Geoffrey Wood

Grace runs downhill and now all his time is being redeemed.

If God__ suggesting that I am expected to do good and also obligated to manufacture a genuine desire for it, this boat__ sunk, still sitting on the trailer in the driveway. A stack of things need to happen before I desire to be good_

They think that if they were allowed to do anything they desired, they would be satisfied and the more desires the better. But all desires divorced from The Desire eventually collapse in on themselves.

If we blind them to The Adversary __ecrease their desire for The Desire_ while at the same time encourage them to do anything else they desire with increasing __reedom of choice,_ then eventually we snuff out desire while leaving demand in tact.

Your suffering only matters if it connects you to the suffering of others, if it heals them too.

You don__ change the world by telling it what to do, sitting at home, and telling it what you believe. You believe by throwing yourself into it. Making a leap, getting involved, then waiting, taking some one person__ place for a while, one suffering person at a time.

And keep them thinking in terms of 'being good' as this is not an end so much as a means to something else __appiness, respect, self-esteem, etc_ And whatever their true end is, take it away, and so goes their goodness.

Indeed, if their wristbands asked them the question: __hat-Would-Jesus-Buy___ell now, that could very well revolutionize the Christian church in America.

It was like magic, but so much of magic is about misdirection, whereas so much of redemption is straightforward and ordinary, piercing true and lit with surprise.

Press them continually with memory and dream and have them waste their Present there.

And once their imaginations are liberated, they begin glimpse the grand interconnectedness of all things. Eternity begins to peek out from behind the everyday things and they see the trappings of any earthly moment as the stage and props for Heaven to reveal itself. There is now nothing ordinary. Everything is being used and spun out for His vast scheme and in His eternal economy, nothing is wasted. Suddenly, all the myriad moments and minutiae of a lifetime show their orchestration __here was nothing that did not lead to this! They look over all their time to find that His redemption has always been rushing, swooping, swerving through their experience, racing to and fro to intervene and infuse Grace.

When their minds mingle with His magnanimity, something of eternity rubs off on their imaginations.

The Adversary, of course, simply wants them to lay down their sins, guilt and all, and follow Him. But this type holds on to their sinfulness and their guilt for it, because otherwise, they__ have no relationship with Him at all. And, of course, no relationship can be based on guilt and survive.

Trust is crazy. You are a risky, risky, God. I didn__ sign up to be Amazing Trust Boy, and I did not sign up for Danger God. You__e flatly not safe_

There is a mathematics to all his relationships, underlying each and every one. He wants it to all add up in his head and he wants to do the adding. And should someone step outside his ciphers, the circle his mind has drawn, his trust evaporates.

Trust becomes the only road home, back to love.

They prefer a God of an altogether softer flavor. Nothing too extreme. Complaisance, not magnanimity. They do not think upon the __od of God, Light of Light, very God of very God._ They prefer to think in terms of __od liking them._ That__ the God they__e conjured for themselves.

The eye is to light as the soul is to God.