* Pray Like a Child
- Children tell God what they are genuinely thinking. They are honest, simple, and direct. They understand that God is listening, and they understand that prayers are very important. Somehow when we become adults, we forget how important praying is. So if you and I are going to be like little children, we must not forget our prayers.
* Don't Be Limited by Adult Vocabulary
- Little children don't have a large vocabulary ... of words, but their vocabulary outside of words is massive. It's not limited to but included hugs, winks, tears, squeezes, laughter, screaming, jumping, hopping, skipping, dancing, and silence. When you and I decide to be childlike, let's remember the vocabulary of children.
* Ask for Help!
- Children are not afraid to ask for help. They have no problem admitting they are in over their heads. To children, a call for help is a proud expression of their dependency on those who love them. Adults, on the other hand, are anxious about calling for help. We are hesitant to admit we're in trouble. Calling for help is humiliating; it's an admission of need, an acknowledgment of weakness, and we don't want to experience that kind of humiliation.
- It is hard to ask for help. Childlike faith is not for people who need a little help; it is for people who are desperate, who are at the end of their rope. Faith is for those who are not too proud to wave their arms and admit they are drowning.
- Faith is not religious positive thinking. It's not a motivational course, a pep talk, an exercise in positive self-imaging. Faith is for the helpless. It is a humiliation, out of which humility is birthed. We do not come to faith to find the extra punch we need to make it over the hill. We come to faith because we are exhausted, weakened, ready to give up. Faith is more than giving up, it is giving in.
- If we want to experience a childlike faith, we must be more than willing to admit our helplessness.
* Embrace Your Ordinariness
- Children have an innate leveling mechanism that keeps reality in perspective. They are neither overly impressed with power or unimpressed with the ordinary. Faith allows us to recognize the indiscriminate power of God that takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.
- Genuine saints are genuine human beings who are capable of boredom and bad God days. Grumpiness, idiosyncrasies, pouting, and pettiness are all present in saints as well as the rest of us. Silence and solitude are not instant cures to busyness. They are lifetime commitments worked out in the real world of schedules and flawed human beings.
- Childlike faith is for ordinary people. People like you and me who know our flaws only too well. We are familiar with our inconsistencies and our unsaintliness and understand the good news of the gospel - Jesus Christ liberates us from the oppression of our ordinariness and gives us permission to trust God to make us extraordinary.
* Don't Stop Playing
- As you look at your life, as you contemplate embracing the faith of a little child, as you wonder what difference your bumbling, flawed life will make, I hope you have heard in the pages of this book God's whispering voice, "Don't stop, Keep on playing. You're doing great."
One day we shall all be gathered in that great concert hall of God, and we will hear the glorious beauty of the concerto God was playing while you and I plunked out our childlike version of "Chopsticks."
Showing posts with label Dangerous Wonder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dangerous Wonder. Show all posts
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Chapter 8 Naive Grace
* The heart of Jesus loves us as we are not as we should be, beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity; He who loves us in the morning sun and the evening rain without caution, regret, boundary, limit, or breaking point. - Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus
* What I am suggesting is that God's grace is so outside the lines of our understanding that we can only stand in awe and wonder. Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler - a scribbler who is similar to two thieves who hung on crosses on either side of Jesus. One of the two asked Jesus to please accept his scribbled and sloppy life into the kingdom of God ... and He did. Preposterous. And very good news for the rest of us scribblers.
* Grace equalizes the unequal.
* The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn't care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church. Exactly.
* Jesus was making it very clear that there was not one iota of room in the church for arrogance because none of us belongs in it!
* The grace of God levels us all. All of us are broken, all of us are flawed, all of us are undeserving. There's no room in the church for pride, a judgmental attitude, or arrogance. All of us have had our debt "paid in full."
* Grace graces even our failures.
* Grace is difficult to believe and difficult to accept. We want so desperately to believe that God loves us unconditionally, yet we keep adding conditions. "Okay, fine," we say reluctantly, "but once we accept God's grace, we'd better get our act together. We had better be successful or we won't be worthy of His grace." We just cannot believe God can grace even our "failures."
* The grace of God says to you and to me, "I can make last place more significant than first place. I will use prostitutes to teach others about gratitude. I will use lepers as examples of cleanliness. I will take men who persecute the church and make them its pillars. I will take the dead and give them life. I will take uneducated fishermen and make them fishers of men." God's grace does not exist to make us successful. God's grace exists to point people to a love like no other love they have ever known. A love outside the lines.
* Grace includes the excluded.
* Naive grace is the kind of love that wants everyone to be included instead of finding ways to exclude. Jesus Christ was naive enough to love anyone and everyone. Even adulterers.
* Jesus was not ambiguous about sin and certainly did not condone adultery, and luckily He wasn't ambiguous about grace.
* This woman knew all about condemnation. She knew the Scriptures, knew the sad and empty consequences of her lifestyle, but she didn't know about grace. Jesus introduced her to a scandalous grace and then reminded her, "Leave your life of sin."
* The grace of God is indiscriminate, foolish, impractical, unrealistic, crazy, and naive. If God is not careful, people like you and me might actually believe Jesus Christ is winking at us ... just like a little child.
* What I am suggesting is that God's grace is so outside the lines of our understanding that we can only stand in awe and wonder. Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler - a scribbler who is similar to two thieves who hung on crosses on either side of Jesus. One of the two asked Jesus to please accept his scribbled and sloppy life into the kingdom of God ... and He did. Preposterous. And very good news for the rest of us scribblers.
* Grace equalizes the unequal.
* The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn't care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church. Exactly.
* Jesus was making it very clear that there was not one iota of room in the church for arrogance because none of us belongs in it!
* The grace of God levels us all. All of us are broken, all of us are flawed, all of us are undeserving. There's no room in the church for pride, a judgmental attitude, or arrogance. All of us have had our debt "paid in full."
* Grace graces even our failures.
* Grace is difficult to believe and difficult to accept. We want so desperately to believe that God loves us unconditionally, yet we keep adding conditions. "Okay, fine," we say reluctantly, "but once we accept God's grace, we'd better get our act together. We had better be successful or we won't be worthy of His grace." We just cannot believe God can grace even our "failures."
