City Notes 28: Books in 30 minutes or less
City Notes are more than a book review. They are meant to provide you with direct quotes from some books I've read in the last year, so you can get a taste of the overall theme of the book and then begin to chew on what your life might look like if you applied what you read.
Here are links to the previous City Notes books:
City Notes are more than a book review. They are meant to provide you with direct quotes from some books I've read in the last year, so you can get a taste of the overall theme of the book and then begin to chew on what your life might look like if you applied what you read.
Here are links to the previous City Notes books:
Here are links to the previous City Notes books:
City Notes 28: Yawning at Tigers Part 3 of 3
| 2 | Divine Embrace
Tenacity and Tenderness: We've proven ourselves unworthy of God's love. We routinely deny, reject, and ignore him. We rebel, hide, lie, cheat, manipulate, you name it. And, yes, there has been physical abuse (though we know not what we did). Not to be glib about it, but if we saw a friend being mistreated by a partner this way we'd say: "She's in a bad relationship." We see all the signs. Neglect. Insults. Selfishness. We might even urge our friend to get out. Maybe she can't see what her partner is doing to her. You don't have to put up with this. It won't change. You deserve better.
But God isn't like one of our friends living in denial about a bad relationship. God is all too aware of our sinful behaviors. Yet he refuses to abandon the relationship. He keeps fighting to make it work, even when it kills him. Sometimes I marvel at the fact that God loves us at all. Does it strike you as somewhat absurd that the Creator of the cosmos desires intimacy with you and me? Does it seem odd that God Almighty loves lowly humans, much less became one? It absolutely amazes me that he continues to love us, even as we continue sinning. That he keeps calling us children, even when we keep acting like his enemies. To me, that's the true wonder: that God hangs on to us for dear life and keeps loving us despite our failings and unfaithfulness. We try to tame the Almighty by ignoring his holiness. But we have another tendency, one that's perhaps just as dangerous: to tame his love. + pgs. 105-106
Tenacity and Tenderness: Missionary Lesslie Newbigin described the Bible as "the story of God's tireless, loving, wrathful, inexhaustible patience with the human family, and of our unbelief, blindness, disobedience." + pg. 110
Tenacity and Tenderness: We're all too aware, as Marguerite Shuster puts it, that "the reservoir of evil in all of us is deeper than we know, and (our) barriers against its eruption are shockingly fragile." ... We're completely exposed before a holy God, yet he loves us. No sin is too vile, no condition of our hearts beyond his redemption. The one who knows us best loves us most. + pg. 114
Tenacity and Tenderness: Considering Tom Brady's incredible fame and fortune, what he had to say in his 60 Minutes interview years ago was a shock. "There has got to be more than this," he told host Steve Kroft. "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? A lot of people would think, Man, you've reached your dream. This is it! Me, I think, God, there's got to be more than this." "What's the answer?" Kroft asked him. "I wish I knew," Brady said. "I wish I knew." Brady's eyes seemed tired, sad. His voice was desperate. To me it was a poignant example of the inability of any worldly success or human accomplishment to bring about fulfillment. And it was never meant to be. We are designed to find our ultimate contentment in the embrace of God's love. "Our hearts are restlesss," Augustine wrote, "until they find rest in you." + pg. 116
Tenacity and Tenderness: This love doesn't leave us unchanged. It softens our hearts. We don't stay prostitutes; we become faithful. "Christ's love, while alluring, is one that demands transformation," is how one writer phrased it. The book of Romans warns us from taking advantage of this great love. "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4). I like the way The Message translates the same passage: "God is kind, but he's not soft." Indeed, his kindness is simply too great to leave us in our sin. + pg. 119
Intimate Beginnings: Pagan creation stories read like dark soap operas complete with casts of feuding gods. Typically, in a moment of folly or carelessness one of these deities creates humans, who then live in groveling fear before their capricious creators. By contrast the Bible describes a single supreme God who purposefully creates humans in his own image and then tenaciously pursues a relationship with them. In most creation sagas we are accidents. But in Genesis and John, we are intended children. + pg. 127
