This Sunday’s readings: John 21:15-25

Reflections

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.
~ J.I. Packer, 1926-2020, English-born theologian, Author

I liked myself better when I wasn’t me.
~ Carol Burnett

We’re in the presence of a good story when the flaw that shatters shalom is also the doorway to redemption… Whether it be our own flaw or the sin of others, God uses the raw material of sin to create the edifice of his redeemed glory … The point cannot be overemphasized: your plight is also your redemption. The Bible assumes that its stories are also our story… We are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their stories are a paradigm of our own. Each of us is called, redeemed, and exiled – again and again.
~ Dan B. Allender, To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.
~ Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980, Author, from short story “Theft”

After conversion we need bruising so that we might remember that we are reeds and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising because of the remaining pride in our nature and to show us that we live by mercy. Such bruising may help weaker Christians not to be too much discouraged when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Thus Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly (Matt. 26:75). This reed, until he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than heart when he said, ‘Though all forsake you, I will not’ (Matt. 26:33). The people of God cannot be without these examples. The heroic deeds of great saints do not comfort the church as much as their falls and bruises do.
~ Richard Sibbes, 1577-1635, Anglican, The Bruised Reed

This Sunday’s readings: John 21:1-14

Reflections

To live above with the saints we love Oh, that will be glory; but to live below with the saints we know Well, that’s another story.
~ Source Unknown

…not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.
Anne Lamott, novelist

Repentance is an intimate affair. And…intimacy with anything is a terrifying prospect … I think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Christ if people stopped lying about what we need, what we fear, where we fail, and how we sin.
~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Author/Speaker

According to Jesus, acknowledging our neediness opens the door to genuine and lasting happiness. Religions usually talk about what a person has to ‘do’, but Jesus talks about what we ‘can’t do’. He says that our weakness, not our power or what we bring to God, enables us to know God.
Paul Miller, Love Walked Among Us: Learning to Love Like Jesus

I hardly, if ever, lie to myself, because it’s a lot harder work to be self-righteous if you follow Jesus, than it is to be self-aware.
Steve Brown, 1940- , Author/Speaker

He who wants more than what Christ has established, does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience…. He who loves his dream of a community more than Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest & sacrificial.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), from ‘Life Together’, pastor-theologian