43 Quotes by Jonathan Martin

Increasingly, I'm coming to believe that fear is at the heart of all sin and disaffection. Fear that God will not be enough for us; fear that the identity we've been given is somehow incomplete.

What does it mean to not be hidden from the eyes of God even in the womb? What does it say about God that He "beheld [David’s] unformed substance"? Alone in the field, far removed in both space and time from the overwhelming voices we contend with every day, David came to a remarkable revelation: He was loved simply because he existed.

It turns out that knowing how loved we are by God makes all the difference in the kind of people we will become.

God hadn't drawn me into the wilderness so I could attempt to prove myself to Him with religious activity (instead of the more secular activities I indulge in to prove myself to everyone else). He hadn't brought me away from the hustle and noise so I could demonstrate my spirituality to Him. He brought me out to allure me. He didn't want my performance, He wanted my attention.

The experience of drowning, through the lens of faith, is what Christians call "baptism." But no matter what you call it, the sensation of going under is entirely the same.

What the world needs now are signposts of what's ahead, markers for the new world just around the corner. The world does not need heroes; the world does not need more messiah complexes. The world does not need Christians who want to ride in on a white horse to save the day. What the world needs are witnesses. Nothing more and nothing less. The earth needs people who can bear witness to the ways in which the world has already changed through the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

When we protect ourselves from what we fear, we also undermine our capacity for wonder.

Patiently, hopefully, actively we are waiting for Jesus. And yet here is the astonishing twist: As we wait for our Lord and the bodily resurrection yet to come for the departed, the world waits for us. As we long for God, the world is longing for God in us.

I know much less about why God allows people to suffer than I know that He Himself is a suffering God.