Don't distribute woundedness

If I’ve learned anything from studying narcissism, abuse, and trauma, it’s this – if our wounds go unhealed, we will distribute our woundedness to others. Pain that isn’t healed is hurled in every direction. 

Chuck deGroat

Auden and self-examination

The same rules apply to self-examination as apply to auricular confession: Be brief, be blunt, be gone.

WH Auden

Knowing our afflictions are preparing us for incomparable glory (2 Cor. 4:17) means we can be honest about our struggles without being morbid about them. Paul is not minimizing the difficulty of ministry; he is maximizing our hope. In God’s sovereign hand, every single thing that rallies against us will one day serve us.

Every betrayal, every word of slander, every disappointment, every cheap shot, every failure, and every late-night anxiety—all of it will serve our joy in glory. Not one dark day will be wasted. These lose power to bully us when we see what they really are through the lens of eternity: God-ordained servants of our sanctification.
When we measure our present moments of difficulty by our guaranteed future, our anxieties turn into prayer; our weariness into courage. We don’t shrink back from whatever struggles Jesus may lead us into for the sake of his name. When the day of gospel pain turns up on our calendar, we stand firm; in Christ’s presence, on God’s Word, with and for God’s people.

In the end, every one of our afflictions will prove no different from a cloud that briefly blocked our view of the sun. Then, we will say of our darkest circumstances: Oh, Those? Those struggles? That pain? Nothing but light and momentary. Or in the words of Teresa of Avila, “In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.” 

Adam Ramsay

Burroughs: any condition but this one

We are usually apt to think that any condition is better than the condition in which God has placed us.

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p42

Wiersbe on doing what he did

Writing to me is a ministry. I’m not an athlete, I’m not a mechanic. I can’t do so many of the things that successful men can do. But I can read and study and think and teach. This is a beautiful, wonderful gift from God. All I’m doing is using what He’s given to me to teach people, and to give glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Warren Wiersbe

Tozer: the need of Presence

 There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. 

The Pursuit of God, p14

Owen: lost in the knowledge of God

“All the rational conceptions of the minds of men are swallowed up, and lost, when they would exercise themselves directly on that which is absolutely immense, eternal, infinite. When we say it is so, we know not what we say, but only that it is not otherwise. What we deny of God, we know in some measure, but what we affirm we know not;”

Excerpt From: Owen, John, 1616-1683. “The works of John Owen.” London : Printed for Richard Baynes, 1826. iBooks.

Owen:closeness to God is conformity to God

To be nigh unto God, and to be like unto Him, are the same. To be always with him, and perfectly like him according to the capacity of our nature, is to be eternally blessed. To live by faith in the contemplation of the glory of God in Christ, is that initiation into both, whereof we are capable in this world.”

Excerpt From: Owen, John, 1616-1683. “The works of John Owen.” London : Printed for Richard Baynes, 1826. iBooks.

Chadwick: prayer

The Divine attention to detail is amazing. Nothing is too trivial for omniscience. Come straight to God. Do not bother other people. Lay all your questions naked before Him, and He will make it plain to you what is His will.  When God speaks, His speech is easily understood.  All questions of the plain should be settled in the mount, and where there is certainty in the mount there will be victory on the levels or in the valleys.

Samuel Chadwick, quoted in Come Boldly, p19

Underwood: one f our greatest challenges

If one of the greatest challenges facing our forefathers was maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy in the face of encroaching liberalism, one of the greatest challenges facing us today is maintaining spiritual authenticity in the face of encroaching secularism -  how to be real in a world that does not share our values or respect our ministry.

Richard Underwood, Independent Church, p215

Robinson: humanity as privilege

People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.

Marilynne Robinson

Douglas Adams: age-response to tech

"Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once grouped technology into three categories. First, “everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal.” Then, “anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.” Finally, “anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”

― from "From the Garden to the City", Jon Dyer

Unchanging human nature

Writing a novel from scratch, which is to say without training, was
such an unexpected odyssey that I was prompted to recall the
discoveries in my new book, Release the Bats – as much to remind
myself where the power lay as to pass the keys on to others trying
their luck. I didn’t read a lot before writing a novel, but I realise
now that certain books helped set me up. Writing fiction means writing
vibrant human characters, and luck is with us in terms of research, as
we haven’t essentially changed since we came down from the trees. So
the best grounding for a fiction writer must be one that explores
human nature with gloves off. There’s nothing like literature from
ancient Rome bemoaning consumer culture to show that nothing is new,
or literature from Habsburg Italy telling how to hire nuns for sex
from the mothers superior of convents to put Fifty Shades in
perspective. Which is to say that if we haven’t figured ourselves out
by now, there’s still time: we’re not going anywhere.

DBC Pierre, Guardian

Hudson Taylor: weak men and great things

Satan, too, has his creed : Doubt God's Faithfulness. " Hath God said ? Are you not mistaken as to His commands ? He could not really mean just that. You take an extreme view, give too literal a meaning to the words:" . . . How constantly, and, alas, how successfully are such arguments used to prevent whole-hearted trust in God, whole-hearted consecration to God! ... How many estimate difficulties in the, light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt! All God's giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them....

Biography p349

Hudson Taylor: want of trust

Want of trust is at the root of almost all our sins and all our weaknesses ; and how shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness ? ... The man who holds God's faithfulness will not be foolhardy or reckless, but he will be ready for every emergency. The man who holds God's faithfulness will dare to obey Him, however impolitic it may appear.Abraham held God's faithfulness and offered up Isaac, " accounting that God was able to raise him from the dead."

Biography, p349

Hudson Taylor: let people see God working

"If our hearts are right," he often said, we may count upon the Holy Spirit's working through us to bring others into deeper fellowship with God-the way the work began at Pentecost. We do not need to say much about the C.I.M. Let people see God working, let God be glorified, let believers be made holier, happier, brought nearer to Him, and they will not need to be asked to help."

Biography p254

Hudson Taylor: upright veggies

" That Word had said, 'Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (food and raiment) shall be added unto you.' If any one did not believe that God spoke the truth, it would be better for him not to go to China to propagate the faith. If he did believe it, surely the promise sufficed. Again, 'No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.' If any one did not mean to walk uprightly, he had better stay at home ; if he did mean to walk uprightly, he had all he needed in the shape of a guarantee fund. God owns all the gold and silver in the world, and the cattle on a thousand hills. We need not be vegetarians."

Biography, p248

“How long have you had the glad tidings in England?” he asked unsuspectingly.

The young missionary was ashamed to tell him, and vaguely replied that it was several hundreds of years.

“What,” exclaimed Nyi in astonishment, “several hundreds of years! Is it possible that you have known about Jesus so long, and only now have come to tell us? My father sought the truth for more than twenty years,” he continued sadly, “and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?”

Biography of Hudson Taylor

Rainy Day work

"One farmer I know keeps his notebook in his pocket to jot down the tasks which can be performed on a rainy day. This enables him to plan quickly the work for a rainy day. In planning rainy day work, do first the jobs which are in danger of getting in the way of the next dry weather work. The rule is to leave no rainy-day work to be done when it is not raining for in this climate our profits are limited by the amount of outdoor work we get done.” –Circular, Issues 46-105, By Agricultural Experiment Station, College of Agriculture , 1914 "

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/08/23/the-manly-tradition-of-the-pocket-notebook/

Mohler: stewards of truth and teaching

"As the stewards of truth and teaching, we hold a sacred accountability to perpetuate the very convictions that give life meaning, secure our hope, and summon us and those we lead to concerted action."

― from "The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership That Matters"