top ten tuesdays

Top 10 quotes from this week's readings and conversations
(note: text does not connote tone... e.g. sarcasm and some have double meanings)

10. "The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God's people - strengthened by preaching and sacrament - go out of the church door into the world to be the Church. We don't go to church; we are the Church." - Ernest Southcott, from Being the Body by Chuck Colson

9. "It's the way of the donkey, the towel, and the cross. The way of humility, service, and suffering." - Brian Zahnd from his book, Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness

8. "But this is the role of the prophet - to give a minority report based upon prophetic imagination. In their wild, impractical, impossible, God-breathed poems they mount a challenge to the brutal tyranny of pragmatism. And I say, God bless them... instead of surrendering to the assumption that the world, as is, is the way it must be, the prophets fly in the face of convention and insist there must be a better way." - Brian Zahnd

7. "...but Moses stood up and saved them..." - Exodus 2:17

6. "It's OK if you don't know." - Kadie

5. "She said that my life was too easy and blessed. So I prayed, 'God, do your worst'. And He did..." - Nick

4. "Oh? You mean you're not perfect?" - Mack

3. "Don't be trippin'. He [God] ain't through with me yet." - Steve

2. "I don't believe in the impossible." - Mitch

1. "You need identification before you can work. People need to know who you are before you do anything. Get that figured out first. It's better that way." - Coleen, my landlady



These are the "Aha!" moments of inspiration, furiously working themselves into my mind and striving to be applied through my life. More than just "quotable quotes".

Never stop learning. Stay moto.

created

A lesson I won't soon forget is when I was about 10-11 years old, my Sunday School teacher took our class out when we were supposed to be going through our Bible study lesson packet. Instead of doing our usual thing, she (I think she was barely a high school/college student?) took us to a nearby wooded area and picked out a large maple leaf. She had us look closely at the intricate veins, capillaries and complex design of the leaf for a few minutes. She was wide-eyed, with a child-like wonder and gasped at this simple yet marvelous leaf we often take for granted. Even as children we were able to conclude that only a higher being was capable of creating something so perfect and beautiful. That leaf was no accident. Creation is not an accident. The life we live is not an accident.

As creative as man can get, he ultimately ends up emulating nature and ceaselessly expresses natural beauty via "man-made" media. No matter how "advanced", even artificial media is a mere representation of what's already created - man's attempt at replicating what's already made perfect by God.

The most creative one I know? God - the only one who can create something out of nothing, beauty from brokenness, make the foolish confound the wise, whose weakness is stronger than man's strength.

About a week or so into the Lenten season, that's the major take-away for me: Jesus is enough. Part of the purpose of fasting and abstaining is to refocus. Refocus and realize that my devotion should not be to created things or to my own imagination/self-realization, but to the Creator God who gave life. And not just "life as we know it" but eternal, true, everlasting, fullness of life that births new life in others that only comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, as we repent of our sins. There is no adequate substitute.

I've been trying to fast from certain media outlets that take up a lot of time. But during this past week (spring break), I realized I had conditioned myself to zone out in front of a computer screen - a created thing - rather than enjoy and being terrified in the presence of the glorious Adonai. This whole fasting, repentance, Lent thing? It's more than modifying my habits - it's gonna take some serious heart work. Jesus, help me.

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things... exchang(ing) the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." (Romans 1:22-23,25b)

Therefore, I fast from created things that I may know my Creator and do what I was created to do - worshiping Him.