Hannah

“Time and again, she
abandons him for idols. Time and again, he woos her back. But the
marriage never seems to work. Sinful people just can’t live with a
holy God.
Enter Jesus.”
― Rebecca McLaughlin

“As A. J. Swoboda so beautifully said, “Sabbath is a scheduled weekly reminder that we are not what we do; rather, we are who we are loved by.”
― Jon Tyson, Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise

“The Law of Activity
Many times we have boundary problems because we lack initiative - the God-given ability to propel ourselves into life. We respond to invitations and push ourselves into life.
The best boundaries are formed when a child is pushing against the world naturally, and the outside world sets its limits on the child. In this way, the aggressive child has learned limits without losing his or her spirit. Our spiritual and emotional well-being depends on our having this spirit.
Consider the contrast in the parable of the talents. The ones who succeeded were ACTIVE and assertive. They initiated and pushed. The one who lost out was PASSIVE and inactive.
The sad thing is that many people who are passive are not inherently evil or bad people. But evil is an active force and passivity can become an ally of evil by NOT pushing against it. Passivity never pays off. God will match our effort, but he will never do our work for us. That would be an invasion of our boundaries. He wants us to be assertive and active, seeking and knocking on the door of life.
We know that God is not mean to people who are afraid; the Scriptures is full of examples of his compassion. But he will not enable passivity. The wicked and lazy servant was passive. He did not try. God's grace covers failure but it cannot makeup for passivity. We have to do our part.
The sin God rebukes is not trying and failing, but failing to try. Trying, failing, and trying again is called learning. Failing to try will have no good result; evil will triumph. HEBREWS 10:38-39 … do not shrink back.
Passive shrinking back is intolerable to God, and when we understand how destructive it is to the soul, we can see why God does not tolerate it. God wants us to preserve our souls. That is the role of boundaries; they define and preserve our property, our soul.
p. 99”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries

“The fact is, Jesus was the greatest human being who ever lived, and if all we have to look forward to in life is the frustration of trying to be someone we are not, then we've got better ways of enjoying the interval between birth and death.
But the "good news" is that Jesus /doesn't/ want us to be "like" Him. He wants to share His resurrection life with us. He doesn't want us to imitate Him; instead, Christ, the Unspeakable Gift, wants to live in and through us.”
― Frank Viola, Jesus Manifesto