“Trusting in God does not, except in illusory religion, mean that he will ensure that none of the things you are afraid of will ever happen to you. On the contrary, it means that whatever you fear is quite likely to happen, but that with God’s help it will in the end turn out to be nothing to be afraid of.”
— Jonathan Aitken, as quoted by Philip Yancey in Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?
“‘Come near to God and he will come near to you,’ wrote James, in words that sound formulaic. James does not put a time parameter on the second clause, however.”
Distractions [in prayer] are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants. If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these. When you are praying for what you really want you will not be distracted.
— Herbert McCabe, as quoted by Philip Yancey
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer
Carla cried “tiring” to hear my say that yet another purely social gathering was without a point. But I stand by it: I don’t want to invest time in people except insofar as it builds Your kingdom, God. I feel excited to cultivate our relationships with some folks because the growth of Your kingdom among us when we gather is effortless. I’m not looking for people with whom I simply have an enjoyable time; I’m looking for people with whom I can say, Look! God is among us doing stuff.
“Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.”
— Philip Yancey
“We are sending our young people into the marriage bed as virgins (good) but also as morons (bad).”
If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, Earth 4.5 billion years old, life 3.5 billion years old, and homo sapiens 200,000 years old, then God is in no hurry. Neither then should we (unless He say otherwise).
The below is an outline of a word of instruction I gave sometime in the months after news broke of Bill Hybels’ sexual misconduct.
Where does this topical teaching, submitted under full subjection to you, come from?
The starting point: The sin Jesus directly addressed via the Cross was our sin against God and did not include our sin against one another. This is never stated explicitly directly in Scripture, but consider:
So there are still sins that can remain unforgiven after the Cross. Against whom? There is only one possibility: Against one another.
Therefore, after sinning interpersonally, there’s one thing we can say and one thing we cannot:
Here’s the primary point of this teaching: Human-to-human forgiveness and reconciliation will require work on the part of the sinner.
Even reconciliation to God isn’t automatic after the Cross. It probably requires:
Not to mention: It required the Cross! (Granting us forgiveness with total impunity would not have been good for us.) Wouldn’t reconciliation to people require similar things?
So, when we sin against someone else, instead of assuming a quick apology will be enough for interpersonal forgiveness to be automatic, what should we do?
The point is: Offenders must work at reconciliation.
Obviously, there is a major emphasis in the New Testament on the duty of the offended to forgive, e.g.:
But it’s like in some corners of Christian culture, including the corner I come from, we have successfully internalized this duty of the victim to forgive without also internalizing the duty of the perpetrator to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and to be truly reconciled.
So, the next time we encounter abuse, let’s not approach it as if the main objective is to coerce a statement of forgiveness from the victim. Let’s instead look at Luke 17:3-4’s additions to Matthew 18: “If he repents, forgive him…”
Cheap grace from God would be no good to us. Likewise, our extending cheap grace to offenders is no good to them. If there are no consequences and we all proceed parading an ersatz reconciliation instead of the real thing, the victim is left harmed and offender is left degraded.
[also posted to scottstilson.substack.com/p/forgive… with links; the date is half made up; I probably wrote this and delivered in January of 2019, actually]
clotheshorse noun : 1 : a frame on which to hang clothes 2 : a conspicuously dressy person
I looked this one up because having decided last year that at the beginning of this year I would spend 75% or 80% of my apparel budget, I have slowly allowed myself to become consumed with systematizing it all and finding the perfect options and shopping ethically (i.e., sustainably, locally, etc.). I am convicted by Jesus’ words on the subject. And I am mildly surprised to find out that a clotheshorse is a slightly derogatory term for someone who obviously concerned with wearing fashionable clothing. I’m not so much that, but I am allowing my mind to be consumed by clothes right now.
“Don’t worry about…your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t…the body more than clothes?
— Jesus
I am convicted by this verse today.
What did I get out of Swinton?
God still speaks today as he spoke to our forefathers in days gone by, before there were either spiritual directors or methods of direction. The spiritual life was then a matter of immediate communication with God.…All they knew was that each moment brought its appointed task, faithfully to be accomplished. This was enough for the spiritually minded of those days. All their attention was focused on the present, minute by minute, like the hand of a clock that marks the minutes of each hour covering the distance along which it has to travel. Constantly prompted by divine impulsion, they found themselves imperceptibly turns toward the next task that God had ready for them at each hour of the day.
— Jean-Pierre de Caussade, as quoted by John Swinton in Dementia (256)
This excerpt floored me because it sounds just like how Carla does things. And it strikes me as right. It’s how I want to walk through life.
One of the things that can serve as a guideline to discerning God’s leading: Do I feel hurried? It’s probably not God’s way. Do I feel obsessed with something about the world, like finding an Airbnb to stay in for on our way trip to Florida or finding good, vegan walking shoes again? It’s probably not God’s way. I might have to do that thing, but I don’t have to do it in that way. It’s not being in the present.
Swinton has rearranged how I approach time: It’s a gift that I have received, all my time. Freely I have received, freely I shall give, waste, live my time with others.
After reading page 169 of Swinton’s Dementia, it strikes me again that all the different parts of creation are like different organs and cells and organelles in God’s body. We are literally the body of Christ, the body of God. In Him indeed we live and move and have our being. How indeed can the eye say to the foot, “I don’t need you”?
According to St. Augustine according to Gilber Meilaender according to John Swinton, we are terra animata, or “animated earth.”
God acts in the big stories in history—those of the Exodus, the Cross, and redemption. But God also acts in and through the smaller stories of human life. If we take time to listen and to reflect, we can discover God’s practices of revealing and acting in the strangest of places.
— John Swinton, Dementia (26)
Amen.
“If riches increase, do not your heart on them.”
— Psalm 62:10b
Once again I gravitate toward the moral performance side of this beautiful Psalm about looking only to God for strength and salvation and love. It’s a good precept, but why not journal about the God-as-source part?
Thank you, God. That’s what I need to do: Thank you.
“One who allows himself license in little things is ruined little by little” (Augustine, as quoted by the folks at Renovaré.
At a very basic level, well-being within Christianity is not gauged in the presence or absence of illness or distress. Religious beliefs and practice may well have therapeutic benefits, but that is not their primary function or intention. Nor is the efficacy of a “spiritual intervention” theologically determined according to criteria such as reduce anxiety, better coping, or a reduction in depression, important as these things may be at a certain level. Theologically speaking, well-being has nothing to do with the* absence or reduction of anything. It has to do with the presence of something: the presence of God-in-relationship. Well-being, peace, health—what Scripture describes as shalom*—has to do with the presence of a specific God in particular places who engages in personal relationships with unique individuals for formative purposes. Rather than alleviating anxiety and fear, the present of such a God often brings on dissonance and psychological disequilibrium, but always for the purpose of the person’s greater well-being understood in redemptive and relational terms.
— John Swinton, Dementia, p. 7
“More than anything else I am thankful to Jesus for being patient with me and for remembering me when I have forgotten whose I am” (John Swinton, Dementia, x).
“I don’t know if it’s a success, but I do know it’s good.”
— myself, quoted despite the gaucheness of doing so instead of just journaled because it seems a multi-purpose saying: I said it originally to Aaron about his running club, but I could say it equally about our church
You want biblical models for how the offender should behave in pursuing forgiveness? Try Jacob and Zaccheus on.
Guilt is good. (The feeling, not the fact.)
You know the allure of your own little child first thing in the morning, how it’s irresistible to give them all your loving attention, to hold them, coo over them, think the world of them, and feel ready to give the world to them? Two notes about that: