This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 42/43

Reflections

What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?
~ C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’
~ C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
~ A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Our self help culture is preoccupied with ‘self-talk’, with your inner-monologue. Does what you say cheer you up or tear you down? Are you consciously self-affirming or obsessively self-critical?…[God’s Word] gets you out of the monologue business entirely. It gets you about the business of a living dialogue with the person whose opinion finally matters.
~ David Powlison, Pastoral theologian and author with CCEF

I find a lot of dishonesty in Christian art. And I think it’s a shame because [the psalmists] are people who are vulnerable to God in a good way…porous, open. I would love if… people writing these [Christian] songs would write a song about their bad marriage… Why I’m suspicious of Christians is because of this lack of realism.
~Bono (1960-present), lead singer of U2

I have never experienced stomach doubt, but I think Jesus did. When he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’ I don’t think he was raising a theological issue… I think he had looked into the abyss itself and found there a darkness that spiritually, viscerally, totally engulfed him. I think God allows that kind of darkness to happen only to God’s saints.
~ Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

This Sunday’s readings: Psalm 32

Reflections

In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God.
~ John Grisham, The Testament

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
~ George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 1819-1880, English Novelist & Poet

Sin is the human tendency not just to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident. Sin is our active inclination to break stuff, ‘stuff’ here including promises, relationships we care about, and our own well being.
~ Francis Spufford, English author, teacher

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.
~ Cyril Connolly (1903-1974), English author and literary critic

Malcolm Muggeridge talks about the dark little dungeon of my own ego. That is sin, a twist of self-centeredness that has us imprisoned. But God’s order is that we love him with all our being, and then that we love our neighbor and put ourselves last. Sin is the reversal of the order.
~ John Stott (1921-2011), English clergyman & author

God is so faithful. He says, ‘If you bring me your sin, if you uncover it before me, I will cover it. I will do the very thing that you’re trying to do in your own strength and power.’
~ Juan Sánchez, Pastor & Author

And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Not only was the sin itself pardoned, but the iniquity of it; the virus of its guilt was put away, and that at once, so soon as the acknowledgment was made. God’s pardons are deep and thorough: the knife of mercy cuts at the roots of the ill weed of sin.
~ Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892, Pastor