Reflections
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
~ Roy T. Bennett
Jack Taylor put it this way: “an idol is something you have to check with before you say yes to God”.
~ Kris Vallotton, Heavy Rain: Renew the Church, Transform the World
The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver’s watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
~ Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
~ Anne Lamott, 1954-, Author
Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by acceptance. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.
~ Rebecca Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker and Into the World
Your pain could be God prying open your life and heart to remove a gift of His that you’ve been holding on to more dearly than Him.
~ Tullian Tchividjian
When people say, “I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself,” they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God’s.
~ Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods
This Sunday’s readings: Acts 19:23-41