One of the saddest of all the sad stories in the history of the people of God comes shortly after the dramatic Exodus from Egypt, as they stand on the brink of a whole new life in the land God had promised:

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’” Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you [Not “comfort you.” Not “be with you in your distress, defeated by your enemies.” Fight for you], as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God … Then you replied, “We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God commanded us.” (Deut. 1:26-41 NIV)

But it was too late. Their decision not to fight is what led to their wandering in the wilderness for forty years. We often cite that part of the story, talking about our own wilderness experiences, embracing the wilderness saga as if it were inevitable. No, that is not the lesson at all. We have forgotten it was avoidable. The reason they took the lamentable detour into the wilderness was because they would not fight. To be more precise, the wilderness was a punishment, the consequence of refusing to trust God, and fight. 

(via)

“These biblical characters, however clean or tawdry their personal histories may have been, are not paralyzed by the past in their present response to Jesus.  Tossing aside self-consciousness they ran, clung, jumped, and raced to Him.  Peter denied Him and deserted Him, but he was not afraid of Him. 

“Suppose for a moment that in a flash of insight you discovered that all your motives for ministry were essentially egocentric, or suppose that last night you got drunk and committed adultery, or suppose that you failed to respond to a cry for help and the person committed suicide.  What would you do? 

“Would guilt, self-condemnation, and self-hatred consume you, or would you jump into the water and swim a hundred yards at breakneck speed toward Jesus?  Haunted by feelings of unworthiness, would you allow the darkness to overcome you or would you let Jesus be who He is—a Savior of boundless compassion and infinite patience, a Lover who keeps no score of our wrongs?”

— Brennan Manning, “The Recovery of Passion”, Abba’s Child

I find it funny that often our greatest strengths end up being our greatest weaknesses, and vice versa.

(via rulesformyunbornson)

I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted, and complete in Christ.

“It is folly 4 a man who has a dead person in his house 2 leave him there and go 2 weep over his neighbor’s dead.”//his house is gonna smell