Tag Archives: Donald McCullough

Daily Riches: The Difference Between Thinking and Praying (Donald McCullough, William O’Malley, and John Donne)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being and Doing, Contemplative Prayer, Embracing Losses and Limits, Striving and drivenness, The Love of God

“I don’t understand why God loves me – or anyone else, for that matter. But does a minnow have to understand the ocean to swim in it? Does a goose have to understand his instinctive urges to fly south in winter before taking flight? Does a hawk understand the physics of hot air rising to soar atop the currents? Do I really need to understand the height and breadth and depth of God’s love to throw myself upon it? Authentic spirituality, it seems to me, does not depend on understanding everything about ourselves and God and then using that knowledge to hoist ourselves to a higher level of experience and achievement. …Authentic spirituality confidently assumes that God is up to something good, going ahead of us, calling us, embracing us, and it seeks simply to participate and delight in this.”  Donald McCullough

“Prayer begins with being connected to God. One way I find helpful to remind myself of the ever-present God is to say over and over again, ‘God, my great friend, … somehow you’re alive in me.’ At times, I am sure, you will need nothing more than that. But the essential difference between thinking and praying is the conscious ‘connection.’ The goal of these prayers is connecting with and resting in God, not trying to learn anything or to make ‘progress in the spiritual life.’  Remember, God will lead us as God will, and God’s faithfulness, goodness, and love for us are infinite.” William O’Malley

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love
may … grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and know this love that surpasses knowledge….”
Ephesians 3:18,19

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you striving to know more about God? What can you do to make sure learning more leads to loving more, growing more, and changing more – to new practices rather than just new convictions?
  • Are your prayers routinely characterized by “connecting with and resting in God”, even when they’re filled with petitions?
  • Do you assume “God is up to something good,” going ahead of you, calling you?
  • Do you experience God’s love mostly as fact or feeling? Does it “surpass knowledge?”

Abba, take me to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
John Donne

For More: Daily Prayers for Busy People by William J. O’Malley

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Knowledge That Transcends Learning (Donald McCullough, Thomas Aquinas and G. K. Chesterton) *

Posted on by under Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility

“Some things–perhaps the most important–cannot be grasped, regardless of the reach of one’s intellectual prowess. They can only be received. There is a knowledge that cannot be gained by thinking or reasoning or deducing or inducing or experimenting or theorizing; it comes to us, not from us, and it can only be acknowledged, with gratitude and surprise, when it appears in an open heart. We can prepare for this knowledge, paradoxical as it sounds, by encountering the limitations of knowledge. These limitations, by reminding us of our humanity and our relative ignorance, help create the awe and wonder necessary for encountering the deepest, most soul-shaping truths.” Donald McCullough

Thomas Aquinas (c 1225-74) was the greatest of the medieval Doctors of the Church. His life was devoted to prayer, teaching, writing and travel. Although Aquinas had little knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, as a theologian he was unrivalled in intellectual power, capable of dictating to four secretaries at the same time. Yet he showed absolute single-mindedness in pursuing his fundamental aim: to use Aristotelian methods of scientific rationalism to support the doctrines of Christian faith. His Summa Theologica on the person of God was twenty volumes. Near the end of his life Aquinas had a divine revelation in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in Naples. Afterwards he said, “I can no longer write, for God has given me such glorious knowledge that all contained in my works are as straw – barely fit to absorb the holy wonders that fall in a stable.” …In 1274 Aquinas died at Fossa Nuova, south of Rome. “He confessed his sins and he received his God; and we may be sure that the great philosopher had entirely forgotten philosophy. The confessor ran forth as if in fear, and whispered that [Thomas’] confession had been that of a child of five.” G. K. Chesterton

“the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” 1 Corinthians 1:24

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you experienced the limits of knowledge?
  • If so, has it led to greater humility before God and others? If not, can you open your heart to what God might want to give you?
  • Can you stand before God in faith like “a child of five?” Do you?

Abba, in the end I know so little, but you have shown me this, that you love me and that you alone suffice.

__________

For More: Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: “Detachment” and Loving Well (Donald McCullough) *

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Detachment and Attachment, Loving Well, Self-care

“Love flourishes only in freedom. Relationships based on the illusions born of insecurities inevitably will become coercive, and nothing destroys love faster then coercion. How could it be otherwise? Love is a gift, one that cannot be given under compulsion or taken by force. Love cannot happen if others are treated as mere extensions of ourselves as slaves of our needs and desires. Only through detachment–the separation of ourselves from others and others from ourselves–can we find the freedom that makes room for the mutual attentiveness and mutual honoring and mutual delight and mutual serving that are the foursquare foundation of authentic love.” Donald McCullough

“I have loved you
even as the Father has loved me.
Remain in my love.
… Love each other in the same way
I have loved you.”
John 15:9,12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does such “detachment” from others seem like a good and proper thing, or a selfish, misguided thing? Are you able to give someone freedom to solve their own problem – or not? to fail – or not? What does your answer say about you?
  • Have you even had someone try to control you or manipulate you “for your own good?” Did you feel loved?
  • Is your love ever coercive or manipulative – really about some need of yours? If so, can you put your finger on what that need of yours might be?
  • God loves you greatly, but allows you to make lots of mistakes, and often, to suffer the consequences. He respects your freedom, and waits for you to choose to love him. All this could be otherwise. Do you think it’s good the way it is? Why or why not?

Abba, help me to love others, not because of some need of my own, but for their good. Help me to love enough to release control of those I love, even when sometimes it means watching them struggle and fail. Even when I think I have the answer. Even when I think they can’t do without me.

