Home > Work > Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition & the Life of Faith
1 " New freedoms surface old habits. I haven't left sin behind, only discovered a new medium for my treachery. My real trouble as a writer isn't trying to mean the words that I write. It's living into the words that I mean. Nonfiction writing can feel like the high art of hypocrisy. "
― Jen Pollock Michel , Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition & the Life of Faith
2 " Desire, if it is to be trusted, is to be inspired by a holy vocabulary. "
3 " Sometimes God seems to be killing us when He is actually saving us. "
4 " We prefer the not wanting and not having to the losing. "
5 " Grace has as much to say about endings as it does about beginnings. "
6 " Only he who cries out for the persecuted Jews can sing Gregorian chants. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer "
7 " The Christian story, centered as it is on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the only story for making sense of desire and loss. "
8 " The Bible provocatively evokes desire. "
9 " Blessing and obedience do comfortably and mysteriously coexist. "
10 " Holy desire can be learned. All prayer is part work and part rest. "
11 " Kingdom is a signpost to the holy. "
12 " Our small group is committed to getting the biblical text under our skin. "
13 " I didn't know how faith felt when it grew incrementally. "
14 " God is the I AM that I AM not the I AM that we wish. "
15 " Struggle is a prerequisite to surrender. "
16 " According to Aquinas, effort may not be the best measure of our virtue. "
17 " Sticks and stones may break your bones, and words – can cut your insides. "
18 " His childhood passed in quiet anxiety. "
19 " Believing in the sovereignty of God injects courage in the act of desire. "
20 " We all have a tendency to use prayer to dictate to God. "