Intimate Beginnings: The New Testament is not solely about God's intimacy. Nor does the Old Testament speak strictly about God's transcendence. The entire Bible speaks of both. All through Scripture we are reminded that God is both great and near. Even biblical stories that shout God's greatness and glory whisper his nearness and love. Think of Isaiah's terrifying vision of the Lord exalted about the temple. Yes, the spectacle underscored God's glory and grandeur. At the same time, it sent the message that God was powerfully present. The vision marked the initiation of Isaiah's prophetic ministry, a sign that God was still speaking and guiding his people. God's appearance on Mount Sinai is similar. Dangerous though it was, God descended on the mountain to deliver his law to his people. He was with them, even in the wilderness. When the risen Lord appeared to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, he came as a stranger. Only later did the disciples realize he was also their Lord. Only after did the recall how their hearts burned within them as he walked alongside them, speaking to them (Luke 24:32). And what he told them changed everything. As he explained the significance of his life, death, and resurrection, something shifted. Trembling cowards became fearless ambassadors. They changed, and ultimately, so did human history. + pgs. 130-131
Face-to-Face: The psalmist wrote, "For you created my inmost being; / you knit me together in my mother's womb. ... Your eyes saw my unformed body" (Psalm 139:13, 16). This intimacy fulfills a deep-seated desire in each of us to be known and treasured. I love the way pastor Jonathan Martin put it: We were conceived in delight and baptized into wonder before we even had a name. There was one who beheld us in our unformed substance, singing over us, delighting in us. Because the enchantment of divine love was there before we were born, it is native to us; we all have a primal desire inside of us to be the object of that delight, to be fully known before a God who celebrates us.
Face-to-Face: Would you rather ... a. swim Australia's Great Barrier Reef? or b. read about it on Wikipedia? Before you answer, I think you should know there's a compelling case to be made for option B. Mere minutes on Wikipedia will teach you more about the Great Barrier Reef than you could learn in weeks of physical exploration. Sure, snorkel and scuba dive the reef, and you'll be dazzled by subaquatic beauty. But you won't learn that you're swimming the largest coral reef system on the planet, the only structure created by living organisms that's visible from space. Nor would you discover that the natural wonder has more than nine hundred individual reefs and nine hundred islands, stretching for sixteen hundred miles over an area of 133,000 square miles. You'd be oblivious to the fact that the Reef is home to thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and more than fifteen hundred species of fish. If you were prepping for an exam about the Reef, choosing to read Wikipedia would be a far wiser investment of your time.
Not convinced? Yeah, me neither. I'd go with option A. And unless you have some sort of aversion to ocean adventures, I'm guessing you would too. I've never visited the Great Barrier Reef, but I'm certain no number of factoids, regardless of how interesting, could replace the experience of slicing through the blue-green waters or watching schools of tropical fish flash through its intricate, spiny structures. Knowing about the Reef could never compare to experiencing it.
It's the same with God's love. Simply knowing about God can never take the place of experiencing him. You could gather facts about God for the rest of your life and he could still be a virtual stranger to you. You can observe the flame but never be warmed by the fire. Late in life the great theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas had a powerful encounter with God. Afterward, he stopped writing abruptly. When pressed for an explanation, he responded, "Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." Even to this genius, who produced such foundational works as the Summa Theologica, knowing about God was not the same as experiencing him.
That's not to belittle the importance of learning about God. Knowledge is crucial. Without reading up on the Great Barrier Reef, for example, you might not even know it exists, much less have a desire to visit it. Researching its marvels whets your appetite to explore it. Then there's all the information you need to get there (itinerary, tickets, maps), not to mention the complex aeronautical engineering you must rely on just to get to Australia. In the same way, knowledge of God is critical. J.I. Packer said theology (the study of God) helps us "appreciate the greatness, goodness, and glory of God." But unless we experience God, we don't truly know him. Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to God's love. Acknowledging his love is one thing. Letting it penetrate your heart and living in light of its reality is another thing altogether. + pgs. 1401-141
Face-to-Face: I'm convinced that there's really one big question at the heart of life and that our answer to this question will ripple throughout our time on earth and into eternity. The question is simply this: are you going to believe that God loves you? + pg. 143
Jesus in the Shadows: The word compassion comes from the Latin compassio, which literally means "to suffer with." Only one willing to suffer truly has compassion. That's why German theologian Jurgen Moltmann insisted that all theology must be conducted "within earshot of the dying Christ." On his 39th birthday, poet Christian Wiman was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer. He wrote frankly about the agonizing effects of his illness and the treatments.
"I have had bones die and bowels fail; joints lock in my face and arms and legs, so that I could not eat, could not walk ... I have passed through pain I could never have imagined, pain that seemed to incinerate all my thoughts of God and to leave me sitting there in the ashes, alone."
