When I’m in a really bad state and one or sometimes even all of my chronic conditions flare-up at once, it’s overwhelming, which is the best word I can come up with, but doesn’t begin to describe it. During these times I often go to Psalm 139:13-16. God knew when he created me that I would have these problems. God has my days planned out. God knows how he will glorify himself. God knows how he will work it out for good, not only for me, but for many involved. God isn’t a clean-up man, he has a plan.

I love this recent quote from a woman who has a partial limb on her right side:

I believe with every fiber of my being that I was no accident. God did not look away, drop a thread, and fail to go back and fix a flaw as he was forming me. “Wonderful are [His] works and my soul knows it very well.” God labored over my creation. He had a plan before he started the process. My difference was deliberate. I rest in the knowledge that God created me exactly as I am for His purposes. We don’t always, or even usually, know why things are the way they are, but there is such hope and peace in knowing the care with which we were created.

–Pondering Psalm 139 (A post from my wife Ashley)

Early in the article she writes, “I am not, in fact, a victim at all. I was formed this way.” I have come to believe this too. Suffering from pain, anxiety, depression, terrible sleep, doesn’t make me a victim. Nothing that I know of happened to cause any of this. Nor was it fate or bad luck or being unfortunate or any of those things either. It isn’t for lack of trying or lack of faith or prayer or not finding just the right cure (as if there was one for all of those things). I don’t like original sin and the fall, the way this suffering and refining (1 Peter 1:7) and conforming (Romans 8:29) thing works. I do love knowing God (John 17:3) and the hope of heaven (Phil 3:20), and of course the end result, when this will seem like nothing (Romans 8:18). That’s not much help now, but I submit to it by faith.

Exodus 4:11
The LORD asked him, “Who gave humans their mouths? Who makes humans unable to talk or hear? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? It is I, the LORD!

Lamentations 3:37-38
Who was it who spoke and it came into being? It was the Lord who gave the order. 38 Both good and bad come from the mouth of the Most High God.

Psalm 139:13-18 HCSB
For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You
because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful,
and I know [this] very well.
15 My bones were not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all [my] days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began.

17 God, how difficult Your thoughts are
for me [to comprehend];
how vast their sum is!

18 If I counted them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand;
when I wake up, I am still with You.

Often given lip service, but not usually understood or believed in most evangelical churches. This isn’t a “fresh” quote. Some of the megachurch growth movement rhetoric is a little old now, but the premise stands. For most it’s salvation by grace plus our nature or salvation by grace plus our will. I realize many of you won’t go this far, but I like this quote.

I think people should be forthright and knowledgeable in saying, Yes I believe this or no I don’t.

Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls. Today this article is often ignored, distorted or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical. Although fallen human nature has always recoiled from recognizing its need for Christ’s imputed righteousness, modernity greatly fuels the fires of this discontent with the biblical Gospel. We have allowed this discontent to dictate the nature of our ministry and what it is we are preaching. Many in the church growth movement believe that sociological understanding of those in the pew is as important to the success of the gospel as is the biblical truth which is proclaimed. As a result, theological convictions are frequently divorced from the work of the ministry. The marketing orientation in many churches takes this even further, erasing the distinction between the biblical Word and the world, robbing Christ’s cross of its offense, and reducing Christian faith to the principles and methods which bring success to secular corporations. While the theology of the cross may be believed, these movements are actually emptying it of its meaning. There is no gospel except that of Christ’s substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God’s children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ’s saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him.

–John Hendryx, quoted in Reformed Theology and Christian Counseling Today (PDF File)

Edit: Also note that God accepts us, not the other way around, as is so popular (“accepting Jesus as your personal [butler] savior”). I know most don’t mean any ill by saying this. It’s become so poular that it’s automatic, like many other things–inviting Jesus into your heart (what?), let go and let God (huh?), God is our co-pilot (I thought God is the pilot) etc. There is a whole Bible we can quote instead of made up stuff.

Calvin: Six Purposes of Prayer

One of my favorite topics and I’ve never seen it written better.

HT: NWBingham on Twitter

Sometimes I wonder why I read modern books, since everything has been written about, and very well. No disrespect to current authors. Sometimes there are more current culture, events, politics (yuck) or just new and modern ways of writing things that are beneficial. There are also advances in archeology, linguistics and the church universal learning together.

I also think that since so many modern Christians lack theological training and knowledge, more and more basic books need to be written. But as far as basic theology, I don’t think there’s much new to be written.

I think some people could buy the least expensive e-reader, download a few hundred or thousand out of copyright Puritan (if that’s your thing) ePubs, a few Bible translations and be set for life if they like reading just regular books. Commentaries and other reference works are a different story.

Always strive to have an imbalance in your heart where the desire to love outdistances the desire to be loved: “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (1 John 3:11, 16)

–Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest

Philippians 2:3-4 NIV
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

After a lifetime of studying the Bible, it is simple realism, not mock humility, to acknowledge that we are still paddling in the shallows of revealed truth.

–Edward Donnelly, Biblical Teaching on the Doctrines of Heaven and Hell

HT: Challies.com

Augustine had something to say about this but so did Spurgeon. This was found in If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil by Randy Alcorn.

Spurgeon warned against theologies that attempt to reconcile, by means of shortsighted human logic, every apparent biblical inconsistency:

Men who are morbidly anxious to possess a self-consistent creed, a creed which will put together and form a square like a Chinese puzzle, are very apt to narrow their souls. Those who will only believe what they can reconcile will necessarily disbelieve much of divine revelation. Those who receive by faith anything which they find in the Bible will receive two things, twenty things, ay, or twenty thousand things, though they cannot construct a theory which harmonizes them all.

(“Faith,” An All-Round Ministry, 1872)

The system of truth is not one straight line, but two. No man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once.

The first quote can be found in an interesting article on Randy Alcorn’s Ministry site. He writes about Calvinism and election but isn’t really a Calvinist so it’s a bit strange from my point of view:
Spurgeon’s Theology: Embracing Biblical Paradox

The second quote can be found here:
If God Is Good: 99 Quotes and Illustrations

I suppose I can stop posting quotes from that book now. I need to read it again someday. Interestingly, right now the Kindle edition costs more than the paper version. But the prices change often. There is an abridged version of the book too.

What’s said here is why I love to read and is one of my favorite quotes.

It has been said that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, ‘Behold I am wise.’ But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with solemn exclamation, ‘I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.’ No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God…

But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe…. The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.

And, while humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore.

Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning…

Excerpted from “The Immutability of God,” A sermon by a 20 year old Charles H. Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark. J. I. Packer quotes from this message in the beginning of Knowing God.

Quote pasted, with a couple of original italics added (from my 1973 edition), from Eternal Perspective Ministries

John 17:3 HCSB
This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent–Jesus Christ.

I love this quote. Maybe this is why I’ve always liked crazy people. (Not just institutionalized, but those who are a little ‘off’.) There’s more potential. Plus they’re usually interesting.

An individual, quite completely free from tension, anxiety, and conflict may be only a well-adjusted sinner who is dangerously maladjusted to God; and it is infinitely better to be a neurotic saint than a healthy-minded sinner. . . . Healthy-mindedness may be a spiritual hazard that keeps an individual from turning to God precisely because he has no acute sense of God. . . . Tension, conflict, and anxiety, even to the point of mental illness, may be a cross voluntarily carried in God’s service.

–Vernon Grounds, “Called to Be Saints—Not Well-Adjusted Sinners”, Christianity Today (January 17, 1986), 28; as found in Is God a Moral Monster? pg. 190

Grace is God’s work to deliver us from the full extent of our depravity, and its full punishment. By underestimating depravity and denying eternal hell, Satan tries to lower redemption’s price tag, cheapening the grace that paid the price. ‘For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves’ (Col. 1:13).

–Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

You may be at a loss to know why He does no more to deliver you from some sin, or why He does not make you more successful in your efforts to aid others, or why, while He so liberally prospers you in one part of your condition, you get so much less in another that is far nearer your heart; but God does what He will with His own, and if you do not find in one point the whole blessing and prosperity you think should flow from such a mediator as you have, you may only conclude that what is lacking there, will elsewhere be found more wisely bestowed. And is it not a perpetual encouragement to us that God does not merely crown what nature has successfully begun, that it is not the likely and the naturally good that are most blessed, but that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty ; and base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are?

–Marcus Dods, The Book of Genesis, pg 424 approx., as quoted in Creation and Blessing by Alan Ross, pg. 695

Genesis 48:17-22 NRSV
When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18 Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father! Since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” 19 But his father refused, and said, “I know, my son, I know; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.” 20 So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will invoke blessings, saying, ‘God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh.’” So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. 21 Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your ancestors. 22 I now give to you one portion more than to your brothers, the portion that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.”

1 Corinthians 1:27-31 NRSV
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Below is a fantastic quote from the free chapter of Joni Eareckson Tada’s book, A Place of Healing. I have three of my own comments inserted in there between brackets [] and in italic where there are similarities.

I wish everyone who was determined to get someone healed or think it’s their loved one’s right to be healed because they’re a ‘good’ Christian would read this. I’ve been very blessed in that I haven’t been in a position where people have told me I don’t have enough faith or say that I must be doing something wrong or not claiming God’s promises. My blogging friends have also been great. But I do get the feeling that many people think it’s just wrong for people to suffer chronically, especially with more than one condition as I do (and she is now also dealing with cancer in addition to paralysis, fatigue and chronic pain), and if they just pray long enough and hard enough, or give the right advice, that amazing healing and happiness and success is just around the corner.

We believe that God can use healing and/or suffering to glorify himself and change us into his image. In addition to praying for outright healing, which we know God will do for his people in his own timing, in this life or at the end, please don’t do people a disservice by not praying for spiritual growth of all kinds. We can find this in prayers in the Bible and know that this is God’s will for everyone. Sticking with them over time is much more difficult and rewarding than praying for them once, finding them not healed and just end up disappointed. Pray for coping, provision and endurance. Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in their spiritual growth by leaving this out.

Continuing to mature through trials gives us hope as God changes our character. (Romans 5:3-4)

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and services were over. I was wheeling across the church parking lot toward my van when a handsome young man, who introduced himself as David, stopped me.

“Are you Joni?” he asked.

I smiled, nodding yes.

“Oh great!” David exclaimed. “I’m a visitor here, and I was hoping I would run into you today. I’ve really been praying for you.”

My eyes got wide. “Really? What about?”

“Your healing. I’ve been praying for you to get out of your wheelchair.”

At that point, my spirit hesitated. David was a visitor. He came to church hoping to see me, and he wanted to see me healed. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years who’ve done the same thing. In churches, on street corners, in convention centers, and in busy shopping malls. Some of those encounters have been a little overwhelming-almost frightening.

But not on this day, with this young man.

Still, I had to fight off eerie feelings. Several times, years ago, a group of men showed up at our farmhouse door in Maryland, all having been led there by the Holy Spirit to either heal me … or marry me! So perhaps you can understand my reticence.

“Well, I never refuse a prayer for healing,” I assured David. [I sincerely say the exact same thing.]

This guy wasted no time in getting down to business, launching into what sounded like a prepared speech. “Have you ever considered that it might be sin standing in the way of your healing? That you’ve disobeyed in some way?” Before I could answer, David flipped open his Bible-both of us still in the middle of the parking lot and read from the gospel of Luke, “Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus” (Luke 5:18-19).

He closed his Bible and reminded me that the paralyzed man in the story was healed. And I could be, too, if only I would but confess my sins and have faith to believe. He added, “Joni, there must be some sin in your life that you haven’t dealt with yet.”

I told him that my conscience was clean before the Lord (he looked a little skeptical about that) and reiterated that I always welcome prayers for healing. I thanked him for his concern but told him I didn’t think this was a matter of faith.

For David, that just didn’t add up. According to what he had been taught, if I was a Christian, and if there was no known sin in my life, and if I had faith that God could heal, well, then … I would be healed. Didn’t God want everyone healed? Didn’t Jesus want everyone well? Of course He did! It was so obvious!

