Category Archives: Quotes to Ponder

do we see it?

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“But most of us, most of the time, take for granted what is closest to us and is most universal.  The daily round of sunrise and sunset, for example, that marks the coming and passing of each day, is no longer a symbol of human hopes, or of God’s majesty, but a grind, something we must grit our teeth to endure.  Our busy schedules, and even urban architecture, which all too often deprives us of a sense of the sky, has diminished our capacity to marvel with the psalmist in the passage of time as an expression of God’s love for us and for all creation:

It was God who made the great lights,
whose love endures forever;
the sun to rule in the day,
whose lose endures forever;
the moon and stars in the night,
whose love endures forever. (Psalm 136)”

-Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

the whole of salvation

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“Christianity is first and foremost a concern for the whole of the created order — biodiversity and business; politics and pollution; rivers, religion and rainforests. The coming of Jesus brought everything of God into the sphere of time and space, and everything of time and space into the sphere of God.”

-Bishop of Canberra, George Browning

as nothing…

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“Let none of all the affections of thy soul have so much life and being in them,
as those that are exercised upon God.

Worms and moats are not regarded in comparison of mountains; a drop is not regarded in comparison of the ocean. Let the being of God take up thy soul, and draw off thy observation from deluding vanities, as if there were no such things before thee.

When thou rememberest that there is a God, kings and nobles, riches and honors, and all the world, should be forgotten in comparison of Him; and thou shouldst live as if there were no such things, if God appear not to thee in them. See them as if thou didst not see them, as thou seest a candle before the sun; or a pile of grass, or a particle of dust, in comparison with the earth. Hear them as if thou didst not hear them; as thou hearest the leaves of the shaken tree, at the same time with a clap of thunder.

As greatest things obscure the least, so let the being of the infinite God so take up all the powers of thy soul, as if there were nothing else but he, when anything would draw thee from him. O if the being of this God were seen by thee, thy seducing friend would scarcely be seen, thy riches and honors would be forgotten;

all things would be as nothing to thee in comparison of Him.”

– Richard Baxter, Sermon: “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest”

true love for our enemies

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‘Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.  Jesus doesn’t promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them…We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves.’

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

living between the two “comings”

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The close link between first and second “comings” of Jesus then becomes clear. Jesus is baptized by John. The Spirit descends, anointing Jesus afresh for his public ministry. The voice of God himself is heard, announcing him as his beloved Son. He is the one who will bring God‟s sovereign, saving rule “on earth as in heaven”. The double Advent theme thus dovetails perfectly together. The first coming is not only the preparation for the second one; it forms a kind of template for it. Learning to live appropriately between the two “comings”, under the rescuing rule of Jesus and in the power of his Spirit, is what it means to be Christian.

– N.T. Wright

…to the captive there is no other freedom

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“The Incarnation is hard to dismiss out of hand because it so radically comes near our needs. Into the world of living and dying the arrival of Christ as a child turns fears of isolation, weakness, and condemnation on their heads. C.S. Lewis describes the doctrine of the Incarnation as a story that gets under our skin unlike any other creed, religion, or theory. “[The Incarnation] digs beneath the surface, works through the rest of our knowledge by unexpected channels, harmonises best with our deepest apprehensions… and undermines our superficial opinions. It has little to say to the man who is still certain that everything is going to the dogs, or that everything is getting better and better, or that everything is God, or that everything is electricity. Its hour comes when these wholesale creeds have begun to fail us.”(2) Standing over the precipices of the things that matter, nothing matters more than that there is a loving, forgiving, eager God who draws near.

The great hope of the Incarnation is that God comes for us. God is aware and Christ is present, having come in flesh, and it changes everything. “[I]f accepted,” writes Lewis, “[the Incarnation] illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge that it is somehow good to die,…[and] covers what multitudes of separate theories will hardly cover for us if this is rejected.”(3) The coming of Christ as an infant in Bethlehem puts flesh on humanity’s worth and puts God in humanity’s weakness. To the captive, there is no other freedom.”

-Jill Carattini

beloved one

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“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” … [My dark side says,] I am no good… I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

-Henri Nouwen

human flesh

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“The Christian religion asks us to place our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and who desires to be present to us in our everyday circumstances.  And because we are human, it is in the realm of the daily and mundane that we must find our way to God.”

-Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

what He is up to

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“God is God.

Therefore he is worthy of my worship and my service.

I find rest no where but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.”

-Elizabeth Elliott