"The Sacred Romance": Quotes

This was the first place I recall reading of intimacy with Christ described this way. Until I read this, I thought I was the only one who knew about it, and I was embarrassed to talk about how intensely intimate I feel with my Lord.

Quoted from The Sacred Romance by Curtis and Eldredge

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Heaven is the beginning of an adventure in intimacy, "a world of love," as Jonathan Edwards wrote, "where God is the fountain." The Holy Spirit, through the human authors of Scripture, chose the imagery of a wedding feast for a reason. It's not just any kind of party; its a wedding feast. What sets this special feast apart from all others is the unique intimacy of the wedding night. THe Spirit uses the most secret and tender experience on earth- the union of husband and wife- to convey the depth of intimacy that we will partake with our Lord in heaven. He is the Bridegroom and the church is his bride. There we shall receive out new name, known only to our Lover, which he shall give us on a white stone (Rev. 2:17)

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Quoted from The Sacred Romance by Curtis and Eldredge

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"The whole life of the good Christian," said Augustine, "is a holy longing." Sadly, many of us have been led to feel that somehow we ought to want less, not more. We have this sense that we should atone for our longings, apologize that we feel such deep desire. Shouldn't we be more content? Perhaps, but contentment is never wanting less ; that's the easy way out. Anybody can look holy if she's killed her heart; the real test is to have your heart burning within you and have the patience to enjoy what there is now to enjoy; while waiting with eager anticipation for the feast to come. In Paul's words, we "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly" (Rom. 8:23). Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out toward its fulfillment, and carry us along with it...

There may be times when all we have to go on is a sense of duty. But in the end, if that is all we have, we will never make it...

As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward Him, our heart's capacities also grow and expand...

But the sword cuts both ways. While our heart grows in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain. The two go hand in hand. What, then, shall we do with disappointment? We can be our own enemy, depending on how we handle the heartache that comes with desire. To want is to suffer; the word passion means to suffer. That is why many Christians are reluctant to listen to their hearts. They know that their dullness is keeping them from feeling the pain of life. Many of us have chosen simply not to want so much; it's safer that way. It's also godless. That's stoicism, not Christianity. Sanctification is an awakening, the rousing of our souls from the dead sleep of sin into the fullness of their capacity for life...

Awakened souls are often disappointed, but our disappointment can lead us onward, actually increasing our desire and lifting it toward its true passion. pg 199-201

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"From Bondage to Bonding"

Quotes from Nancy Groom From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love

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“Gentleness is possible even when rebuking those who harm us, because we know our purpose is not to destroy but to redeem. And patience becomes our habit because we know God isn’t finished with any of us yet, and because His presence enables us to endure out fiery trials with perseverance, if not always tranquility... Because Christ dwells within us, we can choose to act like Him... The first ingredient of forgiveness is loving confrontation... But it’s more loving-and more respectful-to hold others accountable. When codependents set appropriate boundaries for themselves by refusing to accept mistreatment, they are doing what is good not just for themselves but for their abusers as well... But setting limits and reestablishing boundaries meet the criteria for biblical love only if the focus is on mutual welfare, not revenge or personal safety. Forgiveness and restoration are impossible if sin is not addressed.” 158-9

pg 20 “a codependent person is addicted... to a destructive pattern of relating to other people, a pattern usually learned from childhood in an abusive or non-nurturing home” pg 34 “people damaged by childhood experiences who cope with their world by trying to please and who end up being controlled instead” pg 36 “People pleasers lack the strength of character necessary to confront what may be a wrong attitude or action...” pg 120 “Self-forfeiture... is counterproductive to the mutuality of relationship... A marionette has nothing to offer but compliance, and compliance isn’t intimacy. When we act like pawns in someone else’s chess game, we destroy God’s image in us disenfranchising ourselves from making out own choices. Our chosen self-forfeiture is a self protective strategy we must both repent and hold ourselves accountable to change”

from “Bondage to Bonding” pg 198 “The change process is almost never even; usually one person is ready to drop the wrong dependency long before the other. In such cases, offering one’s whole heart may need to be postponed until the other is ready to receive it. Jesus told his disciples shortly before His death, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear”... Someone we love deeply may be unable to bear the depth of our pain or to share the burden of our self discoveries. We may need to suffer the loneliness of a waiting love, walking the tightrope of inviting the other in without revictimizing ourselves. [italics mine] Finally, we may need to relinquish the dream of deep intimacy with that person and turn to God with our overflowing hearts.”

