Ashley

“The right use of the exercise of the will is a condition of salvation, necessary without a doubt, but remote, inferior, very subordinated, purely negative. Muscular effort pulls up weeds, but only the sun and water can make wheat grow. The will cannot produce any good in the soul.”
― Simone Weil, Waiting for God

“If God is good, then really: what the hell? Where do we start? What did we miss? What elements of theological rubble are scraped clear and what truth remains as bedrock?”
― Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel

“Remember the Incarnation? The almighty Creator God who both pre-existed and birthed our whole universe had already come. Christ already established his kingdom. Remember also how he arrived. It was no military parade! Remember, the royal proclamation of the angels indicate a trudging journey, a smelly donkey, a tiny village. Recall the “No Vacancy” sign and of course, the crowded manger-cave. God, bursting into this dimension, crowning from between a virgin’s legs! God, a helpless newborn, wailing for momma’s milk. God, filling his first swaddling diaper with meconium! God, whisked away at night by a refugee family, barely ducking Herod’s sword, hunkering in Egypt. God came to earth, this way, on purpose! And how God came is itself an essential revelation of his true nature”
― Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel

“Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science. But I predict that even in that very moment when you see with horror that despite all your efforts, you not only have not come nearer your goal but seem to have gotten farther from it, at that very moment—I predict this to you—you will suddenly reach your goal and will clearly behold over you the wonder-working power of the Lord, who all the while has been loving you, and all the while has been mysteriously guiding you.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov