This contains notable quotes.
When we finally emerge from the wilderness and look back at our zigzag line, we realize that it was the most direct route God could take in our lives—in fact, the only route He could take us.
There is a determinative connection between who we are and the fruit we bear. Unless we learn to trust [God], others will never trust us—and without the trust of our followers, there’s only one thing we can do: fail.
Going into the wilderness to meet God is good, wherever it may be and whatever it may mean in our lives. Many believers think a wilderness experience is something to avoid or escape as quickly as possible. The fact is, the wilderness only becomes a bad experience when we refuse to learn from God and trust Him for what He wants us to do.
God’s purpose in taking us into the wilderness is not to hurt or discourage us; it is to purify and prepare us to for a greater future than any of us ever thought possible. If Israel had gone first into the Promised Land without the wilderness experience, they would have been destroyed. The wilderness only became discipline for Israel when they refused to trust God and take the risks He wanted them to take. His plan was to keep the Children of Israel in the wilderness long enough for them to learn how to enter into a deeper, intimate relationship with Him.
While the human race is becoming collectively more knowledgeable every year, each of us (as individuals) is becoming relatively more ignorant. Thus [the] paradox of progress: the more we know, the less I understand. Every morning, when we wake up, we are in relative terms a little bit more stupid than the day before.
Rest is not something that the world gives us. It’s never been a gift. It’s never been something you do when you’ve finished everything else. If you want rest, you have to take it. You have to resist the lure of busyness, make time for rest, take it seriously, and protect it from a world that is intent on stealing it.
In the end, that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.
Your character is the one thing you cannot borrow, lend or escape, for it is you.
Real faith is a letting go. A releasing of the what-if’s when everything in you wants to tighten your grip. It’s a allowing yourself to free fall into the unknown because you have absolute confidence that waiting at the other end are arms big enough to catch you, help you, and make you whole.
If anything threatens your identity, you will not just be anxious but paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of someone else, you will not just be resentful but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you will hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. Only if your identity is built on God and his love . . . can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything.
