In 1978 at Oklahoma State University I sat through a course in the New Testament. OSU had a fine wrestling, golf, and baseball programs, but their “religious studies” wasn’t ranked in the top twenty in the nation. Our professor didn’t seem to believe that any of the New Testament was true. She seemed to think it was a record of the manipulative and sexist Paul, who was (along with the other apostles) clearly expecting Jesus to return any minute, but who died in his growing disillusionment.
Those of us who actually believe the Bible sometimes feel embarrassed by those (numerous) verses that almost drool with anticipation that something really big is getting ready to happen. And if we assume that they expected something like the end of the world any minute, then we have to scramble to explain how “any minute” could mean, say, in two thousand years (or more). (more…)
I often find that when God doesn’t answer a prayer, he wants to expose something in me. Our prayers don’t exist in a world of their own. We are in dialogue with a personal, divine Spirit who wants to shape us as much as he wants to hear us. For God to act unthinkingly with our prayers would be paganism, which says the gods do our will in response to our prayers….
We forget that God is not a genie but a person who wants to shape us in the image of his Son as much as he wants to answer our prayers.
From A Praying Life, by James E. Miller
The fatalism inherent in so much modern psychology immobilizes us as well. Emotional states are sacred. If I’m grumpy, I have a right to feel that way and to express my feelings. Everyone around me simply has to “get over it.” One of the worst sins, according to pop psychology, is to suppress your emotions. So to pray that I won’t be angry seem unauthentic, as if I’m suppressing the real me.
From The Praying Life, Paul E. Miller.
While purporting to “see through” others’ facades, cynics lack purity of heart. A significant source of cynicism is the fracture between my heart and my behavior. It goes something like this: My heart gets out of tune with God, but life goes on. So I continue to perform and say Christian things, but they are just words. I talk about Jesus without the presence of Jesus. There is a disconnect between what I present and who I am. My words sound phony, so others’ words sound phony too. In short, my empty religious preformance leads me to think that everyone is phony. The very thing I am doing, I accuse others of doing. Adding judgment to hypocrisy breeds cynicism.
From The Praying Life, Paul E. Miller.
When Jesus interacts with people, he narrows his focus down to one person…. This one-person focus is how love works. Love incarnates by slowing down and focusing on just the beloved. We don’t love in general; we love one person at a time….
You don’t create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You will need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly.
From A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, by Paul E. Miller.
In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away….
There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
From C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, “Charity”
I’ve posted a few quotations from Encouragement: The Key to Caring as I have been reading it. It’s not a great book, but it has some helpful insights – and it’s short. Its theme is crucial, of course, and many of us need to learn much more about encouragement.
Perhaps the most helpful thing in this book was the way it reminded me how easily, how carelessly, how thoughtlessly I can discourage others, without even intending to. When the writers point it out, it’s easy to see. I imagine that I routinely treat other people’s hearts clumsily, and I am certain they notice it even though they don’t tell me.
That’s a sad realization, but it gives hope that I might take a little more care. At least I’d like to.
Words that open doors transmit two messages:
1. “I am interested in whatever you have to say.”
2. “I will accept you regardless of what you say.”
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 100]
Encouragers must constantly remind themselves that the people with whom they rub shoulders are facing problems in life which, but for the grace of God, are ultimately overwhelming. It is this conscious awareness that can give encouraging power to even the most trivial conversation.
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 79]
What is a determined encourager to do when he is really irked by the one he intends to encourage? How do we encourage someone who irritates us? Certainly the ministry of encouragement should extend beyond the circle of people we enjoy.
[From Encouragement, Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, p. 61]