Mark McCormack:  

ndition. God is big enough to handle our anger at life's injustices. Take care. He will restore you in the end. Take your anger and your pain and frustration to him. Do not be afraid to express it to him. What is not expressed is repressed. It takes courage to be brutally honest, but there really is no other way to be authentic and to grow past it. God knows, and you will to, that it is not permanent if it is faced with steadfast courage. Never value human estimation above that of the one who created you and knows everything. You may fool them into liking the person you are pretending to be, but God knows who you really are. He’s willing to help you be all that you can be with him. Forever. May God bless you with the peace that only he can offer you in relationship with him. That is the only true ultimate concern that there really is. Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. (Luke 8:39) Faith invites trials... “I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind” (Einstein) “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” (Helen Keller) From Michael Novak’s A Time to Build: For men who are free are accustomed to labor in darkness. It is often others who inherit what an earlier generation hardly dared to imagine. Besides, in the darkness it is the Lord who builds; and, unless he builds, the builders labor in vain (p14). The only proof that he loves God whom he does not see, is that he loves those human beings whom he does see (1 Jn:5). If they are serious, believer and unbeliever live by love for man. Yet those who love human beings are not many but few. Those few who are serious…require one another, for the battle against the hucksters, who daily increase and multiply, striving to possess the earth, is desperate...(all around) there are countless petty men for whom persons are not ends but means. When God revealed himself in the historical Jesus Christ, he spoke a word which did not promise life, love or truth except through suffering and death (p6). From Michael Novak’s The Experience of Nothingness: “A concept of God developed within the framework of classical rationalism may, according to the conventional beliefs of middle-class morality, postulate a God of “order and design”, a God content in heaven and rewarding his own on earth, even a God of liberal progress. In reaction against this God, the truly religious will flee to the transcendent, mysterious God who makes his own suffer and proves those he loves by ways men do not fathom” “For if God has drawn the suffering ones to himself, their fundamental good, is he evil?” (no!) “There is a “higher wisdom”, a “higher good”, which God in every case brings to fruition in a way mortals do not understand. But in that case God is not what ordinary people appear to think he is. His benevolence may be what among ourselves we call cruelty. His loving kindness may seem in a human frame of reference, sadistic. God is terrible as well as merciful.”(p162) “The good are not always rewarded; the evil often prosper. Life is not a morality play. The judgment of God does not always regularly assist those faithful to understanding with peace, prosperity, lack of suffering. On the contrary, they sometimes suffer more severely than those who turn away from creativity, love and intelligence. Belief in God is not normally rewarded by events; sun and rain are indiscriminate. Even inwardly, the nonbeliever may feel contentment, while the believer may experience emptiness. God is truly a hidden God.” Luke 9:23 (New International Version) Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Job's attitude in his own "dark night of the soul"...) "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him." (Job13:15) "No cross, no crown." (unknown) “Weigh God and man on different scales, and to approach God as one who is holy, terrifying and powerful, as well as gentle, loving and considerate. It is not that God ‘has moods’, it is that he transcends our scales of values. It is not that he is arbitrary; it is that he alone sees the intelligibility of what he does.” (Novak, p163) “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” (Dale Carnegie) "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8:18). In such a world as this, in such a state of society as ours, and especially in the higher walks of life, you must be prepared to meet with many difficulties. Arm yourselves, therefore, in the first place with a determined resolution not to rate human esteem beyond its true value. Do not dread the charge of being odd when it is necessary to incur it. You cannot advance a single step until you are in some degree possessed of this comparative indifference to the favor of men. Wilberforce, William, & Beltz, Bob. (2007). Real christianity. Regal. From "Toxic Faith" by Stephen Arterburn “The alcoholic must also allow God to forgive all the things that have happened during the progression of the disease.” “Believing the problem is self inflicted sets up a whole chain of reactions to punish self. The alcoholic feels deserving of failure and consequently will set him/herself up to fail.” “Each of us faces circumstances which compel us to carry heavy burdens of sorrow. Our highest hopes are blasted and our noblest dreams are shattered.” Addiction= a pathological devotion whose purpose is to change reality into a more tolerable form Psychiatry helps us look candidly at out inner selves and to search out the causes of our failures and fears. But much of our fearful living encompasses a realm where the service of psychiatry is ineffectual unless the psychiatrist is a man of religious faith. (p114) From "Victims and Sinners", Mercadette "God's grace addresses that slightly sour, out-of-sorts, or downright dirty, desperate feeling that people generally carry around with them. God's grace is greater than that feeling, and greater even than its reality...Whether we always feel slightly "off" and disgruntled or downright dirty and ruined, we cannot ignore that we have cooperated with or contributed to our negative state. However that is not the end of the message. The good and often surprising news is that grace is the larger reality. Once we allow our sin to be placed in the light of grace, it loses some of its power. Sin is still horrible, and it still can eventually kill if left unchecked. But the reality of grace dwarfs the reality of sin, putting it back into perspective. Grace, God's presence, can and does transform. This can happen slowly or literally overnight. It is generally different and more painful than we think it will be. It is also much more freeing and joyful than we have any reason to hope. We can have setbacks and we can stop the process, for it requires continual cooperation. But grace will work realistically at a pace we can manage. The depth and extent of the psychological and physical consequences will affect the rate of change...." "Grace is not primarily the energy to improve behavior. It is not primarily an infusion of willpower, or a control battle that God wins. Nevertheless it "works" to turn a person away from the destructive behaviors we label addiction. God’s presence gives us glimpses of the joy, beauty, health and integrity that is our birthright as divine creations. This joy helps us turn away from the lure of evil. It helps us stop ignoring our better judgment and gives us the hope to walk in another direction. This sounds simplistic, and it is mysterious. But it is not a secret. This is not hidden knowledge. Nor is grace dependent upon the number of meetings or services one attends. Grace is God’s self-revealing. God wants to communicate this to us. It does not begin therefore in our feelings, in our will, or in our minds. It can only be known through our faith, which is a response, a trust, and a risk. One needs only a bit of faith at the outset. It begins as we turn toward the love that is being offered us in relationship with God.” Miscellaneous Most miracles are so subtle that they are easily missed. You have to be prepared and watching very closely for them or they will go unnoticed, or simply not happen at all. Change agents will never be as well adjusted to today as they will be to tomorrow. There is no true freedom to those without clean hands. Humble circumstances are the surest cure for the conceited heart. Woe to him who never finds them. Brotherhood doesn't come in a package. It is not a commodity to be taken down from the shelf with one hand-it is an accomplishment of soul searching prayer and perseverance. -Ovleta Culp Hobby Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon "Innovation— any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience." — Warren Bennis When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do. -William Blake The history of the race, and each individual’s experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. -Mark Twain Human beings naturally drift away from opt