It is a natural response to want to creep back into the safety of our tribes, to draw lines about what makes us ‘us’, and them ‘them’, but it is not the way of love. Love crosses boundaries and borders; it dares to stare people in the eye and love them for their personhood, their humanity.
God is love, through and through – daring, defiant, powerful love. God calls us to love others in the way that God alone loves: seeing them truly, loving them entirely.
Jesus ignores the world’s popularity lists. It means he welcomes all who society rejects. The doors to his kingdom are flung open to the sick, the sad, the uneducated, and un-pretty; to the picked on, the beaten up, the socially awkward, and homeless; to pushers, dealers, con artists, killers; to the addicted, or emotionally unstable; to you and to me.
I love the church, and I love the evangelical tradition, but sometimes I fear it has not equipped me for dealing with anger, or indeed any strong emotion. I am here, carried on a whirling tornado of fury, and all the church says is, “Stop feeling angry.”
When we are overwhelmed by the contemplation of our own suffering, when the future looks black, we can know that we have a Saviour who experienced those same feelings. There is no shame in feeling that we just cannot cope. Some things are too big to bear alone.
I wanted her to tell me how to ‘do’ Benedictine prayer. But this is not a ‘how to’ book. It is a story of searching for God in the middle of the ordinary.
This is a book for the lonely, for the cynic, for the weary and burnt-out Christian. When We Were on Fire is a memoir about Addie Zierman’s spiritual journey from being ‘on fire’ to becoming burnt out, and the subsequent restoration of her faith and identity.
I don’t know what to write without it sounding trite. Sometimes silence is better, and I hesitate to add my noise to the mix. But sometimes the words can help us pause. **** Bangladesh For the last couple of months, I have had Isaiah 3 rattling around my head. It is a condemnation of the […]
Cat Caird has one of those rare and beautiful combinations of a burning passion for Jesus together with a gentle and generous spirit. I have the privilege of knowing her as a good friend locally, and I can vouch for the fact that she likes her coffee strong, her chocolate dark, and her books in […]
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]