Quotes by Holly Sprink

What is it about our expectations, plans, or ideas that hold such sway over us? It is as if weve written a script for a play of our lives that runs about a month ahead of actual life; if reality varies from what weve created in our minds we disengage or pout.

We can make our own plans and judge them by our narrow expectations, or we can experience life as the boundless reality of the One who created it.

What if we saw differences in cultures, in moral choices, and in belief as reasons to engage people instead of excuses to disengage and quickly exit?

Instead of practicing philoxenos, which means loving the stranger, we find many times that the church is xenophobic. We forget that Jesus, whom we claim to follow, was the ultimate lover of otherness in people. Even differences in religion didnt freak Jesus out when it came to loving people.

God simply told us to think of Jesus as Immanuel, which means God with us. How amazing that one of the main ways God wants us to think about the person of Jesus is as a sharing, an embrace of life by Life, a total identification of God with the object of his love.

We dont treat Jesus like a puppy, soaking in his excitement over our coming home and then leading him back to stay in the laundry room when we go out to begin another day.

Compassion doesnt arise from the belief that the evil in the world is somebody elses fault or that it is a result of poor choices a suffering person has made.

Conversion of our views of self in light of God is continual. We daily have to take the time to notice and trust in who he is in order to understand who we are. The book of Romans assures us that Gods Spirit will fill each moment of our lives if we notice and trust the way he is repairing our humanity.

Yes, our goal as Christians should be to do away with the things in our world that keep people from knowing the love and freedom of Christ. Equally, and maybe more so, our goal should be noticing and doing away with the things on our own lives that keep people from understanding Christ as well. After all, dont the systematic injustices usually grow from the individual ones?

As those of you with children know, rational parenting is like the Loch Ness Monster. We all hope its out there somewhere, but we dont know anyone who has actually discovered it (and if we do come across someone who claims to have found it, deep down we think that person is a little off.

We dont practice hospitality to point other people to ourselves, our church, or even our beliefs. We practice hospitality to point people toward the ultimate welcome that God gives every person through Christ.

We must work for the good and commit ourselves to postures of global selflessness, even if we cant figure out all the details surrounding the foreign dictators, food shortages, and fair trade. Were called to lean in, to work as hard as we can toward the good, and then trust in God who says, The way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Were called to be witnesses of how God is at play in the world.

Global citizenship means simply being willing to focus on the game, to notice the world and the people in it. It does not mean noticing your world, but the world. It means being conscious of the fact that you, and your country, are not the center of Gods universe. It is the recognition that the world is made up of people with similar needs, desires, responsibilities, and dreams. It is the willingness to connect to people all over the world, realizing that the choices you make each day affect them and that their decisions affect you. It is noticing that the world is your family.

While the opportunity to improve yourself and your situation is a great thing, our striving to build perfect lives seems to have morphed into perfectionism so focused on itself that we forget about others in the world. We work so hard to build the ultimate luxury sedan, to embody societys standard of beauty, and to achieve historical scientific breakthroughs that we conveniently forget our family members in other parts of the world who must walk miles each day in their only set of clothing for the opportunity to go to school.

If we allow our American mindset of consumption to spill into our understanding of what a Christian is, we are in danger of living irrespective of world family.

We must make decisions as if they affect those weve not even met because we realize they do. We must live respective of world family.

It is easy to surround yourself with people who think in the same ways, believe the same ideas, and live life in similar patterns. Many communities are made up of the same kind of people to the extent that we intentionally have to seek people whose stories are completely different from ours.

As Christians we must realize there are millions of people in the world (indeed, within the Christian faith) who do not live by our worldview, and we must learn how to interact with them, love them, and tolerate them.

Instead of thinking those who dont share your passions are not real Christians, recognize the beauty of diversity within the body of Christ. Instead of being angry with others for not feeling your urgency about an issue, give them time to come around.