Josh Nelson

“There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man

“Multitasking is the drive to be more than we are, to control more than we do, to extend our power and our effectiveness. Such practice yields a divided self, with full attention given to nothing.”
― Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now

“But Sabbath is not only resistance. It is alternative. It is an alternative to the demanding, chattering, pervasive presence of advertising and its great liturgical claim of professional sports that devour all our “rest time.”
― Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now

“9:10). Since the fear of the Lord is the great treasure of life, Proverbs tries to woo us to it. It tries to make the fear of the Lord as attractive as possible. Those who fear the Lord will fear nothing else (19:23). The fear of the Lord adds length to life (10:27), it is a secure fortress for the one who fears and for his or her children (14:26). It is a fountain of life (15:16), it brings honor (22:4), and it should be praised when we see it (31:30). What does the fear of the Lord look like? It looks like loving good and hating evil. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (8:13). It looks like trusting God (reverence) and obeying him. Can you see that the fear of the Lord is a blessing? Just imagine what it would be like to truly hate sin, first our own, then the sins of others (Matt. 7:3-5). What would happen to marital fights? They would be almost impossible. Spouses would be too busy listening and asking forgiveness for their own selfishness. What about the little cliques in the school yard? They would be telling good stories about somebody else. What about when someone sins against us? We would no longer have to murder the person in our own heart. Instead, we could cover the sin in humility and love, or we could confront the other person in the same spirit.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man