Quotable Quotes

"Saints become saints by somehow clinging to the stubborn conviction that God deserves our trust, even when it looks like the world is caving in."
- Philip Yancey, I Was Just Wondering

To be commanded to love God, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him.
- Frederick Buechner (as quoted by Philip Yancey)

"After two weeks of reading the entire Bible, I came away with the strong sense that God doesn't care so much about being analyzed. Mainly - like any parent, like any lover - he wants to be loved."
- Philip Yancey, I Was Just Wondering

give me eyes to see like Yours

Thoughts from watching fragments of The Soloist.

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What if people weren't projects but potential friends?

What if that's all it really takes to make a difference to somebody, to be a friend?

What if we were able to see through God's eyes and recognize that there aren't any nobodies and that everybody is a somebody?

What if we stopped subscribing to the secular system of social status hierarchy and simple learnt to see God's image in people and love them?

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What if we are lived in a place where nobody is better or worse than the next, but we all shone with our unqiue blend of colours?

I think it's called heaven.

A weighty matter

Ask not for your load to be lightened; ask instead, for character and strength to carry the portion which you have been assigned, and it shall become the weight of glory.
An epiphanical moment and an assemblage of words collected through random scraps of writings.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
From the Bible, this one is.

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If for nothing else, it is to and for God's glory.
If by nothing else, it shall be overcome by love.
If nothing else, it will be His arms that I fall into.

Saving the sky

7.05pm.
Walked out of my office to catch the sky saturated with a beautiful and mysterious yellow and a sea of blue, with dapplings of aqua green conjoining the two and smatterings of grey clouds, a Rembrandt* and infinitely better.

7.09pm.
Walking back into my office.
The sky had resumed its usual palette of ultramarine and cornflower blue. A faint light to the right of my makeshift viewing window, framed by the walls and railing of the church building, was the only remnant of the breath-chilling sight, hinting at the beauty that was a mere four minutes ago.

My breath was caught in the wrong sort of way.
For the first time, such a sight stunned me instead of moving me.
I check my heart - what's going on down here?
I don't know and I'm too tired to find out.

Salvation needs to find me because I am incapable of seeking it out.
At the moment.

Your saving grace, holding me.

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*disclaimer: I can't actually really remember the sort of painting that Rembrandt did. Probably should google it some time.

Flight of the Blue Jay

I have heard the cries of longing lost within a flurry of activity and believed that there is another door to be unlocked.
God is speaking, and to hear requires stillness.

There has got to be more to God than bible reading, praying and disciplined times of coming before Him and entering His presence by means of committed devotion, and I daresay it is not heretical to make a statement like this.

If God really runs the universe then there must be some aspects of Him unfathomable and therefore a continued mystery that frames and manifests within the relationship that we seek to have with Him.

Perhaps communion with God begins enters a new depth when we relinquish the need to understand, to process intellectually the implications of our faith and simply allow Him to be and ourselves to respond to that Being with our own state of being.

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I am convinced that in order to live, I must learn how to fly.
And this flight differs from yours or his or hers, but it is the wings that we have been given that determines the pattern of our flight.
But we were all meant to fly.

3 knocks on an oakwood door.

"Don't flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don't reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you're only being cute and inviting sacrilege."
Matthew 7:6 [bold mine]

Encountering the mystery of God is both wonderful and dreadful at the same time, and also wonderful in its dreadfulness.

A few weeks ago, I heard a knock on my door.
It was God asking, "Ave, what have you been blogging about?"
That's when I realised, I'd forgotten why I started this blog in the first place. Much of recent posts hardly have anything to do with honor for God.

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Yesterday morning I was buying my usual bottle of Nestle strawberry yoghurt drink at 7-eleven when I realised I only had 75cents to pay for a $1.35 drink. Told the cashier I'll be back after I make a trip to the atm, but this very kind soul, who was about to make his purchase, said he'll pay for me.

Amidst mild protests, I put my 70cents (didn't think he'd want the 5cents) into his hand before he could refuse and took off with my drink after saying my thanks, throwing in a smile to emphasize my gratitude.

If we love, it is God in us who loves.
Reductionism has us book-keeping with a list of laws and commands. There is absolute control in that, but God is not looking for controlled religion.
He is looking for someone who genuinely desires to seek, love, honor and please Him, someone who takes delight in Him and who knows and enjoys the Father's delight.

You can't do relationships with formulae, unlike religion.
Makes absolute sense which one to choose, but it ain't always that easy. Human nature tends toward the definable and controllable, but for the courageous, risk-taking, faith-filled few, they find a different sort of life.

So far, they haven't lost yet.

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For all its pertubulations, agony and risks, I still choose love.
Because love has won me over.