 2018]
I value you — a thought to yourself but directed at others — is one of the most powerful statements you can make. In the long run, your contribution to the Web of Emotion will improve family life and help build communities. You will soar above as you make the world a better place. Every area of your life will improve if you wake up each morning thinking, I will spread good in the world today.
— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 2018
[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 6, 2018]
Jeff, like so many of us, is changed by the word of grace that he hears in church. He is formed by the Word of God. He is given a place where he is told by others that he is a child of God. He is given a place where he can look other people in the eye, other annoying, inconsistent, arrogant people in the eye, hand them bread, and say, “Child of God, the body of Christ, given for you,” and then he, in his own arrogant inconsistencies, has a frame of grace through which to see even the people he can’t stand. I argue that this wouldn’t just happen alone.
This is why we have Christian community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the gospel. A gospel that Bonhoeffer said is “frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you.”
God wants you, you in your imperfect, broken, shimmering glory.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, p. 168-169
[Photo: Shenandoah National Park, September 27, 2014]
The one true end of all speech concerning holy things is — the persuading of the individual man to cease to do evil, to set himself to do well, to look to the lord of his life to be on his side in the new struggle. Supposing the suggestions I have made correct, I do not care that my reader should understand them, except it be to turn against the evil in him, and begin to cast it out. If this be not the result, it is of no smallest consequence whether he agree with my interpretation or not. If he do thus repent, it is of equally little consequence; for, setting himself to do the truth, he is on the way to know all things. Real knowledge has begun to grow possible for him.
— George MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel, p. 37-38
[Photo: Burg Rheinfels, Germany, April 4, 1997]
We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by teling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
— Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water, quoted in Madeleine L’Engle, Herself, compiled by Carole F. Chase, p. 155
[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 16, 2015]