Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes and one of the books I am currently reading, Ruthless Trust, by Brennan Manning, has touched me and opened my eyes to a God who loves me for who I am and not just what I do or what is on my resume. The following is an extended quote that I actually copied and pasted from a friend’s blog (thanks, Erin Melissa Lee.)
We formulate plans to fulfill what we perceive to be the purpose of our lives (inevitably limited), and when the locomotive of our longings gets derailed, we deem ourselves failures….. Our disappointments arise from presuming to know the outcome of a particular endeavor…. Entrusting ourselves to Mystery, we move forward fearlessly, knowing that the future of the planet probably does not depend on what we do next….
However, in our faithful listening to God’s Word, we often neglect his first word to us–the gift of ourselves to ourselves: our existence, our temperament, our personal history, our uniqueness, our flaws and foibles, our identity. Our very existence is one of the never-to-be repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time. Because we are made in God’s image and likeness, you and I are yet another promise that he has made to the universe that he will continue to love it and care for it.…
Trust yourself as one entrusted by God with everything you need to live life to the full.
However, in our faithful listening to God’s Word, we often neglect his first word to us–the gift of ourselves to ourselves: our existence, our temperament, our personal history, our uniqueness, our flaws and foibles, our identity. Our very existence is one of the never-to-be repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time. Because we are made in God’s image and likeness, you and I are yet another promise that he has made to the universe that he will continue to love it and care for it.…
Trust yourself as one entrusted by God with everything you need to live life to the full.
