Leaving Egypt Quotes

“You may be thinking I’ve gone over the edge here, finding addictions everywhere. But follow the trajectory of these simple daily attachments and you’ll find a need for security, for safety, for intimacy, for connection, for regularity, for productivity. Go a bit deeper and you’ll find that each of these things can even replace God, providing for my needs without consideration of my deep and desperate neediness as a human being. Each can be a way of coping, a reality-denying form of self-preservation that robs me of grace.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet that, paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control. Addiction also makes idolaters of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another.5”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“Faced with the daunting prospect of moving forward, of embracing a life of greater flourishing, we find ourselves losing hope. The sex addict returns to his favorite pornographic sites. The workaholic returns to his busy schedule, knowing that his schedule kills any chance of intimacy with his wife or connection with his children. The angry wife defaults to her husband’s defensiveness, squelching his spirit. The abused woman returns to a relationship where she knows she’ll be used rather than loved. The religious addict defaults to her legalistic ways, judging others rather than embracing the love God has for her even in her failures. Over and over again, we choose to return to Egypt instead of daring to enter the promised land. We settle for less than the life for which God made us.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“We often talk about being “born again” as if we’ve left our past behind. But our past comes with us, often haunting us. Freedom’s trials can shatter our optimism, making us want to turn back to what was secure and familiar.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“But idolatry and addiction are more subtle and crafty than that. Because many of our idols and addictions are twisted forms of the good things God created, they entice us into believing that they will bring us the security, comfort, and control we need. Mere willpower is not enough to counter the subtle tug of a sight, a sound, or a smell of something we really love and want.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.—Henri Nouwen”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“Job needed friends to engage the pain, not interpret the pain. He needed friends who would join the chorus of lament, not offer a recipe for a more faithful life. In the end, Job is commended for his honesty while his theologically correct buddies are scolded for their insensitivity. God does not want us to disguise ourselves, hiding the pain we feel so deeply.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places

“God gave Israel a law that would govern just relations between people (Exodus 20); preserve rights for women, slaves, and strangers (Exodus 21); envision right social relations (Exodus 22); invite respect for aliens and strangers (Exodus 23:9); and engender respect and stewardship over the land (Exodus 23:10-13). Far from limiting freedom, it aimed to set God’s newly liberated people free to flourish.”
― Chuck DeGroat, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places