Theology becomes rich only when it survives the onslaught of pain. And sound theology leads us through our pain to a fuller experience of Christ and therefore of hope and love and joy.
The pain that opens our hearts to search for God is deep… it is the pain of someone who wants to enjoy pleasures he cannot find and who fears that misery seems inevitable and perhaps deserved. It is pain that makes us stand still and think about something outside of ourselves, something more important and more interesting than our concerns about who we are and how we’re getting on. It is pain that compels us to ask terrifying questions about life and God.
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Only the frightening, immobilising and awe-inspiring realisation that we are out of the Garden with no way back in… will stop us long enough to hear… God speak through His word to introduce us to an unmistakably new dimension of life.
Larry Crabb, Finding God
my small corner 