The Furious Longing of God. By Brennan Manning

"I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me."

- Song of Songs 7:10

Jesus, why? Why do you desire me so furiously? I will never understand it. But knowing it makes me want to cry. I so often desire other things more. I am so sorry.

"May you live with an awareness that the Father not only loves you, but likes you"

Gosh, is that powerful. God likes me. He likes being around me. He likes my dumb jokes. He likes when my nostrils flare. He doesn't think I am annoying. He does not get tired of me. He would lpve to spend every waking moment of every day with me. Sheesh!

"Off and on throughout the day, you will just know that you are being seen by Jesus with a gaze of infinite tenderness."

Thank you, Jesus. May I gaze back in gratitude.

"The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence."

"For His love is never, never, never based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods- of depression or elation. The furious love of God shows no shadow of alteration or change. It is reliable. And always tender."

"The foundation of the furious longing of God is the Father who is the ongoing Love, the son who is the full expression of that Love, and the Spirit who is the original and inexhaustible self expression of that Love, drawing the created universe into itself. "

"I must always be where my Abba is"

"Union not only transcends every political, social, cultural, and religious consideration and not only fuses them with ultimate meaning, but defines the very purpose of life itself."

"The Gospel can be summed up by saying that is the tremendous, tender, compassionate, gentle, extraordinary, explosive, revolutionary revelation of Christ's love."

Abba's love for me= Abba's love for JESUS !!!

As previously stated- HOT DANG. Wow. Just, wow. God loves me the way He loves Jesus. Clean, perfect, Jesus.

"You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love crazy over what you have made" -Catherine of Siena.

"Cease striving and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

God, I wish that I would stop trying so hard for you. And just dance.

"We realize that the person we have encountered speaks to our innermost being, supplies our needs, satisfies our desires. We recognize that this person gives life meaning. I do not say a new meaning simply, for we realize that before we encountered this person life had no real meaning. We realize that this person has revealed to us not only himself but our own true selves as well. We recognize that we cannot be our own true self except by union with this person. In him, the obscure is illuminated, the uncertain yields to the certain, insecurity is replaced by a deep sense of security. In him we find we have achieved an understanding of many things that have baffled us. We recognize in his person strength and power which we can sense passing from him to us. Most certainly, if most obscurely, we recognize that in this person we have encountered God, and that we shall not encounter God in any other way." -John Mckenzie

"The wild, unrestricted love of Go is not simply an inspiring idea when it imposes itself on mind and heart with the stark reality of ontological truth, it determines why and at what time you get up in the morning , how you pass your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you need, who you hang out with, it affects what breaks your heart, what amazes you, and what makes your heart happy."

"In loving me, you made me lovable."

" I say to you, Blessed is he who exposes himself to an existence never brought under mastery, who does not transcend but rather abandons himself to my ever-transcending grace. Blessed are not the enlightened whose every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime insight, the mature and ripe ones whose one remaining action is to fall from the tree. Blessed, rather, are the chased, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them. Blessed are the poor of spirit, those who lack a spirit of cleverness. Woe to the rich, and woe to the doubly rich in spirit! Although nothing is impossible with God, it is difficult for the Spirit to move their fat hearts. The poor are willing and easy to direct. Like little puppies they do not take their eyes from their master's hand to see if perhaps he may throw them a little morsel from his plate. So carefully do the poor follow my promptings that they listen to the wind (which blows where it pleases), even when it changes. From the sky they can read the weather and interpret the signs of the times. My grace is unpretentious, but the poor are satisfied with little gifts."

"He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am. When I have passed that same reality on to another human being, the result most often has been the inner healing of their heart through the touch of my affirmation. To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine tuned radar system that is tuned to the true, the good, the beautiful. When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the innermost healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation."

"Jesus said that you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself, a love that forgives seventy times seven, that keeps no score of wrong doing. Jesus said this, this love, is the one criterion, the sole norm, the standard discipleship in the New Israel of God. He said you're going to be identified as His disciples, not because you're church going, Bible toting, or song singing. No, you'll be identified by one sign only- the deep and delicate respect for one another, the cordial love impregnated with reverence for the sacred dimension of the human personality because of the substitution of Christ for the Christian"

"The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love"

-Galatians 5:6

"The past is over and done. We all stumble on the way to maturity. We all look for love in the wrong arms, happiness in the wrong places.But out of it, you've become real. You've got a heart of immense compassion for the brokenness of others. You are utterly incapable of hypocrisy, and I am deeply in love with you."

Approach the throne with CHUTZPAH-( supreme self confidence, boldness)

"The one thing that we absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." -Charles Defoucauld

"Jesus didn't come to bring peace. He came to bring revolution"

"The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that he lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love."

"In the days to come, you will either be a mystic (one who has experience God for real), or nothing at all." -Kari Rahner

Abba, Father, I belong to You.