Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond
The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped—it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.
~ Eugene Peterson, 1932-2018, Pastor/Teacher
I wanted a perfect ending. I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
~ Gilda Radner, 1946-’89
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
~ Douglas Adams, 1952-2001
The fear of uncertainty is rooted in this belief: God won’t meet me in the way I am desperate for him to show up. And our greatest certitude is this: God is already in the room.
~ Shelly Miller, Spiritual coach
Insistence on security is incompatible with the way of the cross. What daring adventures the incarnation and the atonement were! What a breach of convention and decorum that Almighty God should renounce his privileges in order to take human flesh and bear human sin! Jesus had no security except in his Father. So to follow Jesus is always to accept at least a measure of uncertainty, danger and rejection for his sake.
~ John Stott, 1921-2011, Anglican Minister, The Cross of Christ
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. […] We lay foundations that will need further development. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders. We are prophets of a future not our own.
~ Ken Untener, 1937-2004, Bishop of Saginaw