Forgiveness Means

"At the time, I didn't know what forgiveness meant. I wouldn't really know what forgiveness meant for another year, until my pastor happened to spell it out in a sermon. He said that when you forgive, you bear the burden somebody has given you without holding them accountable." ~  Donald Miller

Deeper...

"The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it." ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen

Called to Cry and Die

"To call a local church into the mission of Jesus is to call its members into two behaviors. First we cry. Then we die. We let our hearts be broken with the things that break the heart of God. Then we die to the comfortable patterns of life that insulate us emotionally and geographically from those for whom Christ died." ~ Ben Campbell Johnson and Glenn McDonald (Imagining a Church in the Spirit)

Stuck in the Past

"Sometimes we are so stuck in a past that we cannot change, or so afraid of a future over which we have limited control, that we don’t really appreciate the present—the very moment before us. We worry about what happened or what will happen, and we forget about what is happening. We squander the one thing we have for certain—now." ~ Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

Rushing On...?

“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on.” ~ D.H. Lawrence

Jesus' Resurrection Is the Beginning

"Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.: ~   N. T. Wright

A Waiting Person

"A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us." ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen

Mutual Empathy

“Mutual empathy is the great unsung human gift.” ~ Jean Baker Miller

If God Is For You...

"Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!" ~ John Wesley

Compassion Costs

"Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort." ~ Samuel Chadwick

Duty of the Moment

"The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don’t just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child…. There are all kinds of good things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God." ~ Catherine Doherty

God's Call

"God’s call, vocation, is twofold. God calls us saying, ‘Come, follow me.’ We arrive and then we must follow. We find but must go on seeking. God’s call is a never-ending call, to the unknown, to adventure, to follow him in the night, in solitude. It is a call incessantly to go further, and further. For it is not static but dynamic (as creation also is dynamic) and reaching him means going on and on. God’s call is like the call to become an explorer; it is an invitation to adventure." ~ Ernesto Cardenal

Disturbers of the Peace

"Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”…. Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Theology of Progress

"The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready. We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know. In the process, we inadvertently create suffering, heaping imprecision upon inaccuracy, until we are all buried under a mountain of misperception. But Sabbath says, Be still. Stop. There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished. Take time to rest, and eat, and drink, and be refreshed. And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment, listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed." ~ Wayne Muller