“Joni, you must have a lack of faith. I mean, look at you. You’re still in your wheelchair!”

I thought for a moment about the biblical account he had just read me and asked him to open up his Bible again to that same passage, Luke 5. “Okay,” I said, “you’re right about one thing, David. Right after they lowered the paralyzed man through the roof and to the floor in front of Jesus, he was healed. But look at verse 20. It says that when Jesus saw the faith of those four friends, the man was made well.”

“So?”

“Don’t you see? He didn’t require anything at all of the disabled man. What He was looking for was faith in those men who had lowered him through the roof. God doesn’t require my faith for healing. But He could require yours. The pressure’s off me, David. If God has it in His plan to lift me out of this wheelchair, He could use your faith! So keep believing, friend; the pressure’s on you!” [I also rely on others to have faith for me.]

David didn’t like that point of view. Again, it wasn’t according to his script. It wasn’t what he had been taught. According to all his teachers, if a person wasn’t healed, it had to be a problem with him, with his faith.

Faith, however, is not the focus.

The focus is always on Jesus Christ and His will for those who suffer. [God has been teaching me this more and more which is very difficult to explain to some people.] To possess great faith is to believe in a great Savior, and Scripture welcomes the faith of anyone who believes in Jesus’ will to heal. In the days to come, that “anyone” could well be David.

Trials, we must distinctly understand, are a part of the diet which all true Christians must expect. It is one of the means by which their grace is proved, and by which they find out what there is in themselves. Winter as well as summer–cold as well as heat–clouds as well as sunshine–are all necessary to bring the fruit of the Spirit to ripeness and maturity. We do not naturally like this. We would rather cross the lake with calm weather and favorable winds, with Christ always by our side, and the sun shining down on our faces. But it may not be. It is not in this way that God’s children are made “partakers of His holiness.” (Heb. 12:10). Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Job were all men of many trials. Let us be content to walk in their footsteps, and to drink of their cup. In our darkest hours we may seem to be left–but we are never really alone.

–J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 338,339. {John 6:15-21}

Taken from: J.C. RYLE QUOTES

From Reformed Quotations:

A.W. Pink: “Now people say that is what election means, that God has spread the gospel feast and some poor sinners conscious of their deep need come to the Lord and say, “Have mercy upon me,” and the Lord says, “No, you are not among My elect.”

Now, my friends, that is not the teaching of this Book, nor anything like that. That is absolutely a false representation of God’s truth.

Now then, here is the Truth…

–A.W. Pink, Compel them to come in! (video 6:24 in length)

Myths About Calvinism – Tim Challies interviews Dr. Ken Stewart, the author of Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition.

Church congregation services on the Lord’s Day are not meant for people to show their staus as a “good” person or the genuinness of their faith. Such an attitude makes an idol out of it.

This is taken from Reformissionary:

John Piper’s verbal biographies are wonderful. I’m listening again to his bio of Spurgeon and just had to throw up a few quotes. They are rocking me today in the midst of all the stuff our family is going through. Here’s the Piper audio, and the manuscript [1995].

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.

Another…

I dare say the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness … If some men, that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God’s grace mellow them marvelously.

Do you ever even consider the possibility, that maybe, the Creator’s sense of justice is actually more developed than yours?

-Francis Chan, in a sobering video, for us all, related to his forthcoming book, Erasing Hell

This is just a small quote I wrote down that I liked, but it’s well worth watching the whole nine minutes for so many reasons.

I sometimes wonder if the reason so many theologians, amateur and professional, like to engage in online theological controversy has as much to do with them wanting a piece of the action as desiring to help the church. Like those people who stood around weeping and wailing after the death of Michael Jackson and yet who had no personal relationship with him at all, so I suspect many make themselves feel important by engaging in theological controversies which, by the criteria above, are none of their business. Once, for example, someone has written a good refutation of Rob Bell’s use of Scripture or historical sources, there is really no need for the rest of us to do anything but refer others to such. At least, that is the case until someone has exposed the refutations themselves as weak or inadequate.