“...abused women... convert their rage and self contempt into a passionate commitment to never be hurt again.” Pg. 54

“Codependents typically refuse to let themselves need the freely chosen tender involvement of others. Neediness terrifies them because it wasn’t safe to be needy in childhood... Neediness for some is also shameful. A woman, shamed as a child for being fearful or upset, represses instinctively her anxiety or sadness as an adult.” 55

“Often the anger experienced in their contemporary relationships is really a displaced anger from an earlier event or situation... Soul wounds do not heal if they are ignored. They continue to govern our emotions, our self-images, and our ways of interacting in relationships.” 90

“Depending utterly on God for our ultimate well-being is the doorway to intimacy, to a renewed freedom to love, to hurt, to laugh, to make mistakes, to ask forgiveness, to feel our feelings, to start each day new.” 147

“I must enter the abject humiliation of needing, of asking for what my soul longs for, instead of protecting myself from the pain of its loss... Most of all, surrendering to God requires that I fully own my personal responsibility ro love others well.” 148

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Quotes from Nancy Groom From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love

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“Codependents with blurred boundaries often allow someone to hurt or abuse them because they somehow think that person has a right to invade their privacy, plans, or personal well-being with impunity.... In fact some of the messages she heard in church about submission reinforced her belief that she didn’t have any rights to claim for herself in relationship to [her husband]” Bondage to Bonding pg 28

“Their behaviors might mimic the way Jesus lived, but in their inner spirits they are far from being the free, loving, glad servants Jesus modeled to His disciples. In fact, they see themselves as not only powerless but essentially worthless.” pg. 30

“The expectation of emotional deprivation goes hand in hand with low self-esteem... a part of her felt she didn’t really deserve a happy home or kind treatment from her husband and children. After all, she hadn’t always been the perfectly loving wife and mother she had wanted and always tried to be.” 39

“Self-contempt can wear many faces, sometimes passing for humility or selflessness. Her husband Jake batters her emotionally with critical, demeaning words. Because Angie blames and despises herself for the childhood incest, she never defends herself. She thinks she deserves Jake’s accusations and keeps trying harder to be the loving, chaste wife she inwardly despairs of ever being.” 39

“Jesus was confidently aware of his own value. Self-contempt was the furthest thing from His mind... and in his awareness He yielded his rights for His chosen. The two go together: self-valuing and genuine love.” Pg. 41

“He [Jesus] never masked his feelings but expressed them openly and without shame. He wept... verbalized His frustration... expressed His anger... agonized... gave up His live with a loud scream...” 71

“God’s ‘solution’ is not to somehow get us to work harder to achieve what He commands us to do- ie love Him and others. Rather, He calls us to admit that we have not done and cannot do what He commands- our fallen nature makes it impossible. In the face of that impossibility to be perfect, we are left with the ultimate choice: despair or grace.” 131

“If we choose to move toward repentance we discover that our scrupulously polished exteriors camouflage deep self centeredness... God invites us to open our whitewashed tombs and expose the decadence of our lives to the cleansing power of His grace... We have shunned God, rejecting His grace in order to maintain our self-sufficiency. We have failed to love others with the kind of passionate other-centeredness God requires. And we have revictimized ourselves refusing to believe we’re loved with an everlasting love that prompts genuine self-love and grateful obedience.” 122

“An important part of my own recovery process is experiencing a redeemed Parent-child relationship with God, seeing myself as His beloved daughter and practicing a childlike relationship with Him in my spiritual walk. Young children have nothing to offer but themselves- their need, their trust, and their love. In His grace God reduces me toe the raw nakedness of needing and receiving- the stuff of children, even infants.” 142

“One of the most profound effects of being deeply connected to God is a renewed sense of our own preciousness. When I know and can believe God cherishes me as a beloved child, I can know and believe my worth as a person... We are children of the Great King and special to our Father. Princes and princesses don’t let themselves be abused; they like themselves and expect to be respected.” 144

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"Captivating" Quotes

This book was influential in my personal healing and recovery.
I facilitated a group of ladies from my church through a book study, and many were deeply touched.
I recommend having the companion journal together with the book (see the link)

Quotes from Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge

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Intro:

Rest assured- this is not a book about all the things you are failing to do as a woman. We’re tired of those books. As a new Christian, the first book I (Stasi) picked up to read on godly femininity I threw across the room. I never picked it up again. In the twenty-five years since, I have only read a few I could wholeheartedly recommend. The rest drive me crazy. Their messages to women make me feel as through, “You are not the woman you ought to be- but if you do the following things, you can make the grade.” They are by and large, soul-killing. But femininity cannot be prescribed in a formula....