* The grace of God says to you and to me, "I can make last place more significant than first place. I will use prostitutes to teach others about gratitude. I will use lepers as examples of cleanliness. I will take men who persecute the church and make them its pillars. I will take the dead and give them life. I will take uneducated fishermen and make them fishers of men." God's grace does not exist to make us successful. God's grace exists to point people to a love like no other love they have ever known. A love outside the lines.
* Grace includes the excluded.
* Naive grace is the kind of love that wants everyone to be included instead of finding ways to exclude. Jesus Christ was naive enough to love anyone and everyone. Even adulterers.
* Jesus was not ambiguous about sin and certainly did not condone adultery, and luckily He wasn't ambiguous about grace.
* This woman knew all about condemnation. She knew the Scriptures, knew the sad and empty consequences of her lifestyle, but she didn't know about grace. Jesus introduced her to a scandalous grace and then reminded her, "Leave your life of sin."
* The grace of God is indiscriminate, foolish, impractical, unrealistic, crazy, and naive. If God is not careful, people like you and me might actually believe Jesus Christ is winking at us ... just like a little child.
Chapter 7 Happy Terror
* A tremor seizes our limbs; our nerves are struck, quiver like strings; our whole being bursts into shudders. But then a cry, wrestled from our very core, fills the world around us, as if a mountain were suddenly about to place itself in front of us. It is one word: GOD. Not an emotion, a stir within us, but a power, a marvel beyond us, tearing the world apart. - Abraham Heschel
* I want to know what happened to the bone-chilling, earth-shattering, gut-wrenching, knee-knocking, heart-stopping, life-altering fear that leaves us speechless, paralyzed, helpless, and glad. The terror I am speaking of is a mix of wonder, awe, fear, and worship, all happening at the same time.
I am beginning to wonder if we modern followers of Christ are capable of being terrified of God. No fear of God. No fear of Jesus. No fear of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a feel-good gospel that attracts thousands ... but transforms no one.
It is time for Christianity to become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, "Fear not"; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or doctrine or theology, but the constant awareness of God's terrifying presence in our lives. The nice, nonthreatening God needs to be replaced by the God whose very presence smashes our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. A healthy, childlike fear should make us more in awe of God than we are of our government, our problems, our beliefs about abortion, our doctrines and agendas, or any of our other earthly concerns. Our God is perfectly capable of both calming the storm and putting us in the middle of one. Either way, if it's God, we will be speechless and trembling ... and smiling, too. It's time to become people whose God is big and holy and frightening and gentle and tender and ours; a God whose love frightens us into His strong and powerful arms where He dares to hold us in His terrifying, loving presence.
* If Jesus is the son of God, we should be terrified of what He will do when He gets His hands on our lives; if the Bible is the Word of God, we should be quaking every time we read its soul-piercing words; if the church is the body of Christ, our culture should be threatened by our intimidating presence. But our culture is not threatened by our presence; it's not terrified of the Jesus in our lives; and it's not quaking at the Word of God. Why? Because we have familiarized the gospel, sanitized it, flattened it, taken the sting and the terror out of it. We've been intimidated by those who claim to be familiar with Jesus.
* When you and I are in the presence of the mysterious Son of God, the mystery becomes more mysterious. God does not shrink when we know Him, He expands. God does not become smaller, He becomes bigger.
* The mysterious, marvelous fear we feel in the presence of God is a sign of maturity; it's a sign of intimacy, of a deep and abiding faith. It is the moment when we understand the "ghost" (the monster) is really our daddy.
* Darkness is a breeding ground of fear. When we are in the dark, we can't see anyone or anything. We feel panicky, helpless, isolated, vulnerable, lost, confused, frightened. Most of all, what we feel is alone. Darkness isolates us; it disorients us and causes us to exaggerate and distort reality.
* God does not always rid us of the darkness; He joins us in the darkness.
* They understood now, but only now, that when life gets dark, when we are alone, we aren't alone. Jesus Christ is Lord, even in the darkness.
* Attributing all good things to God and all bad things to the Devil appears to make life much easier to understand. No complications here. No mystery to unravel, no difficult issues to resolve. God is easy to understand and easy to decipher. There's nothing to be afraid of when you're around a God who is easy to understand.
But ... God made the bee, and He made the stinger! We are living in a world where bee stings can kill us, and that is scary. Reality is complicated, life is complicated, God is complicated. His footprints are not easy to see in the dust and dirt of the real world's trail. And when we are lost in the forest, we want to find God's tracks. When it's dark and we're stuck in a boat during a gale, we don't want dark, indistinguishable shapes roaming around on the water. We get frightened when we lose track of God. We get terrified when we are not sure what God is doing.
* One of the glorious complications of God is His ability to reveal Himself in the unrevealable. God is not lost when we are. God is waiting for us even in the darkness!
* The one terrifying truth - the Jesus who can rescue you is the One you can trust even when you're not rescued.
* Jesus said, "John, you have staked your life on the Truth. You can trust Me, John. You can know now deep in your soul that I will be here in life, and I will be with you in death! Death is only the second to the last word, it is not the last word. Yes, John, your upside-down life may be coming to an end, but even death is not the end."
* "Watching her (the turtle) swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I noticed that sometimes it is hard to tell whether you are being killed or being saved by the hands that turn your life upside down." - Barbara Taylor
All the turtle could do was hang on, and hanging on was pretty darn miserable. She could easily have died, but she lived. It must have been a terrifying ride through the dunes. If turtles can experience fear, this turtle must have done so, but it was life-giving fear, it was life-saving fear, it was the upside-down fear that always comes when we put ourselves in the hands of Jesus.
* I want to know what happened to the bone-chilling, earth-shattering, gut-wrenching, knee-knocking, heart-stopping, life-altering fear that leaves us speechless, paralyzed, helpless, and glad. The terror I am speaking of is a mix of wonder, awe, fear, and worship, all happening at the same time.
I am beginning to wonder if we modern followers of Christ are capable of being terrified of God. No fear of God. No fear of Jesus. No fear of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a feel-good gospel that attracts thousands ... but transforms no one.
