"A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?If he reach the age of forty of fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect."
- Confucius
- Confucius
"Joy is the ability to treasure Jesus."
-Emily
The Strength of Weakness
"The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world.
Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and the strong nothing proves better than it. For there is no other alternative to it.
The week can overcome the strong and the yielding can overcome the hard."
-From the Tao-Te King of Taoism
"Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'What do you say of a man who is loved my all the people of his neighbourhood?' The Master replied, 'We may not for that accord our approval of him.' 'And what do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his neighbourhood?' The Master said, 'We may not for that conclude that he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good in the neighbourhood love him, and the bad hate him."
-From the Analects of Confucius
"And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day."
-2 Timothy 1:11-12
"Though I know what to pray for, I do not know how. I want to believe that God is the glory and power and kingdom forever-but doesn't forever mean now too? How can we even make such a claim in the midst of our world? It must be a statement of belief with imaginative power. We must soak up God, experience him, let him guide his own hermeneutic in our lives so that we can start to see the outline of his throne. The more we know him the more we know us. The temptation is to not let the 'us' we see pass by like we should, but to take it as our God and give it the kingdom and the authority and the power. To really believe God means to focus on him throughout the rushing and fading of pain, hurt, brokenness, exhaustion, national catastrophe, lies, perversion, and endless (though ending) sighs, and to take them for what God calls them, occasions for love and justice and heaven to break in. We must let God be God as we venture further in our beliefs of him. Though this kingdom seems to have no king, I am just a poor beggar on a street corner that can not imagine the throne room of the King who is coming to reign. Someone is telling me there is a king coming. With this small hope I will hold on with my whole life until God starts to reveal not only the outline of his throne, but the full goodness of the world where he reigns."
-Emily
