I am loving this book… Every time I read another chapter it just resonates with me — so many good statements, I just want to quote the whole thing! This chapter is called “With” where we come to realize that God is with us.
“When we talk about God, we’re talking about that sense you have — however stifled, faint, or repressed it is — that hope is real, that things are headed somewhere, and that that somewhere is good.”
“With Jesus, what we see again and again is that it’s never
just a person, or
just a meal, or
just an event,
because there’s always something more going on just below the surface.
Jesus sees what others miss. He is aware when others are oblivious.”
“To believe in God requires faith. To experience this world and its endless surprise and mystery and depth and then emphatically declare that it has no common source, it is not headed somewhere, and it ultimately has no meaning — that takes faith as well….Believing in God to me seemed like taking a flying leap. But the truth is, I had already taken a leap, because we’ve all taken a leap. Whatever it is that we believe, whatever it is that we trust, we’ve all leaped and we’re endlessly leaping because we are all people of faith.”
— Rob Bell, What We Talk About When We Talk About God