It is time for Christianity to become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, "Fear not"; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or doctrine or theology, but the constant awareness of God's terrifying presence in our lives. The nice, nonthreatening God needs to be replaced by the God whose very presence smashes our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. A healthy, childlike fear should make us more in awe of God than we are of our government, our problems, our beliefs about abortion, our doctrines and agendas, or any of our other earthly concerns. Our God is perfectly capable of both calming the storm and putting us in the middle of one. Either way, if it's God, we will be speechless and trembling ... and smiling, too. It's time to become people whose God is big and holy and frightening and gentle and tender and ours; a God whose love frightens us into His strong and powerful arms where He dares to hold us in His terrifying, loving presence.
* If Jesus is the son of God, we should be terrified of what He will do when He gets His hands on our lives; if the Bible is the Word of God, we should be quaking every time we read its soul-piercing words; if the church is the body of Christ, our culture should be threatened by our intimidating presence. But our culture is not threatened by our presence; it's not terrified of the Jesus in our lives; and it's not quaking at the Word of God. Why? Because we have familiarized the gospel, sanitized it, flattened it, taken the sting and the terror out of it. We've been intimidated by those who claim to be familiar with Jesus.
* When you and I are in the presence of the mysterious Son of God, the mystery becomes more mysterious. God does not shrink when we know Him, He expands. God does not become smaller, He becomes bigger.
* The mysterious, marvelous fear we feel in the presence of God is a sign of maturity; it's a sign of intimacy, of a deep and abiding faith. It is the moment when we understand the "ghost" (the monster) is really our daddy.
* Darkness is a breeding ground of fear. When we are in the dark, we can't see anyone or anything. We feel panicky, helpless, isolated, vulnerable, lost, confused, frightened. Most of all, what we feel is alone. Darkness isolates us; it disorients us and causes us to exaggerate and distort reality.
* God does not always rid us of the darkness; He joins us in the darkness.
* They understood now, but only now, that when life gets dark, when we are alone, we aren't alone. Jesus Christ is Lord, even in the darkness.
* Attributing all good things to God and all bad things to the Devil appears to make life much easier to understand. No complications here. No mystery to unravel, no difficult issues to resolve. God is easy to understand and easy to decipher. There's nothing to be afraid of when you're around a God who is easy to understand.
But ... God made the bee, and He made the stinger! We are living in a world where bee stings can kill us, and that is scary. Reality is complicated, life is complicated, God is complicated. His footprints are not easy to see in the dust and dirt of the real world's trail. And when we are lost in the forest, we want to find God's tracks. When it's dark and we're stuck in a boat during a gale, we don't want dark, indistinguishable shapes roaming around on the water. We get frightened when we lose track of God. We get terrified when we are not sure what God is doing.
* One of the glorious complications of God is His ability to reveal Himself in the unrevealable. God is not lost when we are. God is waiting for us even in the darkness!
* The one terrifying truth - the Jesus who can rescue you is the One you can trust even when you're not rescued.
* Jesus said, "John, you have staked your life on the Truth. You can trust Me, John. You can know now deep in your soul that I will be here in life, and I will be with you in death! Death is only the second to the last word, it is not the last word. Yes, John, your upside-down life may be coming to an end, but even death is not the end."
* "Watching her (the turtle) swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I noticed that sometimes it is hard to tell whether you are being killed or being saved by the hands that turn your life upside down." - Barbara Taylor
All the turtle could do was hang on, and hanging on was pretty darn miserable. She could easily have died, but she lived. It must have been a terrifying ride through the dunes. If turtles can experience fear, this turtle must have done so, but it was life-giving fear, it was life-saving fear, it was the upside-down fear that always comes when we put ourselves in the hands of Jesus.
Chapter 6 Irresponsible Passion
* You called, you cried, you shattered my deafness. You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness. You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for you. I tasted and I now hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I now burn with longing for your peace. - Saint Augustine, Passion for Pilgrimage
* Passion is the roller coaster ride that can happen when you follow Jesus Christ. It is the breathtaking, thrill-filled, bone-rattling ride of a lifetime where every moment matters and all you can do is hang on for life dear. When you become a Christian, when you decide to follow Christ, you decide in favor of passion. Jesus came to forgive us of our sin, yes, but His mission was also to introduce us to the passion of living. Most people believe that following Jesus is all about living right. Not true. Following Jesus is all about living fully.
* What is passion? Aliveness. Living with expectancy, anticipation, and enthusiasm. What is the opposite of passion? Dead living. Living a life that is borrrrring!
* I had no idea that God's love was extravagant, irresponsible ... and irresistible. I had no idea that God of the universe loved me with no conditions, no addenda to the contract, no fine print. I had no idea God was passionate about me! His passion for me, His love for me, makes me want to love like Him. Passion is much harder than legalism. The behavior of the father appears to be irresponsible, but his passion is irresistible, staggering, compelling - the young man is loved to his senses. It was an act of pure passion.
* Passion is extravagant. Passion can't be fabricated or manipulated. Passion springs from gratitude.
* Go ahead, live irresponsibly! Forget about what is sensible, responsible, and prudent and rediscover the childlike passion of falling in love with God. Take the ride of your life on the roller coaster of His unconditional love. Go ahead, say it: What a ride!
* Passion is the roller coaster ride that can happen when you follow Jesus Christ. It is the breathtaking, thrill-filled, bone-rattling ride of a lifetime where every moment matters and all you can do is hang on for life dear. When you become a Christian, when you decide to follow Christ, you decide in favor of passion. Jesus came to forgive us of our sin, yes, but His mission was also to introduce us to the passion of living. Most people believe that following Jesus is all about living right. Not true. Following Jesus is all about living fully.
* What is passion? Aliveness. Living with expectancy, anticipation, and enthusiasm. What is the opposite of passion? Dead living. Living a life that is borrrrring!
* I had no idea that God's love was extravagant, irresponsible ... and irresistible. I had no idea that God of the universe loved me with no conditions, no addenda to the contract, no fine print. I had no idea God was passionate about me! His passion for me, His love for me, makes me want to love like Him. Passion is much harder than legalism. The behavior of the father appears to be irresponsible, but his passion is irresistible, staggering, compelling - the young man is loved to his senses. It was an act of pure passion.
* Passion is extravagant. Passion can't be fabricated or manipulated. Passion springs from gratitude.
