Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Holly Ordway on obedience

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Not Gods Type“It is no light matter to meet God after having denied Him all one’s life. I have turned often in thought and prayer to the events of that spring and summer, trying to understand something of who God is and what He is doing in my life. Coming to Him was only the beginning. I can point to a day and time and place of my conversion, and yet since then I have come to understand that He calls me to a fresh conversion every day.

I came to Him more broken than I realized. In the months that followed, I recognized the disorder in my life and learned that I must give every relationship, every desire, indeed everything in my heart, into God’s hands. I learned that obedience also means trust that His will is best, whether I understand it or not, and that the One who had made Himself known to me will not ever forsake or betray me.”

Holly Ordway in Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith.

The Winter of our Discontent – George MacDonald Quote

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George MacDonaldWhile reading George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart, I ran across this quote and thought I’d share it:

“It is not the high summer alone that is God’s. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man’s winters are His – the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness – even ‘the winter of our discontent.”

That last phrase caught my ear. It sounded familiar so off to Google I ran to identify the source. I quickly learned two things from Wikipedia:

  1. The phrase “winter of our discontent” originated in Shakespeare’s Play Richard III
  2. Winter of our Discontent is the name of John Steinbeck’s last novel.

This paragraph was the beginning of a Christmas Day sermon by Mr. Armstrong, the curate. The rest of the sermon is worth reading but I won’t quote it here. As we approach the Christmas season, it is good to keep in mind that God is master of all of our circumstances. We can rejoice in Immanuel, God with us in the form of a baby that turned the world upside down.

I know that George MacDonald was an influence upon C. S. Lewis which is the primary reason I picked up the book. I’m excited to continue on, but thought I’d share this quote along the way.

Tozer on the Presence of God

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TozerThis is a quote from How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit, by A. W. Tozer.

“[T]here is an unseen Deity present, a knowing, feeling Personality, and He is indivisible from the Father and the Son, so that if you were to be suddenly transferred to heaven itself you wouldn’t be any closer to God than you are now, for God is already here. Changing your geographical location would not bring you any nearer to God nor God any nearer to you, because the indivisible Trinity is present, and all that the Son is the Holy Ghost is, and all that the Father is the Holy Ghost is, and the Holy Ghost is in His Church.”

As I read this, the question came to me, what would the church look like if we lived this out? What would my life look like if I always remembered that God is beside me every step of the way?

If Jesus was riding shotgun, would I loose my cool when I’m cut off in traffic? If I took into consideration the presence of the Holy Spirit, would I think the thoughts that I do or react to people and events the way that I do? In many instances, I would not.

The point of Tozer’s paragraph is that the Holy Spirit is within us and sees what we think and do.

In Psalm 139:7 David writes, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (NASB) The answer to this rhetorical question is “nowhere.” There is no where I can go to get away from God in the person of the Holy Spirit. None, zip, nada.

The point of this post is to remind myself and by extension, you the reader, that God is always present and that I should act accordingly.

The good news is that when I fail (not if I fail), God has provided a means of dealing with the failure (see 1 John 1:9).

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