I think maybe God was trying to tell me that gentleness begins with strength, quietness with security. A great tree is both moved and unmoved, for it changes with the seasons, but its roots keep it anchored in the ground. Mastering a gentle and quiet spirit didn’t mean changing my personality, just regaining control of it, growing strong enough to hold back and secure enough to soften.

Rachel Held Evans

Categorized in : Thinking Mean Strong

We millennials have been advertised to our entire lives, and we can tell when somebody is just trying to sell us something. I think church is the last place I want to go to be sold another product.

Rachel Held Evans

church trying thinking

This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more.

Rachel Held Evans

tables kingdoms rooms

Christianity isn't meant to simply be believed; it's meant to be lived, shared, eaten, spoken, and enacted in the presence of other people.

Rachel Held Evans

meant-to-be christianity people

But the gospel doesn't need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, "Welcome! There's bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk." This isn't a kingdom for the worthy; it's a kingdom for the hungry.

Rachel Held Evans

wall wine doors

Perhaps the most radical thing we followers of Jesus can do in the information age is treat each other like humans-not heroes, not villains, not avatars, not statuses, not Republicans, not Democrats, not Calvinists, not Emergents-just humans. This wouldn't mean we would stop disagreeing, but I think it would mean we would disagree well.

Rachel Held Evans

hero mean jesus

One of the most destructive mistakes we Christians make is to prioritize shared beliefs over shared relationship, which is deeply ironic considering we worship a God who would rather die than lose relationship with us.

Rachel Held Evans

ironic christian mistake

What makes the Gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.

Rachel Held Evans

offensive

Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; that latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue.

Rachel Held Evans

differences animal believe

Faith isn't about having everything figured out ahead of time; faith is about following the quiet voice of God without having everything figured out ahead of time.

Rachel Held Evans

voice-of-god quiet-voice following

The truth is, a man can choose to objectify a woman whether she’s wearing a bikini or a burqa. We don’t stop lust by covering up the female form; we stop lust by teaching men to treat women as human beings worthy of respect.

Rachel Held Evans

lust teaching men

Whenever we show others the goodness of God, whenever we follow our Teacher by imitating His posture of humble and ready service, our actions are sacred and ministerial. To be called into the priesthood, as all of us are, is to be called to a life of presence, of kindness.

Rachel Held Evans

humble kindness teacher

God's ways are higher than our ways not because he is less compassionate than we are but because he is more compassionate than we can ever imagine.

Rachel Held Evans

imagine compassionate way

No step taken in faith is wasted, not by a God who makes all things new.

Rachel Held Evans

taken all-things steps

What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.

Rachel Held Evans

millennials style church

When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.

Rachel Held Evans

cacophony voice beautiful

The Proverbs 31 woman is a star not because of what she does but how she does it—with valor. So do your thing. If it’s refurbishing old furniture—do it with valor. If it’s keeping up with your two-year-old—do it with valor. If it’s fighting against human trafficking . . . leading a company . . . or getting other people to do your work for you—do it with valor. Take risks. Work hard. Make mistakes. Get up the next morning. And surround yourself with people who will cheer you on.

Rachel Held Evans

cheer stars morning

My interpretation can only be as inerrant as I am, and that's good to keep in mind.

Rachel Held Evans

interpretation mind

I’m ready to stop waging war and start washing feet.

Rachel Held Evans

ready feet war

We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground. God got up.

Rachel Held Evans

hate tree long

What I love about the ministry of Jesus is that he identified the poor as blessed and the rich as needy...and then he went and ministered to them both. This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another.

Rachel Held Evans

beautiful moving jesus