* Go ahead, live irresponsibly! Forget about what is sensible, responsible, and prudent and rediscover the childlike passion of falling in love with God. Take the ride of your life on the roller coaster of His unconditional love. Go ahead, say it: What a ride!
Janie's Dialogue with God
i feel awkward
because it's been so long
since i've been near you.
i've missed you too;
i think about you every day.
But i've messed up;
i've done a lot of things
that i regret.
it's okay, child.
i forgive you.
i don't understand
i turn away,
i ignore you ...
i'm still here
right beside you.
i try to live without you
even though i know deep inside
that you're still a part of me.
you don't have to make yourself lovable;
i love you how you are.
even after everything I've done,
and everything that has happened,
would it offend you if i called you bizarre?
i am bizarre;
more so than you'll ever know.
this may seem strange,
but could I please ask you
to hold me, for a little while?
my child, i've been waiting for you
with outstretched arms.
(pp. 93-4; Dangerous Wonder)
because it's been so long
since i've been near you.
i've missed you too;
i think about you every day.
But i've messed up;
i've done a lot of things
that i regret.
it's okay, child.
i forgive you.
i don't understand
i turn away,
i ignore you ...
i'm still here
right beside you.
i try to live without you
even though i know deep inside
that you're still a part of me.
you don't have to make yourself lovable;
i love you how you are.
even after everything I've done,
and everything that has happened,
would it offend you if i called you bizarre?
i am bizarre;
more so than you'll ever know.
this may seem strange,
but could I please ask you
to hold me, for a little while?
my child, i've been waiting for you
with outstretched arms.
(pp. 93-4; Dangerous Wonder)
Chapter 5 Wide-eyed Listening
* The moment we deny God's fingerprint on our soul, the instant we stop listening to our uniqueness, our God hearing starts to deteriorate.
* God is present with us. But God is more than present with us, He knows us. He doesn't follow alongside of us, He follows inside of us. We don't have to attend church to find God. We don't have to make sure our life is clear of any sin to find God. God has found us regardless of our situation, regardless of our condition. We can be lost, dizzied by our own spiritual vertigo, but God is present with us, luring us back to Himself. We may turn our backs on God, but God is always facing us.
* I would like to suggest a new way of hearing God's whisper - savoring. Savoring is the lost art of cherishing, appreciating, relishing. When you and I stop and savor a particular of life, we soak it in, we listen with all of our senses, we immerse ourselves in what we are savoring.
* If we truly want to hear God, if we truly want to hear Him speak, then we need to take the time to savor Him. To immerse ourselves in our Father and bask in the intoxicating presence of God's speaking voice - this is prayer. Prayer is savoring God. Savoring is immersing ourselves in His presence, hearing Him with all of our senses.
* "When you are waiting you are not doing nothing. You're doing something. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be." - Sue Monk Kidd
* We will hear the whispering God if we are willing to wait, if we are willing to abandon our need for the quick fix. "God is our midwife not our rescuer," Sue reminds us.
* God is present with us. But God is more than present with us, He knows us. He doesn't follow alongside of us, He follows inside of us. We don't have to attend church to find God. We don't have to make sure our life is clear of any sin to find God. God has found us regardless of our situation, regardless of our condition. We can be lost, dizzied by our own spiritual vertigo, but God is present with us, luring us back to Himself. We may turn our backs on God, but God is always facing us.
* I would like to suggest a new way of hearing God's whisper - savoring. Savoring is the lost art of cherishing, appreciating, relishing. When you and I stop and savor a particular of life, we soak it in, we listen with all of our senses, we immerse ourselves in what we are savoring.
* If we truly want to hear God, if we truly want to hear Him speak, then we need to take the time to savor Him. To immerse ourselves in our Father and bask in the intoxicating presence of God's speaking voice - this is prayer. Prayer is savoring God. Savoring is immersing ourselves in His presence, hearing Him with all of our senses.
* "When you are waiting you are not doing nothing. You're doing something. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be." - Sue Monk Kidd
* We will hear the whispering God if we are willing to wait, if we are willing to abandon our need for the quick fix. "God is our midwife not our rescuer," Sue reminds us.
Chapter 4 Daring Playfulness
* Life is tough. It takes up much of your time, all your weekends, and what do you get in the end of it? I think that the life cycle is all backward. You should die first, get that out of the way. Then you live twenty years in an old-age home. You get kicked out when you're too young. You get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college; you party until you're ready for high school; you go to grade school; you become a little kid; you play. You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby; you go back into the womb; you spend your last nine months floating; and you finish up as a gleam in somebody's eye.
* Jesus Christ knew how to play as well as pray; how to laugh as well as cry; how to be serious about life abut not take Himself too seriously. Jesus Christ came to save us from our sin and to save us from becoming severe, unyielding, harsh, and terminally serious.
* As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded. - Eugene Peterson, Living the Message.
* Jesus understood He could protect the seriousness of the gospel by interspersing His life and message with a sense of playfulness.
* Just because we believe the gospel is a life-death matter doesn't mean we have to act as if we're dead.
* Play is an expression of God's presence in the world; one clear sign of God's absence in society is the absence of playfulness and laughter. Play is not an escape; it is the way to release the life-smothering grip of busyness, stress, and anxiety. (Playfulness is a modern expression of hope, a celebration of the flickering light of the gospel that plays with the dark by pouncing on the surrounding darkness like a cat toying with a mouse.)
* The nature of God is playful, that is why He hides. God is not only present when we can see Him, He is present when we can't, and joy comes from recognizing God in places we never thought He would be. God hides in difficulty, He hides in suffering, He hides in poverty, He hides in failure, and He hides in the stories of our lives. Whatever our circumstance, whatever the status of our lives, God is present - invisible, hiding, waiting for us to discover Him, waiting for us to learn from Him in the shadows as well as the light.
* "God loves you just as you are! Surrender to His love!"
* Jesus Christ knew how to play as well as pray; how to laugh as well as cry; how to be serious about life abut not take Himself too seriously. Jesus Christ came to save us from our sin and to save us from becoming severe, unyielding, harsh, and terminally serious.
* As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded. - Eugene Peterson, Living the Message.
* Jesus understood He could protect the seriousness of the gospel by interspersing His life and message with a sense of playfulness.
* Just because we believe the gospel is a life-death matter doesn't mean we have to act as if we're dead.
