“Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty.” (Flannery O’Connor)

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Okay, I don’t want to make this a Flannery O’Connor versus the book of Hebrews smackdown, because, as much as I like Flannery O’Connor, the book of Hebrews would win hands down. But I saw this quote by Flannery O’Connor earlier this week and immediately thought of Hebrews 11:1.

At first read, it might seem that the verse from Hebrews is contradicting Flannery, but perhaps Flannery is getting at something different in her quote. I have my own ideas on this, but I will let you all tackle this first.

What do you think? Is Flannery O’Connor’s quote out of line with Scripture? Or is she saying something different than Hebrews 11:1 is saying? (i.e. not contradictory, just different)

I know, you weren’t expecting to come to the blog today and have to think!

HT: Don Bryant

“You know the best way to double your money? Fold it and put it in your pocket.” (Phyllis Diller)

Here is a quote by Barbara Bush, the mother of president George W. Bush, from her commencement address to Wellesley College Graduates in 1990.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent. Fathers and mothers, if you have children … they must come first. You must read to your children, you must hug your children, you must love your children. Your success as a family … our success as a society … depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

Here is an interesting take on marriage and singleness from John Piper:

I don’t know which holds out more joys and more hardships. There is no way to know ahead of time, it seems to me. We Christians don’t make our choices that way anyway. This would be clear if all singles not only heard the wedding vows, “For better or for worse,” but also heard the same words written over singleness: “For better or for worse.” Marriage may prove to be gloriously happy, or painfully disappointing. Singleness may prove to be gloriously satisfying or painfully disappointing. Only God knows which it will be for you.

I remember a “Mad About You” TV episode where the wife, Jaime, is particularly frustrated with her husband, Paul. She calls up her friend on the phone and asks her: “Fran, remind me again why I hate to be single.”

I would say marriage and singleness both present a combination of joys and sorrows in life. (See the article Riding the Rails of Life in Marriage earlier in this blog.) We often think of the marriage vows in terms of “for better or for worse.” I like Piper’s extension of that to serving God in the state of singleness as well.

Here is a neat quote from Larry King I ran across earlier today:

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.

I have been studying the first chapter of James with my sons at night, and we recently came to verse 19: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” From this verse we talked about the importance of listening to others and about thinking before we speak. As someone once said, “God gave us two ears and only one mouth, and we should use them accordingly.”

But although I agree with Larry King that we learn much by listening, I believe that we also learn by speaking. Learning is more than just acquiring data or information. It also includes processing that information. And though we often process information just in our thoughts, I find that we also process as we communicate. Many times speaking or writing out our thoughts helps us to process information that much more effectively and thus helps us in our learning.

So although I like the wisdom and insight wrapped up in Larry’s quote, I don’t want to go so far as saying, “Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.” I would prefer to say: “If I am the only one speaking today, I will limit my learning. I will learn so much more by listening to others and engaging in conversation with them.” (Of course, Larry’s quote is much more “quotable” than mine.)

What do you say?

Here are some miscellaneous quotes about church attendance (or the lack thereof):

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then some people must really love the church!

Call it a trump card if you must, but lawmakers in Virginia made a law in 1610 that prescribed the death penalty for people who failed to attend church three consecutive Sundays.

The following statistics reveal church is the safest place of all. Automobiles account for 20 percent of all fatal accidents, while 17 percent of fatalities occur at home. Fourteen percent happen to pedestrians on streets and sidewalks. Travel by air, rail, or water causes 16 percent of the deaths. Yet, of all reported deaths, only .001 percent occur in worship services.

The great task of the Church is not only to get sinners into heaven, but also to get the saints out of bed.

Has it been a while since you’ve been in church? Why not decide right now to go this week – and then go! Just remember (one last quote):

This could be a word of caution to those who place their eternal security in church membership rather than Jesus Christ. The late Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust, used to say, “A mouse in a cookie jar isn’t a cookie.”

I found today’s reading in Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening especially encouraging. The following meditation is from 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Mourning Christian! Why do you weep? Are you mourning over your own corruptions? Look to your perfect Lord, and remember, you are complete in him; you are in God’s sight as perfect as if you had never sinned; nay, more than that, the Lord our Righteousness has put a divine garment upon you, so that you have more than the righteousness of man – you have the righteousness of God . . . Your standing is not in yourself – it is in Christ; your acceptance is not in yourself, but in your Lord; you are as much accepted of God today, with all your sinfulness, as you will be when you stand before his throne, free from all corruption . . . and all this because the divine Lord “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

You can access Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening daily devotional online here.

Here is a great quote by Albert Mohler on the importance of reading in his blog post today entitled: We Are What We Read — David McCullough on Reading and History.

Reading is a crucial means of education and gaining knowledge. But books mean more than knowledge in the most basic sense. Books allow minds to meet, ideas to be exchanged, and experiences to be remembered or imagined. Those who do not read impoverish themselves by choice. They are the thieves of their own imaginations and wisdom.

Here is a classic quote from Billy Graham that bears repeating in light of the recent “Jesus Tomb” special:

“There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or Alexander the Great died at the age of 33. It is strange that historians accept thousands of facts for which they can produce only shreds of evidence. But in the face of overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ they cast a skeptical eye and hold intellectual doubts. The trouble with those people is that they do not want to believe.” – Billy Graham, Peace with God

HT: Minister’s ToolBox