Ryan Bailey
“Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.” -Brennan Manning Last week, I wrote about a newer repentance (newer to me…) Looking at repentance relationally gives us a deeper understanding of grace because…
“If you are renewed by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you would be very anxious to get out of his company.” -Charles Haddon Spurgeon “I’m sorry…I can see how I hurt you.” I say this often to my wife. And I really mean it when I do. When she tells…
As I mentioned in my last blog, I had never planned on visiting a chiropractor. In fact, I had only heard negative things about chiropractic care. As a child, I remember hearing a doctor tell my mother that she was never, in any circumstance, to allow a chiropractor to touch her back. It scared me. …
“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” -C.S. Lewis When thinking about our relationships we’re often taught to watch out for the company we keep. There are various proverbs that remind us that our relationships with others will influence us and have the power to bring us down. It’s outward…
“Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.” -Friedrich Nietzsche “Are you always analyzing us now?” By the above statement, you can probably guess how excited people get when a future therapist shows up at a party. I often get asked if I’m…
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” -Ernest Hemingway “Hey, thanks for the talk, that was really helpful.” How many times a week do you hear this from your friends? A lot? Not so often? I realized this week when a close friend said something similar that it’s not…
“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” -Eugene Peterson I am an extrovert through and through. I love people,…
“The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” -Tim Keller This week a friend read a devotional in class using the story of the paralytic who was brought to Jesus through a hole in the roof by his friends. It’s a story that’s familiar to all of us and we typically derive…
“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” -Walt Whitman This is going to be basic. It will be a review for many of you. But for some reason, my hard heart continues to sludge through the quicksand and act as if it has never heard this…
“It’s easier to bleed than sweat.” -Flannery O’Connor I read a great article this week about the lottery and how this record breaking amount brings out all sorts of things in people…One thing the article mentioned was how you wouldn’t want to be that guy in your office that opted out of the group pool only to seem…