Friday, November 18, 2005

friday's quotes of the week

Heard, read, or said by me this week:


“So if the difference between Christian faith and all other forms of spirituality is that Christian faith offers a relational dynamic with God, why are we cloaking this relational dynamic in formulas? Are we jealous of the Mormons? And are the formulas getting us anywhere? Are modern forms of Christian spirituality producing better Christians than days long ago, when people didn’t use formulas and understood, intrinsically, that God is a Being with a personality and a will of His own? Martin Luther didn’t believe in formulas, and neither did John Calvin. Were they missing something or are we?...

The truth is there are a million steps, and we don’t even know what the steps are, and worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or even able to take them; and still worse, they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with the God who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us to not rely on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras, or genies in lamps, but rather in his guidance, His existence, His mercy, and His love.”


Don Miller in Searching for God Who Knows What


"The greatness of God is a glorious and unsearchable mystery, "For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great king over all the earth.' (Psalm 47:2) The condescension of the most high God to men is also a profound mystery. 'Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly." (Psalm 138:6). But when both these meet together, as they do in this Scripture, they make up a matchless mystery. Here we find the most high God performing all things for a poor distressed creature.It is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them here, that there is a wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most pernicious designs to blessed and happy issues. And, indeed, it were not worth while to live in a world devoid of God and Providence."

Jon Flavel in The Mystery of Providence


"History is a tangled skein that one may take up at any point, and break when one has unraveled enough."

Henry Adams


"History selects its heroes and its villains, and few of us resist patricipation either at the parade of at teh guillotine."


William F. Buckley Jr.

3 Comments:

At 1:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

John Flavel! Very cool. Do you read a lot from the puritans?

Great quote. That God works such beauty with such eccentric and selfish creatures is a miracle indeed!

 
At 7:36 PM, Blogger prairie girl said...

HI Kevin,

I love reading the Puritan writers. what always amazes me is how appropriate their ideas are for today and for my own life! Have your read The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes or A LIfting up for the Downcast by William Bridge? I have used comments from both of these in counseling and they are amazing.

 
At 7:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have read just enough of the puritans to know what I am missing!

Lifting up for the Downcast was hard for me. I am a naturally melancholic person, so I needed it desperately, but I could not get motivated enough to read it. Eventually I did, and it was absolutely the most encouraging thing I could have read. Beautiful, beautiful insights they have.

The Bruised Reed sounds like another natural fit for me. I will have to look it up. Thanks!

I am reading John Owen, The Glory of Christ right now. I have hit the hard slog through the middle part. Seems to happen with everything at some point.

I don't run into a lot of people who both like the puritans and reject patriachalism. More power to ya!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home