* Play is an expression of God's presence in the world; one clear sign of God's absence in society is the absence of playfulness and laughter. Play is not an escape; it is the way to release the life-smothering grip of busyness, stress, and anxiety. (Playfulness is a modern expression of hope, a celebration of the flickering light of the gospel that plays with the dark by pouncing on the surrounding darkness like a cat toying with a mouse.)
* The nature of God is playful, that is why He hides. God is not only present when we can see Him, He is present when we can't, and joy comes from recognizing God in places we never thought He would be. God hides in difficulty, He hides in suffering, He hides in poverty, He hides in failure, and He hides in the stories of our lives. Whatever our circumstance, whatever the status of our lives, God is present - invisible, hiding, waiting for us to discover Him, waiting for us to learn from Him in the shadows as well as the light.
* "God loves you just as you are! Surrender to His love!"
Chapter 3 Wild Abandon
* Every day was vivid, electric, adventurous, invigorating, and exhilarating. Every nerve was standing on tiptoe, every sense was activated, every emotion was alive! My whole being was on call, on alert. (The spaceship play)
* I was given my first taste of abandon, my first experience of giving myself over unrestrainedly to an idea larger than myself. God was gifting me, preparing me for that moment when I would bump into Jesus and He would beckon me to come, abandon all else, and follow Him.
* ... somehow these men knew that life with Jesus is the life they had been seeking unsuccessfully in the confines of safety and caution. They knew life's greatest adventure was waiting just beyond the limits of carefulness.
* "Abandon yourself to the One who will never abandon you."
* Christianity is this wild religion that has always been more concerned about following Jesus than following the rules of Jesus.
* Mistakes are the guaranteed consequence of wild abandon. Mistakes are signs of growth. That is why the Old and the New Testament are full of people who made mistakes. The church should be the one place in our culture where mistakes are not only expected but welcomed.
* Faith is about recklessly following Jesus wherever He goes. ... Reckless abandon does not mean we make the rules and He follows us. Following Christ with abandon does not give us permission to kill those who make rules we don't agree with. Remember, Jesus let the rule monitors use their rules to kill Him.
* There is nowhere else to go except to follow Jesus.
* Fear keeps us from experimenting, from taking chances, from trying the new, from choosing the discomfort of exploring uncharted waters, from stepping out in the darkness, from going where no one else has gone.
* When we follow the rule-violating, religion-threatening, category-breaking Jesus, our lives are always in jeopardy.
* The Christian life is more than finding Jesus - it is following Jesus. Following, it turns out, is not a one-time, spectacular act of faith, but a one-day-at-a-time, ordinary, unspectacular following; a daily act of fearlessness that takes us through the most frightening and rugged terrain to a place of peace, joy, and abandon.
* A life of abandon is a life of resistance, a lonely life, a minority life, and, above all, an incomprehensible life.
* Two roads diverged in this little girl's life. One is the road of rules and expectations, the other is the road of love. The roads of our lives are much the same. Will we go for the safe, predictable road of rules and expectations? Or will we go for the One we love, Jesus, who bids us come with wild abandon?
* I was given my first taste of abandon, my first experience of giving myself over unrestrainedly to an idea larger than myself. God was gifting me, preparing me for that moment when I would bump into Jesus and He would beckon me to come, abandon all else, and follow Him.
* ... somehow these men knew that life with Jesus is the life they had been seeking unsuccessfully in the confines of safety and caution. They knew life's greatest adventure was waiting just beyond the limits of carefulness.
* "Abandon yourself to the One who will never abandon you."
* Christianity is this wild religion that has always been more concerned about following Jesus than following the rules of Jesus.
* Mistakes are the guaranteed consequence of wild abandon. Mistakes are signs of growth. That is why the Old and the New Testament are full of people who made mistakes. The church should be the one place in our culture where mistakes are not only expected but welcomed.
* Faith is about recklessly following Jesus wherever He goes. ... Reckless abandon does not mean we make the rules and He follows us. Following Christ with abandon does not give us permission to kill those who make rules we don't agree with. Remember, Jesus let the rule monitors use their rules to kill Him.
* There is nowhere else to go except to follow Jesus.
* Fear keeps us from experimenting, from taking chances, from trying the new, from choosing the discomfort of exploring uncharted waters, from stepping out in the darkness, from going where no one else has gone.
* When we follow the rule-violating, religion-threatening, category-breaking Jesus, our lives are always in jeopardy.
* The Christian life is more than finding Jesus - it is following Jesus. Following, it turns out, is not a one-time, spectacular act of faith, but a one-day-at-a-time, ordinary, unspectacular following; a daily act of fearlessness that takes us through the most frightening and rugged terrain to a place of peace, joy, and abandon.
* A life of abandon is a life of resistance, a lonely life, a minority life, and, above all, an incomprehensible life.
* Two roads diverged in this little girl's life. One is the road of rules and expectations, the other is the road of love. The roads of our lives are much the same. Will we go for the safe, predictable road of rules and expectations? Or will we go for the One we love, Jesus, who bids us come with wild abandon?
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Chapter 2 Risky Curiosity
* Risk, as we have seen, is indispensble to any significant life, nowhere more clearly than in the life of the spirit. The goal of faith is not to create a set of immutable, rationalized, precisely defined and defendable beliefs to preserve forever. It is to recover a relationship with God.
* For littel children, what is most important is the act of questioning itself because children's questions are more than a request for information. Their questions are an act of affection, of communion, and of trusting.
* In a welcoming environment where questions are safe, children are infected with curiosity - a fascination with truth, an unrelenting hunger to know and be known, to capture and be captured, to touch and be touched. When these children finally fall asleep at night, they are secure in the knowledge that the one who loves them is bigger than all their questions. They can sleep deeply, knowing they are safe in the arms of the Keeper of their questions.
* Our world is populated with domesticated growups who would rather settle for safe, predictable answers instead of wild, unpredictable mystery. Faith has been reduced to a comfortable system of beliefs about God instead of an uncomfortable encounter with God. Childlike faith understands that God is as capable of destorying us He is of saving us. Risky curiosity breaks from the safety and comfort of a tame faith and ventures into the terrifying presence of a "not so tame" God.
