Reflections On Some Recent Reading

This first quote gets to me because the last two years of our lives has been a crazy walk of faith wondering what the future held and wondering if we had somehow wandered off the path we should be on. How often I asked the Lord to please make things plain and explain what in the world I/we were to be doing! "What God wants done clashes with what I want to do for Him!"

And now, at this moment, I feel peaceful, with my hand in His. It's all about taking a walk with my Father, it matters not where He is going, as long as I am with Him.

"Trust is an aspect of love. If you love Me [Jesus] and believe in My love for you, you will surrender your whole self into My hands like a little child who doesn't even ask, 'Where are you taking me?' but sets off joyously, hand in hand with his mother. How many blessings this happy confidence wins for you, My little one.

"Keep going blindly. Take delight in knowing nothing about the future. I know how to lead the blind by the best paths. And when this blind person knows that he is My son, she is My daughter, won't they be glad of their infirmity, since it has power over My heart? In all this see My tenderness. It is everlasting."
(From: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, by Brennan Manning.)

And this quote makes me take a deep breath and give up any perfectionism left in my character. The phrase, "bondage to human respect" really gets to me. That's me in a nutshell.

"I believe Jesus calls all of us to let go of the desire to appear good, to give up the appearance of being good, so that we can listen to the word within us and move in the mystery of who we are. The preoccupation with projecting the perfect image, of being a model Christian and edifying others with our virtues leads to self-consciousness, sticky pedestal behavior, and bondage to human respect. As my director Larry Hein said, paraphrasing the Tao de Ching, 'Give up being a saint. It'll be a lot better for everybody.'"
(From The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, by Brennan Manning.)