the poverty gospel - leftovers

Last week I shared four posts on a perspective I called the Poverty Gospel. I don't want to write much more on it, but I did end up with several leftover thoughts and quotes that may add to some follow-up thinking for all of us. For what it's worth, I'm still in prcoess over all of this, too.

Together,

Tony

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Two people loosely around me who happened to be in the news:

• Story 1
• Story 2

Intriguing quotes:

• "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain
• "I don't let my kids watch my show... I make my living being falsely sincere and don't want them to think of me as anything but sincere." - Steve Colbert on Conan O'Brien
• "I don't feel frustrated to have lost so many years in prison. I have seen beautiful things. I myself have been among the weak and insignificant ones in prison, but have had the privilege in the same jail with great saints, heroes of faith who equaled the Christians of the first centuries. They went gladly to die for Christ. The spiritual beauty of such saints and heroes of faith can never be described."- Richard Wurmbrand, a Christian who spent 14 years in Communist Romanian prisons
• Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 18:20)
• "If God is silent, what's that to you? If he turns his face away, what can you do about it? But whether silent or hidden, he's there, ruling." - Job 34:29 (MSG)

Random thoughts and questions I have:

• It's remarkable to think that God speaks to us... and he does. Often through the Bible, often in life. What I struggle with, though, is that he doesn't always say what I want or am asking.
• A surge of emotion is going to storm you each day - some good and some bad. We need to be ready for whatever argument, disappointment, hurt, heartbreak, or struggle we face… not to mention how to handle the times of blessing where prosperity seems to have come from our own hands (which it hasn't). The only way I know of to face it is to prepare the heart by letting God's language and truths come to our hearts before anything else.
• On our end, our responsibility is to remember that there is a story going on that is not about us. Give up your story for God's story.