Day 7 – July 2013

It is always a fight of faith when you have less and do more with it. -Bishop TD Jakes

The more you pray the more you dream and the more you dream the more you have to pray.

You have to step out in faith even when you are vibrating in fear. -Bill Hybels

The greatest difficulty in living the Christian life is learning to live your life desperate for God when your circumstances are not.

Our newly resurgent self is renovated by a kaleidoscope of hope, a telescope of faith and a microscope of love.

Revelation is like looking in a mirror. It’s based on something that has happened behind you but is continuously playing out in front of you.

Looking for work is harder than working

Trusting God completely in radical abandonment,even when it doesn’t make sense, is what turns ordinary people into saints.

It is true, he may hide his face, but in the Body of Christ he never turns his back…it is the place that he continually reveals his glory. (Ps 13, Ex 33)

Confession: Over the past few months it has been hard to trust the goodness of God…when every door, window and crack we have sought has been closed. But, the compassion of so many Christians over the past 10 months have been the paint stokes of his presence. When it seemed like God had wandered off…it has been the Body of Christ that allowed us to retrace our steps back.

“If indeed the spiritual life is essentially a hidden life, how do we protect this hiddenness in the midst of a very public life? The two most important ways to protect our hiddenness are solitude and poverty. Solitude allows us to be alone with God. There we experience that we belong not to people, not even to those who love us and care for us, but to God and God alone. Poverty is where we experience our own and other people’s weakness, limitations, and need for support. To be poor is to be without success, without fame, and without power. But there God chooses to show us God’s love. Both solitude and poverty protect the hiddenness of our lives.” -Henri Nouwen

I am just now on the brink of discovering what has been going on inside of me and all around me. I have never been at this hidden stage or depth of spirit before. I have spent 13 years practicing monthly solitude, but for the past two years I have been primarily hidden and it hurts. I have spent most of my adult life without many material resources, but for the past two years I have been without employment and it is frightening.

I am facing the most austere (having no comforts or luxuries; harsh or ascetic) crucible of my life. I sense this is the reason I have been so raucous in my heart and unrestrained in my emotional implosions and so exasperated in some of my lashing out on social media cries. I am being torn apart. I am being broken, no I am actually being grounded down to powder.

If a man has greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work. -Baryl Markham

I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse. -Philip Yancey