signature of jesus

i will stop and pick up anything by brennan manning i can get my hands on. it is the kind of writing that nourishes my soul, that gives me hope that there are publishers out there who will publish the often cold hard truth of life. these passages below are mostly the introduction.

From The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

"...this word [referring to the first word of God in our lives] is the gift of ourselves to ourselves: our existence, our nature, our personal history, our uniqueness, our identity. All that we have and are is one of the unique and never-to-be-repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time. Each of us, made in his image and likeness, is yet another promise he has made to the universe that he will continue to love and care for it. However, even when faith persuades us that we are a word of God, we may remain ignorant of what God is trying to say through us. Thomas Merton wrote, 'God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of himself. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought in him I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in him.' With endurance and patience we must wait for God to make clear what he wants to say through us. Such waiting involves patience and attention, as well as the courage to let yourself be spoken. This courage comes only through faith in God, who utters no false word. One of the stunning lessons of the bible is God's free use of fragile human beings to accomplish his purpose. He does not always choose the holy and devout or even the emotionally well-balanced."

"What Jesus longs to see in radical disciples is what he saw in little children: a spirit of sheer receptivity, utter dependence, and radical reliance on the power and mercy and grace of God mediated through the Spirit of Christ."

"However hidden and undramatic your witness may be, I pray that you will be daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, courageous enough to get burnt in the Fire, and real enough to help others see that prose is not poetry, speech is not song, and tangibles, visibles, and perishables are not adequate ultimates for beings signed with the blood of the Lamb."