Soulfood

More quotes to pique your interest (perhaps) in what I’ve been reading lately!

From A Redemptive Theology of Art by David Covington:

“A little-discussed effect of sin on our vision is our hijacking, fragmenting, and darkening of the shared vision we were given, and we add flat denial. Christians assume we see objects and evaluate them according to the same abstract principles God uses. As if we were to say, ‘Is it true? If so, this is because God sees it that way too. Is it beautiful? Of course; God, in giving us beauty, followed objective aesthetic standards. Does it work? Naturally; God uses and endorses our criteria for effectiveness, our standards for objective right and wrong.’ By denying sin’s effects on our seeing, we presume to subject God to the principles of truth, beauty, and power that we have imagined, rather than locating truth, beauty, and power in him.”

“We may scarcely recognize redeemed aesthetics when they first develop. We might get twitchy about something we used to take lying down. Perhaps we take less pleasure in things that used to delight us. Maybe our hearts begin to sing at a new loveliness. Our feelings are shifting. We get uncomfortable with something that used to comfort us. We may not call it this at first, but we grow to hate our sin. We respond by asking God, whose watchful eye we treasure more and more, for help, specifically asking for forgiveness and for new affections. All at once, and slow and gradual.”

“God is the first seer,, revealing our distorted seeing. We are incapable of aesthetic objectivity and of objective knowledge and objective ethical goodness, not just because we are finite or even because we are fallen. We are incapable of objectivity of any kind because this precious presumption was never valid. We were never made for objectivity, whether about truth or beauty or goodness. Now in our redemption, God calls us back to share, even more richly than Adam and Eve shared, in his divine subjectivity. We are called to this shared truth, love, and goodness.”

“All of human life consists in these three aspects [content, form, and purpose corresponding to God’s character, God’s glory, and God’s powerful will] and their various articulations. In whatever we do or say, we ascribe glory in these three perspectives, either to God or to a created object, an idea, or a person.”

From God Does His Best Work with Empty by Nancy Guthrie:

“…I’m not sure loneliness is a problem that can be solved by better health care or social systems. In fact, I’m not sure that loneliness is really a problem to be solved. Perhaps it isn’t something to be avoided at all costs. Instead, perhaps loneliness is meant to serve as an invitation into something we should pursue at great cost – intimate fellowship with the God who made us and is with us.”

“Our lonely times prepare us to enjoy fellowship with Christ. For many, perhaps most of us, communion with Christ comes when we reach the end of ourselves. That’s when we are poised for a breakthrough.”

“[When we become aware of how much kindness (hesed) we have received]…[w]e’re able to look up from our own circumstances and situations and begin asking the question, ‘Whom can I show kindness to?’ We find that the place inside us that once seemed so empty has become a reservoir for kindness that overflows to the people around us.”

Psalm 73:25-26 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.

“Can you imagine yourself being able to say these words of the psalmist to God and really mean them? Is there anyone or anything that would keep you from saying that the one thing you desire more than anything on earth is God himself? If those closest to you were to identify what animates your life, what you talk about most and arrange your schedule to enjoy the most, what would it be? Your favorite sports team? Your favorite hobby? Your political party? Your professional pursuits? Anyone or anything that rivals the place that belongs to God alone is the well you have dug for yourself to drink from. And eventually you will discover that this well, this cistern, is cracked. It won’t hold water.” [Reference Jeremiah 2:13]