* When children ask questions, they are not afraid to interrupt, irritate, or interrogate until someone responds. Children are born with a natural curiosity and built-in daring. It doesn't take long before our culture explains to them the "inappropriateness" of curiosity in the "real" world, and their naive courage is intimidated out of them.
* Curiosity requires courage. You must be willing to ask questions even when they threaten everyone around you. Faith is more than believing; it is an act of courage, a bold grasping of God's truth. Faith is a wrestling match with God, an intense struggle with truth in an attempt to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of it. Curiosity is the shape of our hunger for God. We question God without apology, we march into the presence of God bringing our armfuls of questions - without fear - because God is not afraid of them. People are afraid. Institutions are afraid. But God is not.
Children are possessed with certain inalienable rights, and one of them is the right to ask questions anytime and anywhere. We have these same rights because we are the children of God. Let us ask our questions boldly, courageously, like a little child.
* People who ask questions isolate themselves. ... Our questions may chase everyone else away, but they attract Jesus. We may be stuck with our questions, but we are also stuck with Jesus. If our questions leave us alone with Jesus, then lonely isn't a bad place to be.
* Parents must help children discern the important questions, the life-giving questions. Christianity must do the same. Alan Jones says that priests "are not so much people with answers as ones who guard the important questions and keep them alive." The church exists to guard the important questions! keep them alive! When the questions are kept alive, our souls have a chance of staying alive. The church should be full of Christians who seek questions rather than answers, mystery instead of solutions, wonder instead of explanations.
* The ancient church fathers used to talk freely of "unknowing." it was their contention that the end of knowledge had much to teach us. They believed we could learn as much about God in what we didn't know as in what we did know. Our inability to answer all the questions became an opportunity to learn more about God. When our intellect fell short, our souls connected with the reality of God. There, in our unknowing, God showed up unexpectedly.
* ... because I no longer "understood" prayer, I was able to sense God's presence in a way that I had never experienced before. Childlike faith is a faith that longs for God and seeks Him wherever He may be - even in the place of no answers.
* Give me a Jesus who meets me in the rushing, crashing waters of my questions. Let me stand precariously close to the dark and menacing skies of doubt, so I can hear the fierce and gentle loving voice of my Jesus who drowns out my fears and stands just beyond my questions with open arms.
* For littel children, what is most important is the act of questioning itself because children's questions are more than a request for information. Their questions are an act of affection, of communion, and of trusting.
* In a welcoming environment where questions are safe, children are infected with curiosity - a fascination with truth, an unrelenting hunger to know and be known, to capture and be captured, to touch and be touched. When these children finally fall asleep at night, they are secure in the knowledge that the one who loves them is bigger than all their questions. They can sleep deeply, knowing they are safe in the arms of the Keeper of their questions.
* Our world is populated with domesticated growups who would rather settle for safe, predictable answers instead of wild, unpredictable mystery. Faith has been reduced to a comfortable system of beliefs about God instead of an uncomfortable encounter with God. Childlike faith understands that God is as capable of destorying us He is of saving us. Risky curiosity breaks from the safety and comfort of a tame faith and ventures into the terrifying presence of a "not so tame" God.
* When children ask questions, they are not afraid to interrupt, irritate, or interrogate until someone responds. Children are born with a natural curiosity and built-in daring. It doesn't take long before our culture explains to them the "inappropriateness" of curiosity in the "real" world, and their naive courage is intimidated out of them.
* Curiosity requires courage. You must be willing to ask questions even when they threaten everyone around you. Faith is more than believing; it is an act of courage, a bold grasping of God's truth. Faith is a wrestling match with God, an intense struggle with truth in an attempt to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of it. Curiosity is the shape of our hunger for God. We question God without apology, we march into the presence of God bringing our armfuls of questions - without fear - because God is not afraid of them. People are afraid. Institutions are afraid. But God is not.
Children are possessed with certain inalienable rights, and one of them is the right to ask questions anytime and anywhere. We have these same rights because we are the children of God. Let us ask our questions boldly, courageously, like a little child.
* People who ask questions isolate themselves. ... Our questions may chase everyone else away, but they attract Jesus. We may be stuck with our questions, but we are also stuck with Jesus. If our questions leave us alone with Jesus, then lonely isn't a bad place to be.
* Parents must help children discern the important questions, the life-giving questions. Christianity must do the same. Alan Jones says that priests "are not so much people with answers as ones who guard the important questions and keep them alive." The church exists to guard the important questions! keep them alive! When the questions are kept alive, our souls have a chance of staying alive. The church should be full of Christians who seek questions rather than answers, mystery instead of solutions, wonder instead of explanations.
* The ancient church fathers used to talk freely of "unknowing." it was their contention that the end of knowledge had much to teach us. They believed we could learn as much about God in what we didn't know as in what we did know. Our inability to answer all the questions became an opportunity to learn more about God. When our intellect fell short, our souls connected with the reality of God. There, in our unknowing, God showed up unexpectedly.
* ... because I no longer "understood" prayer, I was able to sense God's presence in a way that I had never experienced before. Childlike faith is a faith that longs for God and seeks Him wherever He may be - even in the place of no answers.
* Give me a Jesus who meets me in the rushing, crashing waters of my questions. Let me stand precariously close to the dark and menacing skies of doubt, so I can hear the fierce and gentle loving voice of my Jesus who drowns out my fears and stands just beyond my questions with open arms.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Dangerous Wonder (by Michael Yaconelli) - Part I
Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith
* Devlin knows how to listen and how to dance. He is not just gentle, loving, and compassionate, he is also wild, crazy, and incredibly creative.
Introduction
* It was the voice I heard deep inside - a warm and loving voice, a living, believing voice, a wild and dangerous voice. Every time I heard that voice, I recognized who it was: God.
* There is, deep within all of us, a voice. It speaks to us continuously, knocking on the door of our consciousness. When we are children, the voice is very loud, shattering our awareness with overwhelming clarity. Its loudness is not like a train or jet engine. It shouts to us with a whisper. It is like the wind breezing through a field of daisies, scattering their petals across the sky into a flower snowstorm. It is like a thousand flutes echoing in the middle of the forest. This voice of our childhood is the voice of wonder and amazement, the voice of God, which has always been speaking to us, even before we were born.
