I have been reading a book by Brennan Manning called "Ruthless Trust". If you haven't read his book "Ragamuffin Gospel", read it! But this one is also good and entirely worthy of a dedicated post. So, here are some excellent and thought provoking quotes to ponder on...
When people realize that they have received a gift they can never repay, they notify their faces and their actions, and the tenor of their lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving.
The agnostic, neither denying nor affirming the existence of God, allows for a remote, impersonal cosmic force that is utterly unknowable. Given that stance, the agnostic is spared having to repudiate the puny, pathetic images of God that scar many a Christian heart and conscience.
To adore is to recognize the unfathomable greatness of God and the nothingness of the adorer.
Karl Rahner said, "In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic, i.e. one who has experienced God, or nothing at all."
Kabod is not a safe topic. It induces a feeling of terror before the Infinite and exposes as sham our empty religious talk and pointless activity, our idle curiosity and ludicrous pretensions of importance, our frantic busyness. The awareness that the eternal, transcendent God of Jesus Christ is our absolute future gives us the shakes. One day out of the blue comes the thought of our inevitable death, and the thought is so troubling that we want to live the rest of our lives in a shoe.
When the glory of the transcendent God is not addressed, our focus shifts to human behaviour, the cultivation of virtues and the extirpation of vices, the qualities of discipleship and so on. Personal responsibility replaces personal response to God, and we become engrossed in our efforts to grow in holiness. Our primary concern becomes our spiritual, intellectual and emotional well-being.
Like faith and hope, trust cannot be self-generated. I cannot simply will myself to trust. What outrageous irony: the one thing that I am responsible for throughout my life I cannot generate. The one thing I need to do I cannot do. But such is the meaning of radical dependence... What does lie within my power is paying attention to the faithfulness of Jesus.
We are made for that which is too big for us. We are made for God, and nothing less will ever satisfy us.
Simon Tugwell writes, "We must allow our appetite for infinity to dislodge us whenever we are inclined to settle down and call it a day." Hungering and thirsting for more disturbs complacency, induces a blessed state of disquiet and propels our unending exploration into the mystery of God in Christ Jesus. Accepting no substitutes for what we really want leads to simplicity of life.
Humble men and women do not have a low opinion of themselves; they have no opinion of themselves, because they so rarely think about themselves... Humble people are without pretense, free from any sense of spiritual superiority, and liberated from the need to be associated with persons of importance. The awareness of their spiritual emptiness does not disconcert them. Neither overly sensitive to criticism nor inflated by praise, they recognize their brokenness, acknowledge their gifts, and refuse to take themselves seriously... Aware of their innate poverty, they throw themselves on the mercy of God with carefree abandon.
Following Jesus, the humble in heart waste little time in introspection, navel-gazing, looking in the mirror and being anxious about their spiritual growth. Their self-acceptance without self-concern is anchored in the acceptance of Jesus in their struggle to be faithful. They fasten their attention on God.
'Now here' spells 'nowhere'. To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Nowhere. It is an act of radical trust- trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place than the present moment... When my mind is replaying the past glories and defeats or imagining unknown tomorrows, the music of what is happening is muted.
Our culture says that ruthless competition is they key to success. Jesus says that ruthless compassion is the purpose of the journey.
You will trust Him to the degree that you know you are loved by Him.
Friday 26 June 2009
Friday 19 June 2009
Sunday 7 June 2009
Ruthless Trust
The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.
Brennan Manning
Saturday 6 June 2009
Time for my Self to get out of the way.
Have you ever stood in front of a mirror and looked into your own eyes for more than a couple of seconds? Try it- it is strangely disconcerting. I usually find myself mildly bemused that I am 'myself' and not someone else. I exist.
This strange person that I see looking back at me, my 'Self', really does get in the way. To quote Tozer, "the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them... Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice."
It is natural to want to make much of our Selves- no effort necessary, it just happens. Pride is such a deadly thing. It creeps in and disguises itself so that we don't even notice it lurking. Motives reveal it. Why do we do what we do? What motivates us? All too often I find pride at the bottom of it all. But "humility comes before honour." There is much to be said for being content with obscurity.
I have often heard people speak about how powerful 'secret sin' is in a life. But today I heard, for the first time, someone also speak of the power that 'secret good' has. Jesus said that we should do things in secret, to be seen by our Father, not by people. And our reward will be way better than people praise. Doing things in secret to express our love for our Father is a powerful thing. And it kills pride.
