This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 107:1-31,43

Reflections

The Bible is shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim.
~ Augustine of Hippo

Those who work well in the depths will more easily understand the heights, for indeed in their true nature they are one in the same.
~ George MacDonald, 1824-1905, The Princess and Curdie

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Shallow believers prefer a shallow God.
~ Toni Morrison, 1931-2019, Am. Novelist

Some Christians have taken all the justice, judgment and hatred of sin out of the nature of God and have nothing left but a soft god. Others have taken love and grace out and have nothing left but a god of judgment. Or they have taken away the personality of God and have nothing left but a mathematical god—the god of the scientists. All these are false, inadequate conceptions of God.
~ A.W. Tozer, 1897-1963, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith

The question is not, do you have conflicts? The real question is, are you aware of your conflicts? … Anybody who says they don’t have any conflict, is either lying or deluding themselves.
~ Abhijit Naskar, Author, Mad About Humans: World Maker’s Almanac

People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
~ William Faulkner, 1897-1962, American Author, ‘As I Lay Dying’

So for example. We’re here at a cancer hospital, and sometimes you want to say: God, what in the world, are you up to? What’s wrong with you? And the last line in the hymn is this—“Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee.” There’s a tendency for us to think there’s a darkness in God and we’re smart, instead of saying, well, wait a minute, no, He’s more light than we can handle. And the darkness is in us. ‘Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.
~ Tim Keller, On the Hymn ‘Immortal, Invisible’