One sad day, we are aware of an absence. We can no longer hear the God-voice, and we are left with only silence - not a quiet silence but a roaring silence.
We did not want to stop hearing God's voice. Indeed, God kept on speaking. But our lives became louder. The increasing crescendo of our possessions, the ear-piercing noise of busyness, and the soul-smothering volume of our endless activity drowned out the still, small voice of God.
* The death of the soul is never quick. It is a slow dying, a succession of little deaths that continues until we wake up one day on the edge of God's voice, on the fringe of God's belovedness, beyond the adventure of God's claim on our lives.
* ... my heart began to dissipate, and I could sense the beginning of a wild and new way of living. I was full of joy and fear at the same time because I knew that if I listened to this Jesus and followed Him - if I, like the disciples, left my fishing or my tax collecting - He would lead me into treacherous territory, where every day would be an experience of danger and wonder at the same time: an adventure of dangerous wonder!
I was correct. Five years ago I decided to start listening again to the voice of Jesus, and my life hasn't been the same since. He has not been telling me what to do, He has been telling me how much He loves me. He has not corrected my behavior, He has been leading me into His arms. And He has not protected me from the dangers of living, He has led me into the dangerous place of wild and terrifyingly wonder-full faith.
* ... when we reclaim our childlikeness, we stumble upon the presence of God - and we are amazed to find the place all children know about: the place where we once again can hear the whisper of Jesus. Jesus always recognized children because they always recognized Him. When we find the place of dangerous wonder, our souls come to life and we sense that we are on the brink of a great and mysterious way of life.
Chapter 1 Dangerous Wonder
* What moments! What holy moments! To be in the presence of God, frightened and amazed at the same time! To feel as if you are in the presence of Life itself, yet with your soul shaking in both terror and gratitude.
I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.
* What happened to radical Christianity, the un-nice brand of Christianity that turned the world upside-down? What happened to the category-smashing, life-threatening, anti-institutional gospel that spread through the first century like wildfire and was considered (by those in power) dangerous? What happened to the kind of Christians whose hearts were on fire, who had no fear, who spoke the truth no matter what the consequence, who made the world uncomfortable, who were willing to follow Jesus wherever He went? What happened to the kind of Christians who were filled with passion and gratitude, and who every day were unable to get over the grace of God?
I am ready for a Christianity that "ruins" my life, that captures my heart and makes me uncomfortable. I want to be filled with an astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and ... well ... dangerous. Yes, I want to be "dangerous" to a dull and boring religion. I want a faith that is considered "dangerous" by our predictable and monotonous culture.
What I meant by "ruins" is a holy disruption where Jesus turns my life upside-down in order to make it right-side up.
* Our entire culture has become dull. Dullness is the absence of the light of our souls. Look around. We have lost the sparkle in our eyes, the passion in our marriages, the meaning in our work, the joy of our faith.
* Sin is more than turning our backs on God, it is turning our backs on life! Immorality is much more than adultery and dishonesty, it is living drab, colorless, dreary, stale, unimaginative lives. The greatest enemy of Christianity may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished and amazed. Jesus Christ came to rescue us from listlessness as well as lostness; He came to save us from dullness. Our culture is awash in immorality and drowning in dullness. We have forgotten how to dance, how to sing, and how to laugh. We have allowed technology to beat our imaginations into submission and have become tourists rather than travelers. Television dominates our time, alters our values, numbs us to life in all of its wilderness. We have been stunted by mediocrity.
* Christ is the Dream Giver who wants us to listen to His dream for us so we can run like children in the fields of His grace. Trouble is, the fields are full of obstacles - obstacles that deafen us to God's dreams for us and keep us from an adventurous faith.
* Predictability and faith cannot exist. What characterized Jesus and His disciples was unpredictability. ... There was no Day Time(TM), no strategic plan, no mission statement; there was only the eager anticipation of the present moment.
* Take surprise out of faith and all that is left is dry and dead religion. Take away mystery from the gospel and all that is left is a frozen and petrified dogma. Lost your awe of God andyou are left with an impotent deity. Abandon astonishment and you are left with meaningless piety. When religion is characterized by sameness, when faith is franchised, when the genuineness of our experience with God is evaluated by its similarities to others' faith, then the uniqueness of God's people is dead and the church is lost.
* When our possessions possess us - imprison us - risk and adventure become impossible.
* Don't give up. Dangerous wonder is still possible for us all. You can still experience a volatile mix of astonishment and terror, awe and risk, amazement and fear, adventure and exhilaration, tears and laughter, passion and anticipation, daring and enchantment.
* Jesus was a dangerous man - dangerous to the power structure, dangerous to the church, dangerous to the crowds of people who followed Him.
Shouldn't the followers of Christ also be dangerous? Shouldn't everyone be awed and dazzled by Christians? Shouldn't Christians be known by the fire in their souls, the wild-eyed gratitude in their faces, the twinkle in their eyes, and a holy mischief in their demeanors? Shouldn't Christianity be considered dangerous - unpredictable, threatening to the status quo, living outside the lines, uncontrollable, fearless, wild, beyond categorization or definition? Shouldn't those who call themselves Christians be filled with awe, astonishment, and amazement?
* It is time to find the place where the dangerous wonder of faith can be discovered - a place landscaped by risky curiosity, wild abandon, daring playfulness, quiet listening, irresponsible passion, happy terror, and naive grace.
In a day when most of us are tired, worn-out, thirsty, and starving for life and joy and peace, maybe it is time to become a child again. Maybe it is time to quit college and take a year off to go to the mission field, or give up a secure job and go back to school, or leave the corporation because the work is killing our souls, or give up the possessions that are possessing us.
Maybe it is time to live this dangerous wonder of faith, take our shoes off, roll up our sleeves, and have "such a romp as no one has ever seen." Maybe it's time to play in the snow once again.
* Devlin knows how to listen and how to dance. He is not just gentle, loving, and compassionate, he is also wild, crazy, and incredibly creative.
Introduction
* It was the voice I heard deep inside - a warm and loving voice, a living, believing voice, a wild and dangerous voice. Every time I heard that voice, I recognized who it was: God.
