Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few noteworthy quotes seen this last week:

From The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul, seen at Challies:

People in awe never complain that church is boring.

Oh, that we might maintain that awe of God.

Seen on a friend’s Facebook status:

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining — they just shine.” Dwight L. Moody

This was seen at Lizzie‘s, quoted at Robin Lee Hatcher‘s from her church’s devotional book, quoted from Francis Chan’s Crazy Love:

When I am consumed by my problems — stressed out about my life, my family, and my job — I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a “right” to disobey God [and his command to rejoice always] because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.

Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.

Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.

Guilty on all counts. I’m thankful for that accurate though painful perspective. We never really have an excuse to sin, and God is able to meet our needs without our stressing over them.

And again from Challies:

“God sometimes blesses a poor exegesis of a bad translation of a doubtful reading of an obscure verse of a minor prophet.” —Alan Cole

I need to remind myself of that when I get frustrated with a well-meaning preacher’s poor exegesis. (Edit: I thought I’d better come back and explain myself on this one. I don’t think it is saying it is all right to handle the Word of God carelessly or deceitfully because He will bless it anyway, and I definitely wouldn’t share a quote to that effect. And I don’t think it is saying there is no need to exercise discernment: there definitely is such a need, because not everyone who teaches or preaches from the Word does so correctly. Even the devil quotes Scripture. But my husband and I were privileged to be under the ministry of a master teacher and expositor for fourteen years when we were first married, and sometimes I have trouble listening to other preachers who don’t handle the Word in quite the same way. Yet none is perfect, and in what little bit of speaking and writing I’ve done, I know what it is to be almost paralyzed for fear of making a mistake and to depend on God for the right way of handling the Word and trusting Him to overcome any mistakes I make and to keep me from serious ones. If you’ve ever read C. H. Spurgeon’s testimony, he was saved at a meeting where a layman substituted for the preacher who couldn’t get there because of bad weather, and though he was not trained in how to present the passage and may have even rubbed some people the wrong way, he was earnest and did the best he could, and God used His Word given through that man to save one of the greatest preachers we know. So that’s what this quote means to me: it is not a license to be lazy in studying the Word or writing or speaking from it, but as a listener, I need to remember it is God’s Word and Spirit which convicts and enlightens, and I need to be careful in my judgment of those handling it.)

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

I had planned to post mostly Thanksgiving-related quotes this week…but I have so many other good ones, I hate to wait to post them. I had assembled some Thanksgiving quotes in previous years here and here if you’d like to read them.

But here is one I have not yet published. I tore it out of a radio station’s newsletter that we had received in the mail years ago, tucked it in the drawer to use some time, and then forgot about it. I keep rediscovering it and forgetting about it again. 🙂 So here it is, finally:

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of Thanksgiving. ~ H. U. Westermayer

Some might argue with the “No Americans have been more impoverished…” part. I don’t know how to go about measuring that. But the truth remains that these people made a day to give thanks after devastatingly hard times.

From a friend’s Facebook:

“This is true obedience. . . when we look not so much to the letter of the law, as to the mind of the law-maker.” John Trapp

That, I think, would keep us from being legalistic or lax.

From another friend’s Facebook:

A quality life is never achieved by focusing on the elimination of what is wrong. True success requires you to focus your mental, emotional, and spiritual energies on pursuing that which is right and good. Trying to become virtuous merely by excluding vice is as unrealistic as trying to cultivate roses simply by eliminating weeds. – Gary Ryan Blair

That is so good. Amen.

I forgot to note where I saw this one:

Haste has worry, fear, and anger as close associates; it is a deadly enemy of kindness, and hence of love. ~ Dallas Willard

That was convicting to me, because it is when I am pressured and hurried that I most most tempted to be short or unkind of thoughtless of others.

Seen at Challies:

I was but a pen in God’s hand, and what praise is due a pen? —John Bunyan

This came from Cary Schmidt’s post ‘Twas the night before chemo about dealing with a lymphoma diagnosis:

What we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. That does put things into perspective, doesn’t it?

