His Love Never Fails

I know pastors who spend six hours a day reading and studying their Bibles. The pages look like they've been through battle. And they have. Everything is underlined and highlighted. There are notes scribbled in all the margins, and key words are circled on every line. They spend hours every day in their prayer closets crying out to God. But when it comes to people, they're indifferent. They could take them or leave them. These men think they know God's heart because they've read and studied His Book and spent hours in prayer, but what they don't know is that they're being grossly deceived. They don't know Him from Adam!

I also know people who read their Bibles about five minutes a week and pray even less. They secretly kick themselves for it, and they're afraid to approach God because their religion has made them so aware of their sin. However, they happen to love people with all their hearts. These folks have an intimacy with God that's irreplaceable. They know Him fully because they know His children.

There is no question in my mind that in the end there will be millions who thought they knew Him, but didn't, and trillions who were convinced they didn't know Him, but really did.

Pgs 202-203 of The Misunderstood God - The lies religion tells us about God by Darin Hufford

Blackballed by your Christian brethren

Many of us can't fathom God as having an open heart because of the many times we have been blackballed by fellow Christians in the past for something we did or did not do. The moment we step out of line, we find that "godly" people who were once our friends suddenly refuse to have anything to do with us. It's difficult not to make assumptions about the heart of God from the actions of His children. And we all are ultimately conformed to the image of who we believe our Father in heaven is. Christians close their heart doors to people who anger them because that's who they believe their Father is.

pg 167 from Darin Hufford's book
The Misunderstood God - The lies religion tells us about God

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. - Benjamin Franklin

Balance

St. Benedict tells me to run to Christ. If I stop for a moment and consider what is being asked of me here, and what is involved in the act of running, I think of how when I run I place first one foot and then the other on the ground, that I let go of my balance for a second and then immediately recover it again. It is risky, this matter of running. By daring to lose my balance I keep it.

- Esther de Waal, from her book Living with Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality