Outside of the Christian worldview, mistakes and setbacks can lead to reflection and self-examination…but you can never, without a great leap of imagination, believe that the universe is lovingly correcting you with a determined eye towards your eternal growth and good
You must know and confess that you need direction from somewhere else – that left to your own resources, you actually won’t travel down the best pathways. You will get lost; you’ll encounter dangers; you’ll run into dead ends.
Surely no one imagines that equity is some sort of nightmarish carbon copied cul-de-sac, where everyone lives in the same type of house, wears the same clothes, drives the same car, and goes to the same schools?
Fear of the Lord means starting everything with God. It means recognizing God is the central reality in the universe, not me, not even the universe in its past, present, or future form
In short, it is good to hold the highest view and vision of your spouse, but no man is married to the Proverbs 31 woman, and no woman has Proverbs 31 on her resume.
Org charts and hierarchical structures matter, and the interplay of those relationships are fragile, precious, and borderline sacred, even if we would prefer that they weren’t there, or we try to pretend we’ve transcended power dynamics
The real issue is that people are mean, and they say mean things, and that hurts.
A fool is always right in his own eyes. He is not interested in learning something new. He is not interested in being challenged. He is not interested in growing. Why should he be? He has already arrived.
It’s not that evangelism training is useless, it’s just that graduating from the latest training program can be a bit like completing one year of med school. Suddenly, you discover you have eight diseases you didn’t even know existed, and you’re offering unsolicited diagnoses to every person who coughs
Prayers are not the same as thoughts. Prayer is petitioning an Almighty God, through the blood and mediation of Christ, to act in ways beyond human capacity.
Don’t assume, because you have experienced poverty or marginalization of some sort, that you are automatically above inflicting the same sort of oppression that you received.
It is not the act of wounding you that qualifies somebody as your friend; rather it is the quality of being your friend that enables someone to wound you in a good way.