“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”-- Virginia Woolf
“God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven.” -George MacDonald-
“The mindless junk of your past crowds out opportunities and sets pointless limitations. Move out the junk, and you create room for the rest of your life. Ultimately, it’s not just a question of tidying your house; it’s a question of liberating your heart.”-- Merlin Mann
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Dear Norm: Much thanks for a wonderful share.
“All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself - and let God be God in you.” Meister Eckhart (my favorite Christian mystic)
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“I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be.” -Brennan Manning-
“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.”-- Ann Landers
“Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world … That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us.” - N.T. Wright-
“If you have the chance to make people happy, just do it. Sometimes people are struggling silently. Maybe, your act of kindness can make their day.”-- Author Unknown
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“If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus. If you want to know what love is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what grief is, look at Jesus. And go on looking until you’re not just a spectator, but you’re actually part of the drama which has him as the central character.” -N. T. Wright-
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“Jesus doesn’t give an explanation for the pain and sorrow of the world. He comes where the pain is most acute and takes it upon himself. Jesus doesn’t explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn’t allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life.” -N. T. Wright-
“Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion.” -N. T. Wright-
Whenever your subconscious programs operate while facing some typical irritable issues of family or work life, create a pause, don’t react or resist instantly, take a mouthful of water, and become aware of the smoke in your mind. Be the witness to this smoke or anger, watch how it dissolves as you watch non-judgmentally, full of awareness.
Life is not made good or worse by others. You make or mar your life with your own mind.
Love your Self!~~Bodhi
“If the grass looks greener on the other side… Stop staring. Stop comparing. Stop complaining. Start watering the grass you’re standing on.”-- Angel Chernoff
“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”-- Malcolm S. Forbes
“No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it–no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather!” -George MacDonald-
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. . . . Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.–Tolkien
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“Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.” -Brennan Manning-
“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.”-- John Wooden
“A lost sheep is, for all practical purposes a dead sheep. It is the admission that we are dead in our sins—that we have no power of ourselves either to save ourselves or to convince anyone else that we are worth saving. It is the recognition that our whole life is out of our hands and that if we ever live again, our life will be entirely the gift of some gracious shepherd. God finds us the desert of death (not in the garden of improvement) and in the power of Jesus’ resurrection, he puts us on his shoulders rejoicing and brings us home.” -Robert Farrar Capon-
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”-- Louise L. Hay