Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read

A batch of the best highlights from what Joshua's read, .

If the lost lamb got a party, and all the neighbors get called over for a missing coin, imagine what kind of bash-of-the-century God throws for a runaway child come home.

The Pursuing God

Joshua Ryan Butler

What keeps many of us from growing is not sin but speed. Most of us are just like Johnny. We are going as fast as we can, living life at a dizzying speed, and God is nowhere to be found. We’re not rejecting God; we just don’t have time for him. We’ve lost him in the blurred landscape as we rush to church. We don’t struggle with the Bible, but with the clock. It’s not that we’re too decadent; we’re too busy. We don’t feel guilty because of sin, but because we have no time for our spouses, our children, or our God. It’s not sinning too much that’s killing our souls, it’s our schedule that’s annihilating us. Most of us don’t come home at night staggering drunk. Instead, we come home staggering tired, worn out, exhausted, and drained because we live too fast.

Messy Spirituality

Mike Yaconelli and Karla Yaconelli

Moses anticipates that if they are not alert to the God of emancipation, they will end up right back in another system of coercion. Because the land is fertile, its produce will make Israel safe and happy. And if Israel can increase its produce, it will be safer and happier. And Israel will discover that the sky is the limit! The fertility of the land and the productivity of the system will make Israel acquisitive; Israel will come to think that the goal of its life is to acquire and acquire and acquire. And in order to acquire, Israelites must compete with the neighbor. The system will turn one’s neighbor into a competitor and a threat and a challenge.

Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition With Study Guide

Walter Brueggemann

...catch up on these, and many more highlights