Quotes about Openness

Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.

Prayer is not bringing your list and asking God to sign on the bottom. Prayer is handing God a blank sheet that you have already signed and trusting him to fill it out as he sees fit.

you and I need to be open and approachable in the midst of our discouragement. We'll never get the help we need if we first demand that people sign on to our view of things before we are willing to open up to them and listen to what they have to say to us.

A relationship based on trust means not walking on eggshells, but talking openly, honestly, with no hint of passive-aggressiveness or any of the other dysfunctional manipulative tactics we tend to impose on family and friends.

a faith that remains open to the ever-moving Spirit and new possibilities, rather than chaining the Spirit to our past •?a faith that welcomes opportunities to think critically and reflectively on how we think about God, the world, and our place in it, rather than resting at all costs on maintaining familiar certainties

judging by how the Bible actually behaves—God did not design scripture to be a hushed afternoon in an oak-paneled library. Instead, God has invited us to participate in a wrestling match, a forum for us to be stretched and to grow.

We should not be surprised when we find ourselves in a similar spot, experiencing a God who is not beholden to our thinking, a God who doesn't act according to our sense of certainty, even if we can find a Bible verse or two to back it up. God can't be proof-texted. God will not be backed into a corner.

Rather than focusing on the badges that define our tribal identity (our church, denomination, subdenomination, doctrinal convictions, side of the aisle, whatever), a trust-centered faith will see the world with humble, open, and vulnerable eyes—and ourselves as members and participants rather than masters and conquerors. We will see our unfathomable cosmos and the people in our cosmic neighborhood as God's creation, not as objects for our own manipulation or unholy mischief.

Rather than defining faithfulness as absolute conformity to authority and tribal identity, a trust-centered faith will value in others the search for true human authenticity that may take them away from the familiar borders of their faith, while trusting God to be part of that process in ourselves and others, even those closest to us. The choice of how we want to live is entirely ours.

Adjusting our understanding of God isn't a sign of weak faith, nor is it an attack on faith—it is faith.

And Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you please.”

You have acted in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”