How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now

by James K.A. Smith

the irony of our history always means a different future is possible, both because God can turn the tables (“the stone the builders rejected” becomes the chief cornerstone, Ps. 118:22) and also because recognition can yield contrition—which can, in turn, lead to a change of course. It’s never too late for us to become who we’re called to be.

Even more importantly: don’t compare the trees of your tundra existence to someone else’s equatorial rain forest. God doesn’t. They live in different conditions.

Our past is not past; it oozes into the present.

Muscle memory is like a history that lives in the body.

This is why you can’t go home again:8 because the you that arrives is not the you that left, and the home you left is not the home to which you return.