* There is, deep within all of us, a voice. It speaks to us continuously, knocking on the door of our consciousness. When we are children, the voice is very loud, shattering our awareness with overwhelming clarity. Its loudness is not like a train or jet engine. It shouts to us with a whisper. It is like the wind breezing through a field of daisies, scattering their petals across the sky into a flower snowstorm. It is like a thousand flutes echoing in the middle of the forest. This voice of our childhood is the voice of wonder and amazement, the voice of God, which has always been speaking to us, even before we were born.
One sad day, we are aware of an absence. We can no longer hear the God-voice, and we are left with only silence - not a quiet silence but a roaring silence.
We did not want to stop hearing God's voice. Indeed, God kept on speaking. But our lives became louder. The increasing crescendo of our possessions, the ear-piercing noise of busyness, and the soul-smothering volume of our endless activity drowned out the still, small voice of God.
* The death of the soul is never quick. It is a slow dying, a succession of little deaths that continues until we wake up one day on the edge of God's voice, on the fringe of God's belovedness, beyond the adventure of God's claim on our lives.
* ... my heart began to dissipate, and I could sense the beginning of a wild and new way of living. I was full of joy and fear at the same time because I knew that if I listened to this Jesus and followed Him - if I, like the disciples, left my fishing or my tax collecting - He would lead me into treacherous territory, where every day would be an experience of danger and wonder at the same time: an adventure of dangerous wonder!
I was correct. Five years ago I decided to start listening again to the voice of Jesus, and my life hasn't been the same since. He has not been telling me what to do, He has been telling me how much He loves me. He has not corrected my behavior, He has been leading me into His arms. And He has not protected me from the dangers of living, He has led me into the dangerous place of wild and terrifyingly wonder-full faith.
* ... when we reclaim our childlikeness, we stumble upon the presence of God - and we are amazed to find the place all children know about: the place where we once again can hear the whisper of Jesus. Jesus always recognized children because they always recognized Him. When we find the place of dangerous wonder, our souls come to life and we sense that we are on the brink of a great and mysterious way of life.
Chapter 1 Dangerous Wonder
* What moments! What holy moments! To be in the presence of God, frightened and amazed at the same time! To feel as if you are in the presence of Life itself, yet with your soul shaking in both terror and gratitude.
I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.
* What happened to radical Christianity, the un-nice brand of Christianity that turned the world upside-down? What happened to the category-smashing, life-threatening, anti-institutional gospel that spread through the first century like wildfire and was considered (by those in power) dangerous? What happened to the kind of Christians whose hearts were on fire, who had no fear, who spoke the truth no matter what the consequence, who made the world uncomfortable, who were willing to follow Jesus wherever He went? What happened to the kind of Christians who were filled with passion and gratitude, and who every day were unable to get over the grace of God?
I am ready for a Christianity that "ruins" my life, that captures my heart and makes me uncomfortable. I want to be filled with an astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and ... well ... dangerous. Yes, I want to be "dangerous" to a dull and boring religion. I want a faith that is considered "dangerous" by our predictable and monotonous culture.
What I meant by "ruins" is a holy disruption where Jesus turns my life upside-down in order to make it right-side up.
* Our entire culture has become dull. Dullness is the absence of the light of our souls. Look around. We have lost the sparkle in our eyes, the passion in our marriages, the meaning in our work, the joy of our faith.
* Sin is more than turning our backs on God, it is turning our backs on life! Immorality is much more than adultery and dishonesty, it is living drab, colorless, dreary, stale, unimaginative lives. The greatest enemy of Christianity may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished and amazed. Jesus Christ came to rescue us from listlessness as well as lostness; He came to save us from dullness. Our culture is awash in immorality and drowning in dullness. We have forgotten how to dance, how to sing, and how to laugh. We have allowed technology to beat our imaginations into submission and have become tourists rather than travelers. Television dominates our time, alters our values, numbs us to life in all of its wilderness. We have been stunted by mediocrity.
* Christ is the Dream Giver who wants us to listen to His dream for us so we can run like children in the fields of His grace. Trouble is, the fields are full of obstacles - obstacles that deafen us to God's dreams for us and keep us from an adventurous faith.
* Predictability and faith cannot exist. What characterized Jesus and His disciples was unpredictability. ... There was no Day Time(TM), no strategic plan, no mission statement; there was only the eager anticipation of the present moment.
* Take surprise out of faith and all that is left is dry and dead religion. Take away mystery from the gospel and all that is left is a frozen and petrified dogma. Lost your awe of God andyou are left with an impotent deity. Abandon astonishment and you are left with meaningless piety. When religion is characterized by sameness, when faith is franchised, when the genuineness of our experience with God is evaluated by its similarities to others' faith, then the uniqueness of God's people is dead and the church is lost.
* When our possessions possess us - imprison us - risk and adventure become impossible.
* Don't give up. Dangerous wonder is still possible for us all. You can still experience a volatile mix of astonishment and terror, awe and risk, amazement and fear, adventure and exhilaration, tears and laughter, passion and anticipation, daring and enchantment.
* Jesus was a dangerous man - dangerous to the power structure, dangerous to the church, dangerous to the crowds of people who followed Him.
Shouldn't the followers of Christ also be dangerous? Shouldn't everyone be awed and dazzled by Christians? Shouldn't Christians be known by the fire in their souls, the wild-eyed gratitude in their faces, the twinkle in their eyes, and a holy mischief in their demeanors? Shouldn't Christianity be considered dangerous - unpredictable, threatening to the status quo, living outside the lines, uncontrollable, fearless, wild, beyond categorization or definition? Shouldn't those who call themselves Christians be filled with awe, astonishment, and amazement?
* It is time to find the place where the dangerous wonder of faith can be discovered - a place landscaped by risky curiosity, wild abandon, daring playfulness, quiet listening, irresponsible passion, happy terror, and naive grace.
In a day when most of us are tired, worn-out, thirsty, and starving for life and joy and peace, maybe it is time to become a child again. Maybe it is time to quit college and take a year off to go to the mission field, or give up a secure job and go back to school, or leave the corporation because the work is killing our souls, or give up the possessions that are possessing us.
Maybe it is time to live this dangerous wonder of faith, take our shoes off, roll up our sleeves, and have "such a romp as no one has ever seen." Maybe it's time to play in the snow once again.
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