This Sunday’s readings: John 15:1-11

Reflections

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.
~ Samuel Rutherford (c.1600-1661), Scottish pastor and theologian

The danger is that we may fail to perceive life’s greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to render the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God – and be content to have it so – that is the danger. That someday we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with the husks and trappings of life – and have really missed life itself.
~ Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893, Pastor

Underneath human anxiety is the reversal of identity in which the finite attempts to be infinite.
~ Jackie Hill Perry, poet, author and hip hop artist

Let’s be honest—pruning is cutting and cutting hurts.
~ Bruce H. Wilkinson, Secrets of the Vine: Breaking Through to Abundance

All these things He must be in me, abiding, living, speaking in me; that I may be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. v. 21); not in love, nor in gifts and graces which follow; but in Him.
~ Martin Luther

The greatest misery of all is for God to give you up to your heart’s lusts and desires, to give you up to your own counsels (Ps. 81:11-12). [When visited by various trials and difficulties] think thus: ‘Lord, you have laid an afflicted condition upon me, but, Lord, you have not given me the plague of a hard heart.’
~ Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646), The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

This Sunday’s readings: Matthew 2:1-8

Reflections

It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?
~ Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) in I, Robot

All of us at various times in our lives believe true things for poor reasons, and false things for good reasons, and that whatever we think we know, whether we’re right or wrong, arises from our interactions with other human beings. Thinking independently, solitarily, “for ourselves,” is not an option.
~ Alan Jacobs, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616) in As You Like It

If Luke says Jesus was born of a virgin, it is because he believes it to be a historical fact.
~Michael Wilcock, former Director at Trinity College, author, vicar

Live in the moment… but don’t be led by the moment, or the people who belong to it.
~ J. Aleksandr Wootton, Her Unwelcome Inheritance