God has set within you a femininity that is powerful and tender, fierce and alluring. No doubt it has been misunderstood. Surely it has been assaulted. But it is there, your true heart, and it is worth recovering. You are captivating

So we invite you to take a journey with us, a journey of discovery and healing. For your heart is the prize of God's Kingdom, and Jesus has come to win you back for himself-all of you. We pray that God will use this book in your life, in your heart, to bring healing, restoration, joy, and life!”

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Your feminine heart has been created with the greatest of all possible dignities- as a reflection of God’s own heart...

...the story of Eve... We clearly haven’t learned its lessons- for if we had, men would treat women much much differently, and women would view themselves in a far better light...

Adam steps forth, the image of God. Nothing in creation even comes close. Picture Michelangelo’s David. He is... magnificent. Truly the masterpiece seems complete. And yet, the Master says that something is not good, not right. Something in missing... and that something is Eve...

She is the crescendo, the final astonishing work of God. Woman. In one least flourish creation comes to a finish not with Adam, but with Eve. She is the Master’s finishing touch... His piece de resistance. She fills a place in the world nothing and no one else can fill... (Ladies) Look out across the earth and say to yourselves, “The whole, vast world is incomplete without me. Creation reached its zenith in me.”

And she, too, bears the image of God but in a way that only the feminine can speak. What can we learn from her? God wanted to reveal something about Himself, so he gave us Eve... Eve is created because things were not right without her. Something was not good. ...Something is missing? What could it possibly be? Eve. Woman. Femininity. Wow. Talk about significance.

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Back in Genesis when God sets his image bearers on the earth, he gives them their mission:
Gen 1:26-28.

Call it the Human Mission- to be all and do all God sent us here to do. And notice- the mission to be fruitful and conquer and hold sway is given both to Adam and to Eve. “And God said to them...” Eve is standing right there when God gives the world over to us. She has a vital role to play; she is partner in this great adventure. All that human beings were intended to do here on earth- all the creativity and exploration, all the battle and rescue and nurture- we were intended to do together. In fact, not only is Eve needed, but she is desperately needed.

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. “It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]” (Gen 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is “notoriously difficult to translate”. The various attempts we have in English are “helper” or “companion” or the notorious “help meet”. Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing “One day I shall be a help meet?” Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it “sustainer beside him.”

The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.

Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope. Your ezer. If he were not there beside you... you are dead. A better translation of ezer would be “lifesaver”. Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart. Pg 31-32

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pg 103-4

Melissa was the young girl who “vowed I would be tough; hard like a rock,” and became so for many years. But that is not the end of her story. She came to the place where Jesus asked to heal her wounded heart. She gave him permission to come in. This is what happened.

God went back and got the shaking little girl that was hiding under the bed and convinced her to come out. He unclenched her little fists and took her hand and placed it in his and answered her question. He held her and told her it was OK for her not to be tough. He would protect her. She didn’t have to be strong. He told her she wasn’t a rock but a child. His child. He didn’t condemn her for anything but instead understood her and loved her! He told her she was special... like no other and that she had special gifts like no other. She knew His voice and trusted him. She could hear the pleasure He had for her in His voice and felt His delight in her as He talked. He was so gentle and loving she couldn’t help but melt in His arms.

This is available. This is the offer of our Savior- to heal our broken hearts. To come to the young places within us and find us there, take us in his arms, bring us home. The time has come to let Jesus heal you.

Jesus come to me and heal my heart. Come to the shattered place within me. Come for the little girl that was wounded, Come and hold me in your arms and heal me. Do for me what you promised to do- heal my broken heart and set me free.

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clips from pages 82-85
The story of the treatment of women down through the ages is not a noble history. It has noble moments, to be sure, but taken as a whole, women have endured what seems to be a special hatred ever since we left Eden. ...

You might know that through the thousands of years of Jewish history recorded in the Old Testament, Jewish women were considered property with no legal rights (as they were and are in many cultures). They were not allowed to study the Law, nor to formally educate their children. They had a segregated place in the synagogue. It was common practice for a Jewish man to add to his morning prayers, “Thank you, God, for not making me a Gentile, a woman, or a slave.”

