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Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours QUOTES

Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours QUOTES

1 " In seasons of hiddenness our sense of value is disrupted, stripped of what "others" affirmed us to be. In this season God intends to give us an unshakable identity in Him, that no amount of adoration nor rejection can alter. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

2 " Jesus appears to have walked unstressed and unhurried. His peaceful pace seems to imply that he measured himself not by where he was going and how fast he could get there but by whom he was following and how closely they walked together. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

3 " Jesus’ true strength was not revealed in his ability to teach and lead the multitudes. It was manifested in his willingness to make himself nothing, to suffer, and to die. I had enough strength to exhaust myself studying, mentoring, and teaching, but I did not possess sufficient strength to be nothing. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

4 " In these early anonymous seasons, God graciously grants us the opportunity to wrestle with our appetites before other lives are at stake, to struggle with our passions privately before moral collapse affects the innocent publicly. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

5 " Patience grows well in such soil. She is the ally of a soul that makes God its primary pursuit, "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

6 " But in anonymous seasons we must hold tightly to the truth that no doubt strengthened Jesus throughout his hidden years: Father God is neither care-less nor cause-less with how he spends our lives. When he calls a soul simultaneously to greatness and obscurity, the fruit—if we wait for it—can change the world. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

7 " No. Our desire to “be like Jesus” contains several exemption clauses, not the least of which are Jesus’ hidden years, desert experiences, temptations, tortures, and crucifixion. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

8 " Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. —Matthew 4:1 The sky ripped open, the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove and rested upon Jesus, God thundered his unfailing love from the heavens, and then he ushered his beloved Son into . . . the desert? What? “I love you, Son. Enjoy . . . the desert”? Generally speaking, this series of events makes us a little uncomfortable. Can following God’s Spirit lead us straight into a desert? Would obedience deposit us in a wasteland? Could God’s loving will direct us to wander about in barren places? Evidently. From Jesus’ example, this appears to be true. We just do not talk about it often. Our earthbound hearts prefer to consider how following God leads us into happiness or health or wealth. “God led me into a desert! (hallelujah)” is just not the stuff T-shirts are made of. Even so, did not Jesus’ three decades of hiddenness already qualify as a desert experience? Yes. But in that desert of anonymity Jesus made peace with God’s timing and concluded that Father God’s companionship in his life was enough. From Jesus’ perspective, his hidden years were good years: neither wasted nor unwanted. Therefore, we find no evidence of resistance when the Holy Spirit directs Jesus into another type of desert. Matthew simply states that Jesus was “led” there. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

9 " When those pauses extend beyond what we can comprehend or explain (say, for instance, three days), we often spiral into selfdoubt or second-guessing. But in anonymous seasons we must hold tightly to the truth that no doubt strengthened Jesus throughout his hidden years: Father God is neither care-less nor cause-less with how he spends our lives. When he calls a soul simultaneously to greatness and obscurity, the fruit—if we wait for it—can change the world. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

10 " Like a short spoon in a tall glass, people’s attention simply cannot reach the bottom of our profound longing to be valued. Only God can reach that place because he is the One who created that place. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

11 " I feel that trials do not prepare us for what’s to come as much as they reveal what we’ve done with our lives up to this point. "

― Alicia Britt Chole , Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours