from "Inside Out" by Larry Crabb

from Inside Out by Larry Crabb

quote:

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“The illusion that life in a fallen world is really not too bad must be shattered. When even the best parts of life are exposed as pathetic counterfeits of how things should be, the reality drives us to a level of distress that threatens to utterly undo us. But it’s when we’re on the brink of personal collapse that we’re best able to shift the direction of our soul from self-protection to trusting love. The more deeply we enter into the reality that life without God is sheer desolation, the more fully we an turn toward Him...
The richest love grows in the soil of an unbearable disappointment with life. When we realize life can’t give us what we want, we can better give up our foolish demand that it do so and get on with the noble task of loving as we should. We will no longer need to demand protection from further disappointment. The deepest change will occur in the life of a bold realist who clings to God with a passion only his realistic appraisal of life can generate.” pg 213-14

“Until we recognize with tears how determined we are to move away from pain and how that determination reflects our blasphemous decision to preserve our own life, we will not be able to identify the subtle ways in which our relational style violates love for others by keeping us safe... We repent by radically shifting our motivation and direction from self-preservation to trust on the basis of the belief that Christ has given and is preserving out life. The fruit of repentance is a changed style of relating that replaces self-protective maneuvering with loving involvement.” 196

“The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we’ll shift our direction.” 200

“In order to meaningfully repent of the ways in which we violate love, we must recognize them. We won’t recognize self-protective patterns of relating as sinful violations of love until we face the disappointment in our soul we’re determined never to experience again.” 204

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