Forty Books

I decided to send my three sons and wife a quote, or short excerpt from a book, each day in 2018.  It’s been fun so far to look through my books the night before in search of a quote that I enjoyed.  Here are some examples from the last few days:

Quote from Shane Claiborne (from his book Red Letter Revolution: What if Jesus Really Meant What He Said) written with Tony Campolo):

“I’ve learned that prayer is not just about trying to get God to do what we want God to do but about getting ourselves to do what God wants us to do.  Training ourselves to be the kind of people God wants us to be.”

“A lot of times we use prayer as a way of excusing ourselves from action.  You know, when you share a deep dilemma you face and someone says, ‘I’ll pray for you’, often they are really sincere and don’t know what else they can do.  And we do need to pray for each other.  But sometimes when someone says, ‘I’ll pray about that’, it is code for ‘I’m not going to do anything else for you.’  So we have to be careful that prayer and action go together.  If we hear someone asking for prayer over and over because they need work done on their leaky roof, we should keep praying, but we might also get off our butts and get some people together to fix the roof!  When we ask God to move a mountain, God may give us a shovel.”

Quote from Jacques Ellul’s book, The Subversion of Christianity:

“Always – and today more than ever – we like things we can count on, obvious certainties, a secure future, simple duties, a clearcut line of conduct.  The uncertainty of things like love and grace horrifies us.  Saying that God loves us grants us no reassurance.  We would prefer it if he gave us fifty things to do, so that when we had done them we could be at peace.  We do not want an ongoing relationship with God.  We prefer a rule.  It does not satisfy us that God shows grace to us or frees us.  We prefer to bind him by our virtues and to be sure that he has no freedom to do with us as he chooses.”

“Thus we have unceasingly tried to objectify our relationship with God.”

Quote from Eugene Peterson’s book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:

“God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and back yards, and storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives.  God works with us as we are and not as we should be or think we should be.  God deals with us where we are and not where we would like to be.”