Matthew Wright’s Reviews > A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society > Status Update
Matthew Wright
is on page 170 of 216
What Kelly betrayed in extremis is all many people know of religion: a religion to help them with their fears but that is forgotten when the fears are taken care of; a religion made of moments of craziness but that is remote and shadowy in the clear light of the sun and the routines of every day. The most religious places in the world, as a matter of fact, are not churches but battlefields and mental hospitals.
— May 13, 2026 08:12AM
Like flag
Matthew’s Previous Updates
Matthew Wright
is on page 138 of 216
Hoping is a confident, alert, expectation, that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way, and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God, but bullying God.
— May 08, 2026 08:03AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 135 of 216
This is why we are able to face, acknowledge, and accept life through suffering: we know that it can never be ultimate, it can never constitute the bottom line.
— May 08, 2026 08:02AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 131 of 216
A Christian is a person who decides to face and live through suffering. If we do not make that decision, we are endangered on every side. A manner woman of faith, who failed to acknowledge and deal with suffering becomes, at last, either a cynic, or a melancholic or a suicide.
— May 08, 2026 08:02AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 130 of 216
Finding the meaning of our lives, not by probing our moods and motives in morals, but by believing and Godish whale and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not shining the rise and fall of our enthusiasm. It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance.
— May 07, 2026 07:58AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 130 of 216
Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of Godish faithfulness. We survive in the way of Faith. Not because we have extraordinary stamina, but because God is righteous, because God sticks with us. Christian, discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to Godish, righteousness, and the less and less attention to our own.
— May 07, 2026 07:57AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 109 of 216
This as far from the truth as the Easter is from the West. The easiest thing in the world is to be a Christian. What is hard is to be a sinner. Being a Christian is what we were created for. The life of faith has the support of an entire creation and the resources of a magnificent redemption. The structure of this world was created by God so we can live in it easily and happily as his children.
— May 04, 2026 07:50AM
Matthew Wright
is on page 95 of 216
It matters very little how much money Christians make. It makes a little difference how our culture values and rewards our work.
“Work, You’re worried fingers to the bone.”
Our Society rewards, and admires that phrase; but seen by the psalmist as a sign of weak faith and assertive pride, as if God cannot be trusted to accomplish His will, as if we could rearrange the universe by our own effort.
— May 02, 2026 10:28AM
“Work, You’re worried fingers to the bone.”
Our Society rewards, and admires that phrase; but seen by the psalmist as a sign of weak faith and assertive pride, as if God cannot be trusted to accomplish His will, as if we could rearrange the universe by our own effort.
