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When hard things happen and you don’t understand what in the world God is doing, maybe it’s an invitation to trust even when you don’t understand.
“So [Curdie] stepped straight in -- I will not say without a little tremble at the thought of finding no floor beneath his foot.” George Macdonald
“Jesus answered, ‘You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but it will be clear to you later.’” John 13:7
The more you envy somebody else’s reputation or lifestyle or success or whatever, the more you’ll see her as only one threatening thing: your competition.
“To the truly envious person, other persons . . . are so much underbrush that needs to be trimmed away so that one’s own tall tree can stand unobscured.” Cornelius Plantinga
“There must be no competition among you.” Philippians 2:3
Imagination is far too good a gift to waste on creating catastrophes.
“I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Winston Churchill
“And He said, . . . ‘Don’t be afraid, little flock.’” Luke 12:22, 32
When you’re trying hard to be liked and admired and accepted, you can’t relax and enjoy the people around you. When you remember that you’re already loved, you can.
“[T]o be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously.” Donald Miller
“He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion. . . .” Psalm 103:4
When the road to free-and-healed gets steep and scary, it helps to imagine what it will be like when you get there.
“If you ask God to free you or heal you, you commit to quite an adventure.” Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich
“[T]o heal the brokenhearted and free the captives. . . .” Isaiah 61:1
When you choose to stay angry, important parts of you (like compassion and joy and lightness of heart) start to disappear.
“To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances . . . , to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” Frederick Buechner
"Forgive, release and set free, and you will be forgiven, released and set free." Luke 6:37