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The assault on femininity- its long history, its utter viciousness- cannot be understood apart from the spiritual forces of evil we are warned against in the Scriptures. That is not to say that men (and women, for they, too, assault women) have no accountability in their treatment of women. Not at all. It is simply to say that no explanation for the assault upon Eve and her daughters is sufficient unless it opens our eyes to the Prince of Darkness and his special hatred of femininity.
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Satan fell because of his beauty. Now his heart for revenge is to assault beauty... he hates Eve.
Because she is captivating, uniquely glorious, and he cannot be.

Eve is his greatest human threat, for she brings life. She is a lifesaver and a life giver. Eve means “life” or “life producer”...

Put those two things together- that Eve incarnates the Beauty of God and she gives life to the world. Satan’s bitter heart cannot bear it. He assaults her with a special hatred. History removes any doubt about this....

The message of our wounds nearly always is, “This is because of you. This is what you deserve.” It changes things to realize that, no, it is because you are glorious that these things happened. It is because you are a major threat to the kingdom of darkness. Because you uniquely carry the glory of God to the world.
You are hated because of your beauty and power.

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Pg 91
You really won’t understand your life as a woman until you understand this:

You are passionately loved by the God of the universe.
You are passionately hated by his Enemy.

And so, dear heart, it is time for your restoration. For there is One greater than your Enemy. One who has sought you out from the beginning of time. He has come to heal your broken heart and restore your feminine soul.

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"Sacred Companions": Quotes

quotes from Sacred Companions by David Benner


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Embarking on the journey of Christian spiritual transformation is enrolling in the divine school of love. Our primary assignment in this school is not so much study and practice as letting ourselves be deeply loved by our Lord.
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If we are to become great lovers, we must return again and again to the love of the Great Lover. Thomas Merton reminds us that the root of Christian love is not the will to love but the faith to believe that one is deeply loved by God.
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Holiness is becoming like GOD with whom we live in intimate relationship. It is acquiring His Spirit and allowing spirit to be transformed by Spirit.
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The unique self I am called to be is never a self I simply dream up and decide I'd like to be...
the self that I actually am in Christ... my eternal self... the self I am intended to be... is the ONLY self that will allow me to be truly whole and holy
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What then should be crucified?
...my ways of living apart from God's will
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sin is ultimately a refusal to believe that what GOD wants is my happiness and fulfillment... I am tempted to sin-to take my life into my own hands...
As I become convinced that God wants nothing more than my fulfillment, surrender to His will is increasingly possible.
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Christian spirituality is about becoming all we were meant to be...
becoming great lovers who are
whole and holy because we have begun to
discover our true self-in-Christ
becoming truly and fully human
and truly and fully ourselves
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our sinful and false ways of being are what we are to crucify...

Jesus knew who HE was before GOD and in GOD. HE could therefore resist temptations to live HIS life out of a false center based on
possessions,
actions,
or the esteem of others

Merton suggests that at the core of our false ways of being there is always a sinful refusal to surrender to God's will.
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Henri Nouwen describes the nurture of inner stillness as the cultivation of solitude of the heart. Such solitude is not a state of relaxation. Nor is it simply a matter of being alone. Solitude of heart comes from attentiveness to the presence of God. It is the prayer of spirit to Spirit, a prayer of attunement, not necessarily of words. It is a response of surrender to the Spirit of Jesus who offers us rest for our souls.
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Soul hospitality is also a gift of safety. Think of feeling safe enough with another person that without weighing words or measuring thoughts you are able to pour yourself out, trusting that the other person will keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away....

