More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 1 - December 31, 2019
Lord, I am not teachable because I’m too proud to want advice and too scared that I might hear something I don’t want to hear. So remind me of your greatness to humble me, and remind me that the gospel itself, my very joy and life, was something I didn’t want to hear. Amen.
Lord, between the discerning person who learns through a single, wise rebuke and the fool who never learns from anything, I am firmly in the middle. I confess you must send me messages multiple times before I read them. Forgive me and work on my heart until I hear you the first time. Amen.
Give me friends who can be counselors, and then give me the humility to listen to them. Amen.
While God’s door to hear contrition is never shut, our window of opportunity to produce it can be.
Father, make me a chief repenter. Let me be the first to admit my fault, and to repent quickly, without grudging, without excuses, without bitterness, knowing that repentance is a path through grief to greater joy. Amen.
Only the one who listens well is worth listening to
Lord, there are so many things I want to believe, because they will justify me. Help me live each day on a platform of your justification, Jesus, and that will make me a far better judge of truth. Amen.
Father, isn’t this my worst sin against you? I obey because I have to, not because I want to. I repent because of the consequences of sin, not just because it grieves you, the God I love. Show me again the suffering love of your Son for me, until I obey, not like a donkey but out of grateful joy. Amen.
Seeing your wounds for me enables me to bear my wounds with patience. Amen.
Lord, whenever I meet someone, I instinctively look for faults—or just posit them—so I can feel superior. That sins grievously against your command to “value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). I am so unlike you. I repent. Conform me to your image. Amen.
Lord, I have a heart that continually inclines me to sin, and I’m spiritually powerless to change one bit of it without your supernatural help. How can I feel superior to anyone at all? Remind me of that—and of your amazing love for me—every time I meet someone new. Amen.
Lord Jesus, you answered your opponents wisely and brilliantly but patiently and constantly. How I want to give back to my critics—with verve—the same disdain they show me. But I want to be like you, not them. Change my heart to make it so. Amen.
Lord Jesus, technology makes it so easy to be caught up in a quarrel not my own. But you refused to become “a judge or an arbiter” (Luke 12:14) in disputes that were not crucial to your mission. Give me the humility and singleness of mind to not take sides or fuel these wildfires of the tongue. Amen.
The wise person makes quick assessment and refrains if there is any danger.
In general, it is wiser to make yourself the object of your humorous observations, rather than someone else.
Lord, I have painful memories of thoughtless words that were like knives that cut. You are so exquisitely careful with words and with hearts. Help me to remember the infinite worth of every human soul as I speak. Amen.
Lord, I love an argument if I think I can win it, and I hate it if I think I can’t—which shows I am valiant not for truth but for myself. Reproduce in me your spirit of goodwill and gentleness so I won’t “love a quarrel.” Amen.
Burn away my pride and make me like you. Amen.
Because only God can truly assess the motives of the heart, we should not think we can judge other people’s motives perfectly either.
Disagreements become deadly conflicts when you move from rightly pointing out wrong behavior to assuming the ability to completely understand a person’s inner purposes, which is something only God can do
Lord, my need to judge people is unseemly coming from a heart that should itself be judged. You alone are judge and king of hearts. Give me not a naive but a gracious spirit that gives people the benefit of the doubt. Amen.
To forgive is to refuse to hold people liable for what they have done to us. That is God’s job, not ours
Lord, my resentment toward some persons and some kinds of persons shows itself in irritability and abrasive remarks. I admit it for what it is—a failure to forgive as you forgave me. Forgive me for not forgiving! And dissolve my anger with a look at your dying love on the cross. Amen.
Father, you bring life out of death. I have both family and friendship ties that have essentially died, but I ask you to bring new life to them. Start the resurrection within me, with a new sense of your love on my heart enough to melt the hardness I still have. Amen.
Most of us are either temperamentally direct, bold, and persistent or gentle, calm, and deferential—but never both. Yet the wise learn to be both. They follow the one who always showed boldness without harshness, humility without uncertainty, who spoke truth but always bathed in love.
Make us, in your image, gentle but absolutely insistent on truth. Amen.
Yet the strength of the warning means entering a dispute should be a last resort, not a natural course of action. We should look at our motives, get good advice, think both about the issues of justice (has a genuine injustice been done?) and about love (would it be good for the person to hear the truth?).