When the diagnosis came, Wiman was a rising star in the literary world and editor of Poetry, the world's most prestigious poetry publication. Though Wiman confessed his Christian faith had "evaporated in the blast of modernism and secularism to which I was exposed in college," the diagnosis started a journey that ultimately led him back to God. It wasn't a particular doctrine that drew him back to the faith. Even the resurrection, he admits, was a struggle for him to accept. But Wiman found a friend in the suffering Messiah.
"I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me. ... The point is that God is with us, not beyond us, in suffering. I am a Christian because I understand that moment of Christ's passion to have meaning in my own life, and what it means is that the absolute solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is in illusion. I'm not suggesting that ministering angels are going to come down and comfort you as you die. I'm suggesting that Christ's suffering shatters the iron walls around individual human suffering."
In the face of brutal, isolating pain there is no substitute for the presence of Christ. I have never experienced anything like Wiman's pain, yet I, too, find myself drawn to Christ's suffering. Jesus' struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane always moves me. Both Matthew and Mark recorded that before his crucifixion, Jesus was "deeply distressed and troubled" and "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" (Mark 14:33; Matt. 26:38). Withdrawing from his disciples, he began to pray. And it was a desperate prayer, a prayer of agony. Falling on his face he cried, "Abba, Father ... Take this cup from me" (Mark 14:36). Luke added that as he prayed, "his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (22:44). Religion professor Johnnie Moore offered this insight into the way we should envision Jesus:
"When you picture him, you shouldn't picture him with a halo on his head. You should picture him with dirty feet on the way to a leper colony or sweat rolling down his brow from turning the temple's tables over. And, you should picture him weeping so uncontrollably that his tears become blood when he envisions the weight of the world's wrong landing squarely on his shoulders." + pgs. 150-152
The Fragrance of Eternity: Mama Maggie has dedicated her life to feeding and educating homeless, starving children in Manshiyat Naser (or "Garbage City," as it's known to most people in Egypt). She founded an organization called Stephen's Children to help the thousands of children who roam the trash heaps looking for scraps of food. Today the organization has seven hundred staff and fifteen hundred volunteers, many of whom were helped by the charity as children.
"When I touch a poor child, I touch Jesus Christ. When I listen to a poor child, I'm listening to God's heart beating for all humanity. Silence is the secret. Silence your heart to listen to your spirit. Silence your spirit to listen to His Spirit. In silence you leave many and be with the One. The hardest task is to get to know the Almighty and to keep your heart pure. In the fire you are either burned or become pure. God's love is fire. It consumes or purifies. Everyone who carries the fragrance of eternity has to experience the dark valley of death."
She was a mystic, in the best sense of the word. Her mind was on things above, and she had an acute sense of spiritual reality. At the same time, she was immersed in the greatest needs of humanity. She hadn't holed up in some commune to meditate on spiritual truths; she spent her days and nights with the unloved and forgotten. She was at once otherworldly and down-to-earth. "Some people are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good," the old expression goes. Well, not Mama Maggie. She was definitely heavenly minded, but it only served to make her of more earthly good. Her spirit was in the heavens, but her hands were on the ground. I think it's that combination, that paradox, which made her so compelling. In her life I glimpsed a reflection of the dual nature of God's otherness and love.
"Jesus takes us always step by step. He doesn't reveal the whole all at once. Please take another step and do something to the closest person – inside your family, inside your town, inside your church. You can encourage someone with a word. You can give a flower to someone. You can do something. When you do, Jesus will open the door for you for more. Take the step." + pgs. 160-162, 168
The Fragrance of Eternity: "To God, everything is backwards and upside-down. The first are last, the strong are weak, and the rich are poor." The Bible teaches us to embrace these "upside-down" values. That means loving the unlovely, befriending the outcasts, and celebrating the people the world disregards. G.K. Chesterton defined a saint as "one who exaggerates what the world neglects." The same should be true of all Christians. I've heard the church described as a colony of God's kingdom on earth. I like that. It captures the otherness, the distinctiveness of our identity. It communicates that this is not our home. We're ambassadors. Right now we look weak, but it's only because we live in occupied territory. The church is a small outpost of a mighty kingdom. And the King is coming. + pgs. 165-166
Next post: City Notes '17: Gospel Fluency Part 1 of 3
+ Sully
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