Carl Trueman, Minority Report: Know Your Limits: The Key Secret of Theological Controversy, Themelios

He also has some good things to say about our sphere of influence and how that can determine whether or not we should weigh in on certain things.

As time goes on, I realize more and more how much I don’t know, and try not to get in on things I really have no authority to write about. Sometimes I will make an assertion but then ask for opinions of others who may know more than me. In any case, I try not to be that kind of blog. If someone in authority isn’t going to sway many people, then I’m certainly not going to.

A question: within a smaller sphere of influence, how much should we leave it up to God to deal with them and when should we try to step in, if we’re absolutely certain they’re going astray on something that’s very obviously orthodox?

I would suppose this depends on how major or minor the issue is. If it’s not a matter of first importance, or maybe even if it is, we need to first of all trust that they are God’s and God will deal with them, especially if we aren’t going to be able to get through to them. But then we also know that God uses people and we can’t just sit on the sidelines all the time. That’s a tough one, and I’d love to hear comments on that.

Romans 14:8 HCSB
If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

I was going to use the following as a proof-text, hopefully in a good way, and learned that it’s referring to the law, as in, “seek[ing] for justification by the works of the law” (Gill) or other traditional Jewish ordinances. I hope I haven’t also used the previous verse for the wrong situation. I know it’s about food and special days, but could apply to secondary issues too, I think.

Philippians 3:15 HCSB
Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you also.

By the way, I kind of feel the same way about bin Laden and what Trueman said about Michael Jackson. There are obviously many many evil people in the world and we don’t need to wring our hands about how we feel about each one’s death. Nor to we need to feel one single feeling about it and make it an either or situation. Maybe that’s for another post (that I don’t need to write about).

I wonder if I post too many quotes in this blog. This post made me think:
Quote Mania and Sola Scriptura

It so happens that a while ago I thought maybe I should never post a quote by itself. I should always give some commentary on how it impacts me or how it changed my thinking or at least put some Scripture with it if necessary. It’s easy to post a bunch of quotes.

I think the material matters. I’ve posted a lot of quotes regarding Bible reading, personal worship and others where people thanked me for the reminder of whatever it was. If it’s something sectarian (if that’s the right word), like creationism, young earth or Calvinism, then I’m just preaching to the choir or ticking people off and get comments from people who agree with me. If it’s just a quote that I happen to like but isn’t that meaningful, it’s probably a waste of time and only generates some stats.

I like using quotes within a larger post and feel they’re valuable and ad some credibility, maybe.

If you were able to read that article, what do you think?

Blah blah blah. Yada yada yada.

It’s all throughout scripture where God meets people where they are and brings them to where he is.

–Perry Noble

2 Samuel 14:14 NLT
All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.

Three eclectic items for you. I’m still not doing well, maybe worse. Please pray. I really don’t want to go to the hospital.

Proverbs 30:1-3 NLT
The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh contain this message.
I am weary, O God; I am weary and worn out, O God.
2 I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense.
3 I have not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One.

Job 25:4-6
How can a mortal be innocent before God?
Can anyone born of a woman be pure?
5 God is more glorious than the moon; he shines brighter than the stars.
6 In comparison, people are maggots; we mortals are mere worms.”

Psalm 22:5-6
They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.
6 But I am a worm and not a man.
I am scorned and despised by all!

Clifford observes that these examples of “low anthropology,” of self-abasement, express reverence.

–Bruce Waltke, Proverbs, quoting Clifford, Proverbs, p. 26

This makes sense because even these examples don’t begin to measure the difference in knowledge and wisdom, between God and us. One of my favorite phrases lately, when I’m not at my worst, is “I’m too stupid to be human.”

Isaiah 55:8-9
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

The more we learn this, the more we realize what a wretch we are, as in the hymn Amazing Grace, or how Wretched, as in the radio show.

On another note:

Hope for Your Dark Night of the Soul

And:

Marks of maturity
This ‘walk’ is similar to mine. I’m not sure I’m at the second part yet, or at least some of them. It’s an interesting post in any case.