Father, in conflicts some of us are too ready to contend and others are too reticent. Your Son knew when to call someone a whitewashed tomb and when to refuse to defend himself (Mark 11:33). Teach me the wisdom to know when to do what and the self-control to do it right. Amen.
when we hear a complaint or bad report about someone, we remember that we never have all the facts and we never see the whole picture until we investigate further.
Save me from precipitous conclusions, which I am so prone to draw. Make me wiser by reminding me I’m not so wise. Amen.
No matter what others may try to do, God’s purposes for you will stand. It is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
Lord, you are completely just and fair and, despite appearances due to our extremely limited vantage point, you have never wronged anyone. Give me the deep contentment and peace that can only come from knowing your designs for me are flawless, though I cannot possibly fathom them. Amen.
Lord, you are of eternity and I am of time, and that is why I cannot grasp how every detail of history could be under the control of your plan, and yet every human action be free and responsible. Yet they are, and I bow with fear and trembling before the incomprehensible but wonderful wisdom of this. Amen.
The way you would guide a youth or adult is to speak to them so they understand and can make decisions without being led by the hand in every instance.
Father, I don’t want to believe that sometimes every option, even with right action, might lead to a difficult, painful end. But this was the case for your Son—there was no escaping agony and death. But he accepted it and obeyed you faithfully in it, and new life was the result. Help me to do the same. Amen.
Lord, your plans are perfect because you are perfect in knowledge, love, and holiness. And mine are not because I am not. Your Son could not be hurried. He was never early or late, despite appearances (Mark 5:35–36). Save me from my impetuousness. Amen.
If you trust God, then as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times will turn you into the kind of person whose plans and decisions are more and more wise.
Lord, you are completely sovereign—no one can thwart your will. Yet you are infinitely loving and good, so there is nothing to fear from your absolute power. Like Joseph I simply bow in submission and adoration. I submit to your good will. And just doing that will both glorify you and make me wise. Amen.
A wicked messenger falls into trouble, but a trustworthy envoy brings healing.
“Truthfulness is one more invisible fiber that holds people together in humane community. When we cannot assume that people communicating with us are truthful, we cannot live with them in trust that they will respect our right to freedom to respond to reality. [sic] If we cannot trust each other to respect this basic right, we have lost our chance to be human together in God’s manner. . . . Speak the truth, be the truth, for your truth sets others free.”
There is no higher priority for a healthy society than to have a truthful communications and news media.
Lord, it is the nature of the human heart to deceive and hide the truth to serve our own interests. By your power and grace restrain that sinful tendency of the human heart in our society. As a body politic, help us distinguish truth from falsehood. And make your people salt and light in a dark world. Amen.
Rather this saying reminds us that we are not all fitted, by character or capacity, for any role in life we may want.
Modern culture tells children, “You can be whatever you aspire to be,” but some of our aspirations are for wrong things and others simply don’t fit the reality of what we were designed for.
Lord, “You lift the needy up,” but, in this world, not everyone can be a ruler. Give me enough trust in your goodness and wisdom to serve you joyfully in “whatever situation the Lord has assigned . . . just as God has called” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Amen.
Lord, manners and etiquette are considered a discredited marker of class privilege—yet they are more than that. They are love, thoughtfulness, and respect in the smallest and most common things in life. Help me to be kind enough to be courteous. Amen.
Lord, I praise you for the promise of the resurrection, that the long experience and wisdom of our older years will be combined with the creativity, grace, and stamina of our younger ones, together with a glory and beauty we have never known. Until then, help us wait in patient, joyful hope. Amen.
Father, give me the insight to see my besetting sins, the inordinate particular attitudes of my heart that lead to wrongdoing. Show me the things I love too little that I should adore, and the things that I adore too much that I should just receive with thanks. Amen.
Lord, both success and difficulty bring out things in my heart that are appalling. You saw them in there all along, yet you loved me. You saw me to the bottom but loved me into heaven. How great is your love! Amen.
Lord, as I look at my own heart and the people I know, despite our fears of suffering, “adversity hath slain her thousands, but prosperity her ten thousands.”185 Good times are far more likely to make you unreal to us. Save us, spiritually, from prosperity. Amen.
