This quote from DeMello appears in Brennan Manning’s Abba’s Child.  In it Manning writes, “the dominant sin in my adult life has been my cowardly refusal to think, feel, act, respond, and live from my authentic self, because of fear of rejection.  I don’t mean that I do not believe in Jesus anymore. I still believe in Him, but peer pressure has set limits to the boundaries of my faith.  Nor do I mean that I do not love Jesus anymore.  I still love HIm very much, but I sometimes love other things–specifically my glittering image–even more.  Any self imposed limit to my faith and love for Jesus inevitably initiates a betrayal of some kind.  I march in lock-step with the intimidated apostles: “All the disciples deserted him and ran away” (Matthew 26:56).

“In one single quiet hour of prayer the soul will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the eye gets the clearest, simplest view of eternal certainties; it is in His presence alone, it is then that the soul gathers in wondrous refreshment and power and energy.

And so it is also in this way that we become truly useful to others. It is when coming out fresh from communion with God that we go forth to do His work successfully.

In nearness to God we get our vessels so filled with blessing, that, when we come forth, we can not contain it to ourselves but must, as by a blessed necessity, pour it out whithersoever we go.

Why so many meetings with our fellow men, yet so few meetings with God? Why so little being alone, so little thirsting of the soul for the calm, sweet hours of unbroken solitude, when God and His child hold fellowship together as if they could never part?

It is the want of these solitary hours that not only injures our own growth in grace but makes us such unprofitable members of the church of Christ, and that renders our lives useless. ”   (Horatius Bonar)

The quote above pierces to the center of love.  Love for who another is.  Love for the sake of another.  Not for what the other gives us. Not love for how the other makes us feel.  Love for the person out of sheer delight in who the person is.  This is pretty challenging stuff as I survey how I love God and how I love others.  Do I love forgiveness or God?  Do I love the idea of going to heaven or the God who is there? Do I love church because it is my primary social outlet or for God?  Do I love the Bible or the God of the Bible?  Do I love being a good husband or the person who is my wife?  Do I love my friends or the fact that they accept me?  Do I love you for what you do for me, what I hope you will do for me, or for who you are?  What desires do I cherish that will fail me?  What risk do I run in hating God?  The risk runs high when I attach my love for God in what I hope He will do for me instead of Who He is.

“Once more come, see if you can.  You certainly only love what is good, and the earth is good with its lofty mountains and its folded hills and its level plains, and a farm is good when its situation is pleasant and its land is fertile…and the heart of a friend is good with its sweet accord and loving trust, and a just man is good, and riches are good because they are easily put to use, and the sky is good with its sun and moon and stars, and angels are good with their holy obedience, and speech is good….Why go on and on?  This is good and that is good.   Take away this and that and see good itself if you can.  In this way you will see God, not good with some other good, but the good of every good.”

“For surely among all these good things I have listed and whatever others can be observed or thought of, we would not say that one is better than another when we make a true judgment unless we had impressed on us some notion of good itself by which we both approve of a thing, and prefer one thing to another.  This is how we should love God, not this or that good but good itself.”  –Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Who are my friends?  According to this Proverb, my friends are the ones willing to slap me.  Where does this happen in our culture of niceness?  How and why does it seem that spiritual maturity has been reduced to whether or not we hurt someone’s feelings?  Why did Jesus get crucified?  Because He was nice?  Did He slap the wrong people?  Can I grow without slaps?  Or should I prefer kisses? Lies? Illusions?  Bring me my Judas or bring me my friends.

“The mind of Christ which the saints receive according to the saying, “We have the mind of Christ,” comes along not by any loss of our mental power, nor as a supplementary mind to ours, nor as essentially and personally passing over into our mind, but rather as illuminating the power of our mind with its own quality and bringing the same energy to it.  For to have the mind of Christ is, in my opinion, to think in his way and of him in all situations”

I think what the ‘Max’ is saying (my chosen nickname for the author of the aforementioned quote) is that being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean we cease to be ourselves, lose mental bandwidth as God dials us in, or become schizophrenic.  But that our mind is ‘brightened’ or ‘illuminated’ with the power of God to more fully become and be energized into what God would have us think and therefore be.  For the follower of Jesus we should hopefully find ourselves thinking like him and about him wherever we go.  To see people and things the way God sees them. To see ourselves the way God sees us.  Thank you Byzantine Maximus the Confessor for blessing us with this devotion.  Thank you Jesus for transforming us into your likeness one thought at a time.

“The lostness of the elder son, however, is much harder to identify.  After all, he did all the right things.  He was obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, and hardworking.  People respected him, admired him, praised him, and likely considered him a model son.  Outwardly, the elder son was faultless.  But when confronted by his father’s joy at the return of his younger brother, a dark power erupts in him and boils to the surface.  Suddenly, there becomes glaringly visible a resentful, proud, unkind, selfish person, one that had remained deeply hidden, even though it had been growing stronger and more powerful over the years.”

“The lostness of the resentful “saint” is so hard to reach precisely because it is so closely wedded to the desire to be good and virtuous.  I know, from my own life, how diligently I have tried to be good, acceptable, likable, and a worthy example for others.  There was always the conscious effort to avoid the pitfalls of sin and the constant fear of giving in to temptation.  But with all of that there came a seriousness, a moralistic intensity—and even a touch of fanaticism–that made it increasingly difficult to feel at home in my Father’s house.  I became less free, less spontaneous, less playful, and others came to see me more and more as a somewhat “heavy” person.”

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

Mark Driscoll, in Confessions of a Reformission Rev., wrote ”Simply, preaching is like driving a clutch, and the only way to figure it out is to keep grinding the gears and stalling until you figure it out.”   I guess this is true in all of what God may have for us to do.  In life, may we not be afraid to grind the gears and stall to the glory of God in learning how to be about His business.  Fear of failure keeps us in check.  That’s no way to live, instead “If you can’t find it, grind it!”

-Philip Yancey