This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 131

Reflections

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
~ Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss Psychiatrist

Christianity is not about our disciplined pursuit of God, but about God’s relentless pursuit of us– to the point of dying on a cross for us that we might become friends.
~ Peter Scazzero, 1956- , Psychotherapist, Author

One of the shortest Psalms to read, one of the longest to learn.
~ Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892, English Pastor

The transition from a sucking infant to a weaned child, from squalling baby to quiet son or daughter, is not smooth. It is stormy and noisy. It is no easy thing to quiet yourself: sooner may we calm the sea or rule the wind or tame a tiger than quiet ourselves. It is a pitched battle. The baby is denied expected comforts and flies into rages or sinks into sulks. There are sobs and struggles. The infant is facing its first great sorrow and it is in sore distress. But ‘to the weaned child his mother is his comfort though she has denied him comfort. It is a blessed mark of growth out of spiritual infancy when we can forgo the joys which once appeared to be essential, and can find our solace in him who denies them to us.’
~ Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

We are not called to be awesome, not called to be amazing, nor called to be ‘more’. We are called to be loved. We are called to calm and quiet our souls in the arms of the one who is awesome; the one who is more; and in the arms of one who is exceedingly able to do beyond what we could ever ask or imagine.
~ Scott Sauls, Pastor, Sermon Clip

The point of this verse [v.2] is blunted by the RSV, which pictures a baby pacified at its mother’s breast; whereas the psalm emphasizes the word ‘weaned’, thereby drawing an analogy between the child which no longer frets for what it used to find indispensable, and the soul which has learnt a comparable lesson.
~ Derek Kidner, 1913-2008, British Old Testament Scholar

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’