Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A Unique Tag!

I've been tagged by Terry. The premise of this tag is to reach for the book closest to you, flip to page 123, find the 5th sentence and post that sentence and the 3 following it. Kinda fun!

The book closest to me at the moment is The Return of The Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, by Henri Nouwen.

Page 123:

"Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.' God's compassion is described by Jesus not simply to show me how willing God is to feel for me, or to forive me my sins and offer me new life and happiness, but to invite me to become like God and show the same compassion to others as he is showing to me. If the only meaning of the story were that people sin but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sins as a fine occasion for God to show me his forgiveness; there would be no real challenge in such an interpretation. I would resign myself to my weakness and keep hoping that eventually God would close His eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such sentimental romanticism is not the message of the Gospels."

Ok, I cheated and included an extra sentence, deal with it!

Anyway, I love Henri Nouwen. He was a remarkable man with incredible insight, who fought the good fight. He finally received the homecoming he was looking for.

I tag Mike, Erich, Christy. Tonya, and Catrina.

5 comments:

Tonya said...

Since the book closest to me at the moment happens to be the phone book that we keep in the computer amoire, I am going to assume that you aren't really interested in that and find the next closest book. who knows what it will be but I'll be honest. Gotta go find it.

Elspeth said...

Sounds like a great read. That one quote alone speaks volumes. Thanks for playing along, Tia.

Tia Lynn said...

always a pleasure, terry!


Hehe Tonya, the first book I reached for only had 94 pages, so I cheated too! :)

Anonymous said...

Simply beautiful. I might have to pick up that book. The Prodigal Son is my favorite parable.

DeeAnn said...

Thanks for not tagging me this time. It's hard to type one-handed while you have a baby in the other arm. I just can't put her down!
P.s. Closest book to me is Trusting God even when life hurts. (my mom's book, my life is fine)