THE PROCESS OF EXPRESSION

I have made it a weekly practice, on a long walk on the hill behind my home, to present to God my anger against people who have wronged me.  I recount all my reasons for feeling unfairly treated or misunderstood, forcing myself to open up deep feelings to God (does God not know them anyway?).  I can testify that the outpouring itself has a therapeutic effect.  Usually I come away feeling as if I have just released a huge burden.  The unfairness no longer sticks like a thorn inside me, as it once did; I have expressed it aloud to someone -- to God.  Sometimes I find that in the process of expression, I grow in compassion.  God's Spirit speaks to me of my own selfishness, my judgmental spirit, my own flaws that others have treated with grace and forgiveness, my pitifully limited viewpoint.

-- Philip Yancey in “The Bible Jesus Read”

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EVERYTHING NEW

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV)

The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God overall, we step out of the world's parade...  We acquire a new viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us; a new power will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.

-- A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) in The Pursuit of God

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