Even dwelling too much on our own proud heart can be unhelpful, though. It just becomes more and more about Self and less and less about Him. Actually, the solution is so very simple: less of Self, and more of God. Matt Redman sings, "You must increase, I must decrease, Lord. I'll bow down and You will be adored. I lift You high and bow down low; how high can You be? How low can I go?" Lets make much of Him and less of Self.
Almost as endemic as pride, though, is self-hatred. In fact, I think the two can be there hand in hand, feeding off of each other. And both are equally destructive.
"So often what is notoriously missing from the external, mechanized concept of salvation is self-acceptance, an experience that is internally personalized and rooted in the acceptance of Jesus Christ. It bids good riddance to unhealthy guilt, shame, remorse and self-hatred. Anything less- self-rejection in any form- is a manifest sign of a lack of trust in the total sufficiency of Jesus' saving work. Has he set me free from fear of the Father and dislike of myself, or has he not?" Brennan Manning
Who are we to put ourselves down? How can we slander our own bodies or appearance or personality or skills in a depreciating way? Not that we should be blind to our weaknesses, but surely the freedom and grace we have received sets us totally free from any obsession we have with how uncomely our Self is? I hear so many people putting themselves down. Especially girls. Is that honouring to our God?
"What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in." 1 Peter
"Preoccupation with our past sins, present weaknesses, and character defects gets our emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes us within the mighty citadel of self, and preempts the presence of a compassionate God." Brennan Manning
Our identity is in Him. Not in what we say and do and wear and achieve. In Him, who we belong to. If that can truly sink into my head and my heart, I think I will be too bowled over by the gift of grace to be proud and too conscious of the love my Father has for me to be preoccupied by my own inadequacy.
This strange person that I see looking back at me, my 'Self', really does get in the way. To quote Tozer, "the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them... Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice."
It is natural to want to make much of our Selves- no effort necessary, it just happens. Pride is such a deadly thing. It creeps in and disguises itself so that we don't even notice it lurking. Motives reveal it. Why do we do what we do? What motivates us? All too often I find pride at the bottom of it all. But "humility comes before honour." There is much to be said for being content with obscurity.
I have often heard people speak about how powerful 'secret sin' is in a life. But today I heard, for the first time, someone also speak of the power that 'secret good' has. Jesus said that we should do things in secret, to be seen by our Father, not by people. And our reward will be way better than people praise. Doing things in secret to express our love for our Father is a powerful thing. And it kills pride.
Even dwelling too much on our own proud heart can be unhelpful, though. It just becomes more and more about Self and less and less about Him. Actually, the solution is so very simple: less of Self, and more of God. Matt Redman sings, "You must increase, I must decrease, Lord. I'll bow down and You will be adored. I lift You high and bow down low; how high can You be? How low can I go?" Lets make much of Him and less of Self.
Almost as endemic as pride, though, is self-hatred. In fact, I think the two can be there hand in hand, feeding off of each other. And both are equally destructive.
"So often what is notoriously missing from the external, mechanized concept of salvation is self-acceptance, an experience that is internally personalized and rooted in the acceptance of Jesus Christ. It bids good riddance to unhealthy guilt, shame, remorse and self-hatred. Anything less- self-rejection in any form- is a manifest sign of a lack of trust in the total sufficiency of Jesus' saving work. Has he set me free from fear of the Father and dislike of myself, or has he not?" Brennan Manning
Who are we to put ourselves down? How can we slander our own bodies or appearance or personality or skills in a depreciating way? Not that we should be blind to our weaknesses, but surely the freedom and grace we have received sets us totally free from any obsession we have with how uncomely our Self is? I hear so many people putting themselves down. Especially girls. Is that honouring to our God?
"What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in." 1 Peter
"Preoccupation with our past sins, present weaknesses, and character defects gets our emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes us within the mighty citadel of self, and preempts the presence of a compassionate God." Brennan Manning
Our identity is in Him. Not in what we say and do and wear and achieve. In Him, who we belong to. If that can truly sink into my head and my heart, I think I will be too bowled over by the gift of grace to be proud and too conscious of the love my Father has for me to be preoccupied by my own inadequacy.
"Ragamuffins"
Who and what are the ragamuffins? The unsung assembly of saved sinners who are little in their own sight, conscious of their brokenness and powerlessness before God, and who cast themselves on his Mercy. Startled by the extravagant love of God, they do not require success, fame, wealth or power to validate their worth. Their spirit transcends all distinctions between the powerful and powerless, educated and illiterate, billionaires and bag ladies, high-tech geeks and low-tech nerds, males and females, the circus and the sanctuary.
Alert to the manipulations and machinations of Pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations. They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus.
Brennan Manning
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