Reflections

Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell justifies the importance of his running in the Olympics by saying, “God has made me for a purpose—he made me for China. But he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” In the same way, the Lord wants you to know that his face is turned toward you in grace and in peace. He wants you too to “feel his pleasure.”
~ Commentator

To hear the phrase ‘our only hope’ always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn’t work, there is nothing left.
~ Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book

Mother Teresa said that she couldn’t imagine doing her work for more than thirty minutes without prayer. Do you and I have work that we can’t imagine doing for thirty minutes without prayer?
~ Gary Haugen, Founder: International Justice Mission

Home is where the heart is.
~ Pliny the Elder, 79AD, Gaius Plinius Secundus, author, natural philosopher

When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt to be gradually lost.
~ Flannery O’Connor, 1925-1964, Mystery and Manners

Praise is the rehearsal of our eternal song. By grace we learn to sing, and in glory we continue to sing. What will some of you do when you get to heaven, if you go on grumbling all the way? Do not hope to get to heaven in that style. But now begin to bless the name of the Lord.
~ Charles Spurgeon, 19th Century Pastor

This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 27:1-11

Reflections

Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.
~ Cornel West, philosopher/social critic

Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, 1918–2008, The Gulag Archipelago

Sometimes, to overcome a hurdle before us, we don’t need to search for new truth or understanding of God so much as we need to live out what we already know.
~Amy Layne Litzelman, worship mentor/teacher

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more.
~John Newton (1725-1807), Anglican pastor

This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 146:1-10