I live with a guy who says great stuff… like all the time…

But then you probably already know that? I’d say I’m preaching to the converted.

Anyway, he saves me from deep pot-holes of doubt and self-deception often… again you’re not really surprised are you?

He inspires me daily. He lifts me up with his faith, and his down-to-earth expression of the most glorious Truths there are.

Quite honestly, I question how we all don’t just sit down and listen.. really listen.. to him more.

I see people get thrown off  by his laid back nature, or the lack of polish or fancy prose in his delivery. He’s fun, he doesn’t put on airs and graces, and he doesn’t demand anything from his listener.. but boy does he say great things.

He also lets us all have our doubts and objections, and our general thrashing it out internally while he speaks. He feels it all, and knows that in our preoccupation with maintaining emotional equilibrium, we often miss half the wisdom in his sentence.

That’s why I write stuff down. Because I sense there’s gold in them there words, and sometimes I need to catch my breath, and revisit, to fully soak them in.

Even at home, I scribble incredible things he says in the margin of my journals.

While I make the dinner, or he does the laundry, he tells me soul truths, God Truths. They flow easily and unassumingly from him – products, not of doctrine or dogma, but of lived experience.

I swear, on my darkest days, he literally saves my soul. He guides me to the light, he makes poetry out of this existence (and if he read this now he’d probably tell me I’m being too fancy and pomp.. to him he’s just a guy who loves God).

One thing he’s taught me is this (my somewhat awkward paraphrase here):

God’s Truth doesn’t need embellishment or fanfare or dressing-up – its power speaks for itself. When we try to make it fancier, or more palatable to others, we, in arrogance, believe we know better than God about how to reach a person, about how to deliver a gift.

In effect we are saying that the Truth, as simply as it exists, needs modifying, for human consumption.

We are denying that the fabric of God’s Universe is built in Truth, and, as His Children, our souls are designed to respond to pure, unadulterated Truth. If we believe that God’s Truth is said thing, why would we feel it could be shared in a way that seems ‘softer’, ‘prettier’ or ‘kinder’?

Isn’t God the most Caring, Loving character there is?

So wouldn’t sharing His Truth, just as it exists about any given matter, be the most caring and loving thing to do?

I try to remember when I write, that simple and direct is kind and loving (I’m a bit prone to flowery prose and apt to try to over-explain to get people ‘on side’).

Jesus taught me that if I say it how it is with love, and without pressure for people to agree, or any desire for them to change, then I give a gift.

I give the gift of truth, and I also give the listener the gift of allowing them whatever feelings they have in response. It doesn’t mean that I’ll stand there and absorb abuse from the listener, but neither would I try to stop them from feeling any emotion that might be triggered through our exchange.

God Himself knows, that sometimes its taken me.. eh hem… a long time… to make peace with some of His Truths, and for some He’s still waiting on a call back from me. I haven’t quite given Him the nod on everything He’s trying to teach me – much as logic would compel me otherwise, I’ve got un-felt emotions that make me resist.

So letting others take their time to work through whatever emotions the Truth triggers in them, well that’s love. We’ve all got error that’s going to shake loose at some stage or another. Sometimes a big Truth (or a little one) delivered by you, by me, or by Jesus, might be the very thing that starts that soul-quake in another.

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So, reeling myself back in from that tangent, lets get back to the actual ‘Jesus Quotes’ part of this post.

The other night, we were talking, and Jesus casually mentioned a few things to me.

(Did I mention that this man takes my breath away?)

I thought that they were worth a share.

“Love is knowing that you can leave at any time – but wanting to stay anyway.”
Jesus, February 2013

“If you don’t want to have anything to do with love – then the “love” that you’ve had wasn’t any good. (i.e. it wasn’t love in the first place)”
Jesus, February 2013.

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A brief postscript:

I’m not sure if my idea to regularly share my ‘Jesus Quotes’ will work here. Are you now reading them now, saying, “Yes so? I knew that?”

At the time he says these things – they are very significant to me. My soul is open and they become a very loving, yet shocking, suckerpunch to my reality.

My intellect (the one usually in control) would smugly say, (despite extreme evidence to the contrary), ‘sure I know that!’

But in the precise moment, these truths strike my soul and suddenly I’m dissolving.

“what, really? Love isn’t about obligation? duty? sacrifice? All that ‘love’ that made me feel guilty, and came conditionally – that wasn’t love?”

Sure I might say I get it with my head – but do I live that, connect to that, really know that?

No.

(And if you are someone who read the quotes above and said ‘so what, not so profound’ – does your life really offer you evidence that your know and live these things?)

Quite simply, when my man says stuff sometimes, its like my heart hears it for the first time.

I cry.

I write it down because I want to revisit these Truths time and again. I know that if they entered my soul (not just my tenacious intellect) that they would change my life forever.

What do you think – does it work to tell you too? Or should I just keep scribbling this stuff in my margins, saving it up for some other purpose?