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that made me stop and think this week:

I have not read anything by John Piper except the occasional quote, but I agree with this, found on a friend’s Facebook:

We have thankful days and unthankful days. And even our thankful days are not as thankful as they should be. Just think of how joyful and thankful you would be if your heart responded to God himself and his ten thousand gifts with admiration and gratitude of which He is worthy. – John Piper

This was from another friend’s Facebook:

Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity. — John Piper

I have to admit I am struggling a bit with this one. I’d be interested to know the context from which it came. I don’t think he is calling for a life of asceticism: I don’t think there is anything wrong with playing word games on Facebook for relaxation and brain exercise or watching a video with the family. I think the latter, in fact, can enhance the spiritual — if everything we ever say to others is serious and spiritual, I think they’d turn us off after a while, but just relaxing and having some fun and fellowship can open the gateways for relationships and for other serious conversations. But, yes, by and large we do need to be careful to maintain focus and balance and not let “good” pursuits crowd out the “best.”

And from yet another friend’s Facebook:

In fear-based repentance, we don’t hate sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake. Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves, but joy-based repentance makes us hate sin as we rejoice over God’s sacrificial love …& see what it cost him to save us. What most assures of God’s unconditional love is what most convicts us of the evil of sin. — Tim Keller

I am struggling a bit with this one, too. I think fear has its place and I’d like to understand more what he means by “joy-based repentance.” The Bible does talk about godly sorrow leading to repentance. But to me the value in the quote is the focus that our repentance shouldn’t be just about getting ourselves out of trouble or fearing consequences, but rather it is based on the offense of a holy God and yet His mercy and grace in making a way for us to be forgiven.

Finally, this from F. B. Meyer’s Our Daily Walk for November 10 on gentleness as a fruit of the Holy Spirit struck a chord with me:

It is not easy to cultivate this fruit of the Spirit because it has many counterfeits. Some people are naturally easy-going, devoid of energy and ambition, at heart cowardly, or in spirit mean. Many of us are characterized by a moral weakness and decrepitude that make it easy for us to yield rather than contest in the physical or intellectual arena.

But in gentleness there must be the consciousness of a considerable reserve of force. The gentleness of God is combined with omnipotence…It is the prerogative of great strength to be gentle.

The thought of gentleness as being strength under control rather than just being easy-going and yielding gave me much food for thought.

In that same devotional Meyer quotes Thomas a Kempis:

“If thou wilt be borne with, bear also with another. Endeavour to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, what sort soever they be: for that thyself also hast many failings which must be borne by others.”

Amen.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below in the comments. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Note: The Mr. Linky site says: “System is currently down for emergency maintenance.” If it comes back up during the day, I’ll add your links: meanwhile, just leave them in the comments. Sorry about that!

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that especially spoke to me this week:

I mentioned on Saturday’s Laudable Linkage a quote from Insignificant Is Beautiful by Mark Galli (HT to Washing the Feet of the Saints). Here is another one:

When we think of making a difference, we think about making the world a better place for the next generation, not caretaking people who have no future. This is one reason we are quick to push the incontinent into “managed care” staffed with “skilled nurses.” No question that this is indeed a necessary move for many families—I had to do it with my own father, sad to say. But let’s face it. A fair amount of our motive is mixed. How much skill does it take to clean up excrement from an elderly body? Mostly it takes forbearance—and a willingness to give oneself night and day to something that, according to our usual reckoning, is not all that significant.

While the whole article is not about caring for the elderly, it makes the point that quietly taking care of someone’s most personal needs behinds the scenes can be ministry just as much as the more visible and seemingly higher-impact works. I highly recommend that whole article.

Seen at Challies:

That definitely puts things into perspective. Nothing any of us has faced can compare to what He underwent for us.

And from Start Somewhere: Losing What’s Weighing You Down from the Inside Out by Calvin Nowell and Gayla Zoz:

That one pulled me up short. When we’re wanting our own way that’s exactly what we’re doing, but I never thought about it in quite that way before.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.