Quotes Archive, 2024
"Dictators and dictators in-utero depend heavily on linguistic trickery, chief among them is the double entendre with plausible deniability. These can also be called polysemic messages.
A statement is said, usually in the flow of a speech or fast-moving interview, that could be understood more than one way. The dictator's enablers and signal-boosters play the watered-down entendre, claiming hyperbole, edgy wordplay, showmanship, or simply poor word choice. The dictator's enemies and resisters zero in on the sinister entendre, claiming the normal understanding of radioactive words, tropes, and dog-whistles, and the dictator's track record of behavior.
In the Judeo-Christian worldview, words are never merely words. Jesus said the mouth speaks only what is overflowing from the heart. Solomon said the very powers of living or dying are in words. James said massive entities are controlled by tiny powers, like a bit controlling a horse or a rudder steering a ship or a small spark setting a great forest ablaze. The tongue, James said, is that small spark. Proverbs speaks often about the "mischievous tongue" and "crooked tongue" and "deceitful tongue" and "froward tongue". Paul told Timothy congregational officials could not be "double-tongued". Paul told Titus to only use sound speech beyond reproach that cannot be condemned.
While the world can debate just about anything endlessly, there is no debate in what the born-again, Bible-believing community is supposed to be in character and linguistics. We are not the puppies, enablers, signal-boosters, narcissistic supply, drooling fans, or power base of anyone but the Lord Jesus Christ. Hosea 5:13 has become true of many American Christians, and the coming seasons will prove it true (NIV): When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores." (7/27)
"Personal transformation can, at times, be so grueling, so upsetting, so painful, for a few reasons, but one reason stands out as perhaps the strongest and the sneakiest: we have Stockholm Syndrome with our old self. Deep down, we like our old self too much. Deep down, we appreciate what our old self has done for us. Yeah, that self is broken, love-starved, crazy by multiple definitions, idol-worshiping, low IQ, low EQ, abusive, and self-sabotaging, but that self also helped us survive, get stuff we craved, and win to varying degrees.
Cooperating with our First Love and His Spirit of transformation, then, is literally breaking up with ourselves. Putting the old self to death is scary and sentimental because that old self served us pragmatically well in the social darwinism of our life. That same old self, however, also kept us from true spiritual power in all its transcendent ecstasies; from true emotional freedom that allows you to sleep deep and not have recurring digestive issues; from true mental health and its razor-sharp clarity and wisdom; from true relational happiness that only comes from the relational know-how of the second Adam, not the first; from true financial wealth that comes not from a specific number in an account, but from a wealthy personhood that naturally and supernaturally keeps drawing money and resources to you; from true existential purpose that vocationalizes your God-given design into a career you absolutely adore.
Yes, the old self served you selfishly, toxically well, but it also kept you from the highest realities and highest happinesses possible. Part of the preparatory groundwork to leaving an abuser is to get meticulously honest about what the abuser kept for you versus what the abuser kept you from. What the old self did for you made you attached and sentimental towards it; therein is the Stockholm Syndrome. However, through a deep and rigorous prayer life bonding with the very presence of the Lord, through the power of His Word, through holy, healthy, helpful influences, the emotional and mental weight of your inner world must completely shift away from what the old self kept for you and into what the old self kept you from." (5/11)
"Learning the voice of the Lord, i.e. personal revelation, is an art, not an exact science. But even artists get really good at their art the more familiar they become with the brushes, the canvas, different types of paint, and the Artist inside. A few thoughts from a recent conversation:
One, the Lord does not always speak with fireworks, though He occasionally does at strategic moments for strategic reasons. If you are always looking for revelatory fireworks you are looking for excitement, not God's voice. You will be disappointed, at best, misled, at worst. Ponder 1Kings 19:11-13.
Two, the Lord speaks most predictably through slow-drip revelations. That means custom-fitted illuminations in Bible study, recurring impressions during/after prayer, recurring situations that jam our wrong programming and impact our heart, recurring opportunities and fruitfulness, recurring closed doors and lack of fruitfulness, timely conversations, providential relationships, etc.
Three, the Lord speaks most through slow-drip revelations because He prioritizes forming before informing. The subtle, gradual nature of this revelatory method facilitates intimacy with Him and personal development far, far better than dazzling, short-lived fireworks.
Four, God speaks on a gradient. He speaks to a person proportionate to their true spiritual maturity level—not how long we've been born-again, not how long we've been in church, not how long we've been listening to Christian music, not how long we've been "Christianizing" our environment. Jesus detailed the revelatory gradient in Mark 4:23-25. If you do not perceive, cooperate with, and assimilate what He is saying to you at your current level, you will not move up the revelatory gradient. A irritating spiritual glass ceiling will remain over your prayer life and revelatory awareness. If you do perceive, cooperate with, and assimilate what He is saying to you at your current level, you will gradually experience His voice more frequently, more clearly, and over a wider variety of subjects. He will reveal what you need to know at your level, so be humble and honest if you are not as advanced in the Spirit as you thought." (2/22)
"The bread was handed to Judas (John 13:26), yet he dipped his own hand into Jesus' bowl (Matthew 26:23). You cannot control the hand that has been given to you, but you can decide where you dip your hand." (1/15)
"A theory of everything, in the scientific sense, refers to a singular, ultimate, all-encompassing equation or formula that explains the universe and all its disparate parts. Such a formula has not been found yet and possibly never will, at least in the foreseeable future.
In a similar way, many people, in their anxious desperation to label and categorize what they do not understand, create "theories of everything" about the individuals around them. These interpersonal blanket statements and oversimplified formulas ignore the complexity and nuance of most individuals and most social situations. Rather than embracing the intricate process of patiently learning the labyrinth that is a person (or a social situation), the intellectual and moral neanderthal kneejerks to a theory of everything.
A person who often uses interpersonal theories of everything does so for distinct reasons; their heat signature is consistent and predictable. They are trying to create a personal world where their excuses and unhealed inner pain can live. This means creating a splitscreen of life that is aggressively all-or-nothing, us-versus-them, angel or villain, useful or disposable. This means creating an information ecosystem around themselves (and those in relationship with them) that contains its own logic and intrasubjectivity, even if that logic is not logical at all by even the most basic requirements of common sense.
The providential irony of the reductionist is that a bigger, badder reductionist will always come along and reduce them in ways they have always feared. Jesus said, with the measure you use it will be measured to you, and even more so." (12/19/23)