Highlights

  • I assumed that any remaining unfulfilled longing inside me reflected my deficient faith. But at the Lord’s Table, my grief has been both healed and stoked. In celebrating a meal that anticipates Christ’s return, we aren’t meant to be fully satisfied now. (Location 122)

1 Hope The Feast and the Foretaste

  • implemented as a family—the miracle never came. My father died at age forty-four. Twenty years later, I’m still asking why? It’s a question I’ve learned to carry with me, like a piece of jewelry I never take off. (Location 173)
  • The central practice of Christian worship helps us hold seemingly opposite versions of hope in tension. At Jesus’ table, we feast on the life that conquered death—and we proclaim that death until he returns to complete his work. (Location 222)
  • Sometimes, prayers are answered beyond our imagining. Sometimes they are not. This mystery compels some of us to try harder to “crack the code” of God’s power, to search desperately for an explanation or a principle by which we can obtain our desired outcomes. (Location 231)
  • Others of us, fearing the discouragement or disillusionment that may accompany unanswered prayers, decide to stop praying for a desired outcome altogether. We would rather not ask than risk being disappointed. (Location 233)
  • I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence. (Location 270)

2 Encounter

  • As I was studying for the ministry, I slowly realized that I was more comfortable relating to God as my boss than as my Father. By my early twenties, I knew how to have an employer. I knew how to stay busy and earn my space in the room through productivity. But I did (Location 489)
  • not have as much practice simply being enjoyed. I longed for connection with God but only knew how to seek it through usefulness to him. (Location 491)

3 Embodiment Broken Bread for Broken Bodies

  • We don’t need to fear the darkness of lament—our own, or anyone else’s—because Jesus sits beside us in it. He understands, not abstractly but concretely, all the complexity and pain of embodiment. (Location 739)
  • Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace. (Location 746)

4 Gift The Prophetic Practice of Joy

  • IN THE FIRST FEW YEARS AFTER LOSING MY DAD, I embraced sadness as an act of loyalty. (Location 780)
  • Allowing myself to feel happy, or even lighthearted, seemed like a kind of betrayal. (Location 781)
  • We are fragile creatures. This is one reason why we worship corporately: Together, we are more capable of telling the whole truth. (Location 861)
  • night at bedtime, my six-year-old prays that he’ll be able to fly tomorrow. Though I always add to his prayer a special request for protection from false starts, there is something of resurrection in his quest. He understands that with God, nothing is impossible. (Location 899)
  • Right now, our rejoicing might feel a little bit like play therapy. We go through the motions, acting out what we’ve heard about the good news even when it seems disingenuous. We are training for the serious business of heaven. (Location 928)
  • My sister calls it the picture of her faith. (Location 965)

5 Community, Part 1 The Table That Makes a Family