Scratching the Surface of the Infinite with a Finite Mind
“As long as the mission is central (especially in the church), you will have a bright future. When maintenance begins to trump mission, the end is near.” – Carey Nieuwhof
Some time ago, I came across a sermon preached by Mark Driscoll who was once the Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington.
“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” ― Elisabeth Elliot
It’s interesting what people will say right before they die. Oscar Wilde reportedly said these words on his deathbed…” This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has to go.” So he went. Union General John Sedgwick made this boast minutes before he was shot by a Confederate sniper, “They couldn’t hit an elephant from this distance.” Well, I guess they could.
I can honestly say that I’ve lived most of my life without having given Las Vegas much thought at all, nor have I ever had any desire to visit. I could think of 1000 different vacation destinations for my family and me to explore and the bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada wouldn’t even make the top ten.
“We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth. The fact that just from the distance of the moon (some 240,000 miles away); you can put your thumb up and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb.
“I’m pretty sure, roughly 1/3 of my life has been spent standing in the middle of the room wondering what I came in here for.” – Author Unknown
Whoever wrote that must have been peaking into the window of my life. How is it possible from the time I decide to leave one room and enter another that my brain has decided to go on an extended holiday? And my house isn’t even that big?!
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.” ~ Jonathan Swift
On November 2, 2004, an Islamic assassin in Amsterdam, Holland shot, stabbed and butchered the great-grandnephew of the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh. And what was Van Gogh’s crime?
“What can I do? How can I live? To show my world the treasure of Jesus? What will it take? What could I give? So that they can know the treasure he is? If I can sing, let my songs be full of his glory. If I can speak, Let my words be full of his grace. If I should live or die, let me be found pursuing this prize: The One who alone satisfies. The treasure of Jesus.” – Steven Curtis Chapman
“I have 10,000 engagements of state today, but I would prefer to spend the day out here…studying dandelions and marveling at…spider’s webs…Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is? How idiotic will it sound? I have a political career glittering in front of me, and in my heart, I want spider’s webs.” – William Wilberforce in the Movie “— Amazing Grace, the Movie, 2006
“Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.” – Robert Henri
Having never, in the providence of God, been fortunate to live by the ocean, you may find it curious that I love the sea. My greatest wish as a child I can remember was to build a boat of my own and sail into the unknown. To do as John Denver sang so ably in Calypso, “to sail on a dream on a crystal-clear ocean; to ride on the crest of a wild raging storm.”