Quotes

The prophet Elijah was intolerant of Jezebel; the apostle Paul was intolerant of witchcraft books. Thomas Jefferson was intolerant of King George Third, and George Washington was intolerant of British troops. Frederick Douglass was intolerant of slavery, and Susan B. Anthony intolerant of men only voting. Amy Carmichael was intolerant of child prostitution, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer was intolerant of anti-semitism. Winston Churchill was intolerant of Hitler, and Martin Luther King Jr of segregation. Lech Walesa was intolerant of communism, and Mother Theresa of abortion. Intolerance is a beautiful thing.

Why are you so far from my groanings? I cry out and I hear nothing. How can I sing the songs of the Lord in a foriegn land? How long, O Lord, before you deliver me from all my distress? I want to sing a new song, but I can’t right now. Darkness is my only friend. I cannot find you.

The psalmists were realistic, so much more than we who worship a divine vending machine. Insert the correct spiritual change, punch the right button, and God delivers. What do you want? A new zest for life? No more homosexual desires? Godly kids? Coming right up. Just stick in the right coins–daily devotions, disciplined prayer, determined obedience, faithful church attendance. God will do whatever you ask.

“Church is too often a place of pretense and therefore a place without hope. When brokenness is disdained, where the real story is never told, the power of God is not felt. Where brokenness is inviited and received with grace, the gospel comes alive with hope.”

“Shattered dreams open the door to better dreams, dreams that we do not properly value until the dreams that we improperly value are destroyed. Shattered dreams destroy false expectations, such as the “victorious” Christian life with no real struggle or failure. They help us to discover true hope. We need the help of shattered dreams to put us in touch with what we most long for, to create a felt appetite for better dreams. And living for the better dreams generates a new, unfamiliar feeling that we eventually recognize as joy.”

“We’ve created a vending machine Jesus. We take our quarter, put it in the slot, tell the machine exactly what we want, and fully expect it to pop out. And if it doesn’t, then we get mad, hit the machine, shake it back and forth, and then stomp off vowing never to use that particular machine again.”