Soul friendship is the gift of a place where anything can be said without fear of criticism or ridicule. It is a place where masks and pretensions can be set aside. It is a place where it is safe to share deepest secrets, darkest fears, most acute sources of shame, most disturbing questions or anxieties. It is a place of grace- a place where others are accepted as they are for the sake of who they may become.
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In dialogue I attempt to share how I experience the world and seek to understand how you do so. In this process each participant touches and is touched by others… In dialogue I meet you as a person, not an object. Objectification of people is the heritage of the professionalization of helping relationships. It is also the great enemy of distinctly Christian soul care. When we treat others as objects, even for benevolent reasons, we rob them of their humanity…
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The precondition of dialogue is respect. Nothing helps me do that more than seeing the other person through the eyes of Christ… through the eyes of Christ, I see their worth and dignity. I also see what they can become, not simply what they are....
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Respect is the foundation of dialogue, and Christians have a unique resource for offering it: eyes of faith that allow us to see those we encounter as deeply loved by God and bearing HIS image….
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Dialogue involves the risk of revealing what is most precious to me. If I remain in a safe zone of opinions, facts, and information, I have not exposed my deepest self. Nor have I ventured to the place of deep encounter with others that is called dialogue… What I do or say is not ultimately all that important. The most important thing I can do is to help the other person be in contact with the gracious presence of Christ. If I bring anything of value to the meeting it is that I mediate divine grace.
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At their best, Christian friends help each other discern God’s presence, recognize it as a presence of grace, come to trust that grace and surrender to it more freely.
Sacred friends mediate God’s grace and help others recognize and respond to it. Put another way, they help each other discuss and embrace God’s will.
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But God’s will is never that we simply comply with His desires. God’s will is that we surrender to His love
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If we are to
become GREAT LOVERS
we must return again and again
to the GREAT LOVE
of the GREAT LOVER.
Thomas Merton reminds us that
the root of Christian love
is NOT the WILL to love
but the FAITH TO BELIEVE
one is
deeply loved by GOD
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God's unconventional approach to problems

Here is a clip from Drawing Close by Graham Cooke :

The Holy Spirit wants to do two things with us: First, He intends to get us to a place where we trust God for everything and with everything; and second, He seeks to bring us to a place where He can trust us. The Father will always trust what He sees manifested of the Son in our lives.... the inhabitation of Jesus. It's a pleasure to trust God, knowing that His great love will catch us, even if we fall off the edge of a cliff. This great God will send us into battle against impossible odds with a seemingly ludicrous battle plan March around the enemy for seven days and then shout, He'll say, winking at you the whole time. "Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves," He says (Luke 10:3). Fortunately, you're a lamb with a Lion as friend.

"Sex God" by Rob Bell

Clips from Sex God by Rob Bell

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And when we begin to sort through all of the issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual,

because this

is always about that...

Sex. God. They’re connected. And they can’t be separated. Where the one is, you will always find the other. This is a book about how sexuality is the “this” and spirituality is the “that”. To make sense of the one, we have to explore the other.

And that is what this book is about.

[italics in original]

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Sex, God.

“We reflect what God is like and who God is.
A divine spark resides in every single human being.
Everybody.
Everywhere.
Bearers of the divine image…

…deciding who’s hot and who’s not.
It’s an industry, a form of entertainment, a culture…
The problem is that “that” is actually a “she”.
A person.
A woman.
With a name, a history, with feelings.
It seems harmless until you’re that girl- and then it hurts.
It’s degrading.
It’s violating.
It does something to a person’s soul.

Jesus had much to say about what happens when a woman, an image bearer, a carrier of the divine spark, becomes a “that” [Matt 5:27-30]
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Scholars believe that the word sex is related to the Latin word secare, which means “to sever, to amputate, or disconnect from the whole.” This is where we get words like sect, section, dissect, bisect.

Our sexuality, then, has two dimensions. First, out sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect....

For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with out world , with each other, and with God....

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...the Red Light District in Amsterdam is so sexually repressed...
There are lots of people “having sex” night and day, but that’s all it is. There’s no connection...

And so in the Red Light District there’s lots of physical interaction and no connection. There are lots of people having lots of physical sex- for some its their job- and yet it’s not a very sexual place at all...

When its just sex, then that’s all it is. It leaves the person deeply unconnected.

You can be having sex with many, and yet you’re alone. And the more sex you have, the more alone you are.

And it’s possible to be sleeping alone, and celibate, and to be very sexual. Connected with many.

It’s also possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and be very disconnected. It’s possible to be married to somebody and sharing the same bed and even having sex regularly and still be profoundly disconnected....

And so they’re sleeping together, but they’re really sleeping alone.
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If marriage is meant to show people what the oneness of God is like, what happens when everybody is one in the presence of God?

If marriage is a picture of something else, what would happen to marriage if we found ourselves living in the midst of that something else?

Is sex in its greatest, purest, most joyful and honest expression a glimpse of forever?

Are these brief moments of abandon and oneness and ecstasy just a couple of seconds or minutes of how things will be forever?

Is sex a picture of heaven?...

Maybe Jesus knew what was coming and knew that whatever we experience here will pale compared with what awaits everyone.

Do you long for that?

Because that's the center of Jesus' message.

An invitation.

To trust that it's true,

to trust that it's real,

to trust that God is actually going to make all things new.
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