Let Go of Judgment

Acceptance, Joy 0

We know that when we are having a bad time, we are in judgment. Any time we are not enjoying ourselves and experiencing the beauty within and around us, we are also in judgment. When we have lost our sense of wonder, we are judging something or someone. By our judgment, we are robbing ourselves of a really good, creative time, but we always have a choice. We can choose to have enjoyment. our willingness to let go of judgment allows us to experience the beauty, wonder, and joy in life.

— Chuck Spezzano, If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love, p. 281

Called for a Purpose

God, Redemption 0

The normal Greek word for “sin,” namely hamartia, means “missing the mark”: shooting at a target and failing to hit it. This is subtly but importantly different from being given a long and fussy list of things you must and mustn’t do and failing to observe them all. In the story the Bible is telling, humans were created for a purpose, and Israel was called for a purpose, and the purpose was not simply “to keep the rules,” “to be with God,” or “to go to heaven,” as you might suppose from innumerable books, sermons, hymns, and prayers. Humans were made to be “image-bearers,” to reflect the praises of creation back to the Creator and to reflect the Creator’s wise and loving stewardship into the world. Israel was called to be the royal priesthood, to worship God and reflect his rescuing wisdom into the world.

— N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, p. 99.

Forming a Grievance

Forgiveness, Growth, Healing 0

There are very few instances where the long-term use of anger will be of help to you. I want to make clear, once a situation has passed, both the long-term naming of angry feelings and the expression of anger rarely lead to good results. Anger can be a wonderful short-term solution to your life’s difficulties, yet it is rarely a good long-term solution to painful events. Anger is simply our way of reminding ourselves that we have a problem that needs attention. Yet too often we get angry instead of taking constructive action, or we get angry because we do not know what else to do.

It is my contention that the long-term experience of anger, or what we call a grievance, is almost never helpful.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Good, p. 14.

Look for Beauty

Beauty 0

Try to practice enjoying and seeing the beauty in the things that are around you. Practice doing it for a few minutes at a time until you get into the habit of it. Take a walk, for example — it could be in a busy built-up city. Take the time to notice what is around you. There is always beauty around us. We just don’t always notice it, and we frequently don’t think it is important. It’s the little bits of beauty around us that help to teach us to appreciate life. Take a look around, and I know you will see something of beauty. It may be a bird, a plant in a pot, a building, a child with a smile, or something in a window. There is always something of beauty around us.

In seeing beauty around you, you will appreciate life more, and recognize more the beauty that is within yourself. Appreciating beauty helps you to slow down, and the more beauty you notice, the more beauty you will see. Much of the time we just don’t notice what is around us. We are lost in our thoughts or fail to give any importance or value to the idea of seeing beauty.

— Lorna Byrne, A Message of Hope from the Angels, p. 91

Lies Don’t Get Along with Jesus.

Acceptance, Core Value, God, Love 0

That’s why the demons are afraid. Because Jesus always has something to do with them.

Which is exactly why our demons try to keep us from people who remind us how loved we are. Our demons want nothing to do with the love of God in Christ Jesus because it threatens to obliterate them, and so they try to isolate us and tell us that we are not worthy to be called children of God. And those are lies that Jesus does not abide.

— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, p. 87

Work as to the Lord

Core Value, God, Life 0

Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

— Dorothy L. Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, p. 127-128, quoted in Called to Create, by Jordan Raynor, p. 51.

Assisted Prayer

Prayer 0

Every time you pray you are talking directly to God. Regardless of your belief in angels, angels are praying with you at the same time, adding power and strength to your prayer. This is one of the tasks God has given the angels. We never pray alone.

— Lorna Byrne, Stairways to Heaven, p. 236

Come to the Library!

Librarians 0

The library is genius in its usefulness. It can be a different place for each person who walks in. Your library can help you find a job, go vegan, read up on the new medication you’ve been prescribed, or learn a new language. Your librarian can listen to your knock-knock jokes or provide a safe space and helpful resources if there is violence in your home. She or he can give you directions to your aunt’s house, or tell you if a celebrity is alive or dead, or help you figure out how to give your kid “the talk.” All while keeping your ass swimming in books. And movies. And music. And Internet access.

There is no other place where you can go and basically say, “I need help with this area of my life” and someone will respond, “All right, let’s figure this out.” Maybe your mom, but she’s not as good at “going online” as we are. So, please, go discover all the boundless glory awaiting you. And introduce yourself. Otherwise, you’re going to get a nickname based on whatever weird face you make or the thing you watched on YouTube that you didn’t think anyone noticed.

— Annie Spence, Dear Fahrenheit 451, p. 240-241.