We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Gift of Smallness

what a year it's been!

ram reddy via Compfight

Jonathan Martin wrote this piece entitled Feeling at home in my smallness a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve been feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it’s up to you to do something amazing or if you’ve been taking yourself a little too seriously, you might want to check this out. There is a gift in smallness. There is a peacefulness in knowing that we are outrageously loved despite anything we might do or say or accomplish.

From Jonathan’s reflection:

You can have your meaning, your purpose, your significance.  I will not feel condescended to if you look at me like I am a useless son, or if you think me half-drunk on my Father’s silly affections.  I am perfectly aware that I did not purchase this coat of many colors, and have no reasons to wear it proud as a peacock.  But I will wear the hell out of it, over-sized luxury on such a small person.

I have no pretensions of greatness. I am a circus act; I am a walking comedy.  I am infinitely ridiculous; I am infinitely loved.

Related Reading

Loving the Unlovable

Mother Teresa had a prayer she spoke each day that enabled her to minister effectively: Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I…

A Jesus Kind of Church

The church can only be the conduit of God’s love if it stops judging others (See yesterday’s post). This means that it will stop being concerned about its reputation in the eyes of those who practice this religious judgment. The only reputation we need be concerned with is to have the one Jesus had. He…

Topics:

Rethinking Election: Romans 9, Part 1

Many people believe that Romans 9 demonstrates that God has the right and power to save whichever individuals he wants to save and damn whichever individuals he wants to damn. I’ll call this the “deterministic” reading of Romans 9, for it holds that God determines who will be saved and who will be lost. On…

A Brief Theology of God’s Love

The most profound truth of the Bible is that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). This is the most fundamental thing to be said about God, for it encompasses everything else that can be said about God. Peter Kreft explains this passage it this way: Love is God’s essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express…

God Does Not Always Get What He Wants

One of the ways the Bible makes it clear that humans have free will and that God doesn’t predetermine human decisions is found in the responses God has toward human choices. Scripture consistently depicts God as being frustrated by the way his people obstinately resist his plans and Scripture often depicts God’s heart as breaking…

Do Not Fear

We interrupt this election season to bring you the following reminder: [F]ear is a diabolic force. Its ultimate creator is Satan, and he uses it to keep us in bondage (Heb. 2:15). Throughout history, leaders have used fear to rally the masses around their causes, sometimes getting them to do things they otherwise would never…