What are you doing right now that requires faith?
~ Francis Chan
Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond
Uncertainty provides rescue from being stuck in the familiar ways of life that keep us from moving forward into the purposes of God. Wandering into the wilderness of the unknown is God’s divine reorientation, from what we know in the present to what God knows about the future.
~ Shelly Miller, from her book Searching for Certainty, 2020
There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice.
~ C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963, British writer
The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape; so that he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know that they must do at that last day.
~ A.W. Tozer, 1897-1963, writer, magazine editor
I do not put much stock in “believing in God.” The grammar of “belief” invites a far too rationalistic account of what it means to be a Christian. “Belief” implies propositions about which you get to make up your mind before you know the work they are meant to do.
~ Stanley Hauerwas, 1940- , American theologian
God’s grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can ‘just forgive’ the perpetrator. But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly.
~ Timothy Keller, 1950-2023, pastor, author
We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.
~ James A. Baldwin. 1924-1987, writer, activist