Pause & Ponder // Reading in July

“There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.

That is the sort of bravery I must have now.”

Allegiant – Veronica Roth


“That’s his call. Show up.”

Starving Jesus – Craig Gross & J.R. Mahon


“Alec Motyer said, “Holiness is the most intimately divine word the Bible possesses.” And thus the call to be holy as he is holy is the call to the most intimate union with God. Imitation of God has intimacy with God as the goal.”

“Prayer is the language of intimacy. Prayer keeps communion. And prayer bears fruit, not simply in answered prayer, but in presenting us to a holy God to be transformed into his likeness.”

The Pursuit of the Holy – Simon Ponsonby


“In solitude we confront the forces that seek to shape us in their image and the alternative ways that we try to define ourselves, and we meet the God who offers us true identity and hear the voice that truly defines us and shapes us according to his image.”

“It’s important that we pay attention to the mundane as well as the sublime, as it’s the mundane that makes the sublime possible.”

“Because of these assumptions in many churches about what constitutes participation, we can become convinced that the faithful word in the Christian life is always yes. When we are asked to participate in an activity or group or sharing time, if we are really committed to community, if we truly trust God, we think we must answer “yes.” Conversely, no is the unfaithful word. No is the word that shuts us out of community, that doesn’t trust God and is closed to others and his work.”

Introverts in the Church – Adam S. McHugh