__________

For More: The Consolations of Imperfection by Donald McCullough

_________________________________________________

My goal in sharing these ‘daily riches” is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words of less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest! –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Expectations Dashed (Larry Crabb, Donald McCullough and Larry Hein) *

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Suffering and Grace

“When the fact is faced that life is profoundly disappointing, the only way to make it is to learn to love. And only those who are no longer consumed with finding satisfaction now are able to love. Only when we commit our yearnings for perfect joy to a Father we have learned to deeply trust are we free to live for others despite the reality of a perpetual ache.” Larry Crabb

“… the limitations of time render valuable service. They lift our eyes toward something beyond time; they make us look beyond the horizon of the temporal into the vastness of eternity. …We have learned to distrust the promises of time; the future never really delivers, never really satisfies our longings. So we must cast the anchor of hope much farther, all the way into eternity.”  Donald McCullough

“May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.”  Larry Hein

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,
about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,
so that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.
But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves
but on God, who raises the dead.”
2 Corinthians 1:8-9

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • I always hoped to “leave my mark” on my world. As it turns out, it looks like it may be more of a smudge. Have you realized that many of your hopes and aspirations will never be fulfilled? Have you made peace with that?
  • Have you learned that “dashed expectations”, “thwarted plans” and even a “perpetual ache” are not only unavoidable in this life, but useful?
  • How might disappointment and the limits of time teach you to learn to love and experience the “powerlessness and poverty of a child?”

Abba, I will rely, not on myself, but only on you. I will anchor my hope in eternity – in you, the God who raises the dead.

__________

For More: Inside Out by Larry Crabb

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Praised, Blamed – and Loved by God (Donald McCullough) *

Posted on by under applause, approval addiction, Being the Beloved, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits

“One of the most important gifts that came my way in those days of misery [removal from ministry], I now realize, was the loss of public approval. … It forcibly separated me–the essential me– from the public’s perception of me. … To learn, not just in my head but in the depths of my being, that I was someone different from and always more than the perception of others was like being in a hot, stuffy room and having the windows thrown open. … [Now] I’m not much impressed with the cheering or overly worried about the jeering. I am who I am thank God. And yes, thank God, because who I am is a child of God, a beloved of God, a man in whom God takes delight. I had known this before, to be sure, but I didn’t know how much I still needed to learn it until I came to the limitations of public approval. Enduring these limitations was something I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy; now it’s something that, if not for the dishonor of it, I would covet for my dearest friends.”  Donald McCullough

“Everyone said I was doing really well, but something inside me was telling me my success was putting my soul in danger.”  Henri Nouwen

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court;
indeed, I do not even judge myself.  …
It is the Lord who judges me. …
He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness
and will expose the motives of the heart.
At that time each will receive their praise from God.”
the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:3-5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you know in the depths of your being that you’re “someone different from and always more than the perception of others?”
  • Have you come to the place where you can “care very little” about the cheering or jeering (or judgment) of others?
  • The next time someone cheers you or jeers you, can you return to your “essential” status as “beloved of God” instead of letting cheering or jeering define you?

Abba, I need to sense your love for, acceptance of,  and approval of me in the depths of my being. Please keep me from being distracted from this by what others think of me – by either their blame or their praise.

__________

For More: The Consolations of Imperfection by Donald McCullough

_________________________________________________

“Then suddenly it happened, I lost every dime, but I’m richer by far, with a satisfied mind.” (“Satisfied Mind”, lyrics by Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes) Often it’s in our most painful losses that we find what really matters, and the satisfaction found in God alone. I hope that Daily Riches will help you to be “richer by far” as you grow in such satisfaction. Thanks for reading and sharing Daily Riches!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Limitations of Knowledge (Donald McCullough, Thomas Aquinas and G. K. Chesterton)

Posted on by under Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility

“Some things–perhaps the most important–cannot be grasped, regardless of the reach of one’s intellectual prowess. They can only be received. There is a knowledge that cannot be gained by thinking or reasoning or deducing or inducing or experimenting or theorizing; it comes to us, not from us, and it can only be acknowledged, with gratitude and surprise, when it appears in an open heart. We can prepare for this knowledge, paradoxical as it sounds, by encountering the limitations of knowledge. These limitations, by reminding us of our humanity and our relative ignorance, help create the awe and wonder necessary for encountering the deepest, most soul-shaping truths.” Donald McCullough

Thomas Aquinas (c 1225-74) was the greatest of the medieval Doctors of the Church. His life was devoted to prayer, teaching, writing and travel. Although Aquinas had little knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, as a theologian he was unrivalled in intellectual power, capable of dictating to four secretaries at the same time. Yet he showed absolute single-mindedness in pursuing his fundamental aim: to use Aristotelian methods of scientific rationalism to support the doctrines of Christian faith. His Summa Theologica on the person of God was twenty volumes. Near the end of his life Aquinas had a divine revelation in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in Naples. Afterwards he said, “I can no longer write, for God has given me such glorious knowledge that all contained in my works are as straw – barely fit to absorb the holy wonders that fall in a stable.” …In 1274 Aquinas died at Fossa Nuova, south of Rome. “He confessed his sins and he received his God; and we may be sure that the great philosopher had entirely forgotten philosophy. The confessor ran forth as if in fear, and whispered that [Thomas’] confession had been that of a child of five.” G. K. Chesterton

“the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” 1 Corinthians 1:24

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Have you experienced the limits of knowledge?
  • Has it led to greater humility before God and others?
  • Are you able to stand before God in faith like “a child of five?”

Abba, in the end I know so little, but I know this, that you love me and that you alone suffice.

__________

For More: Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: “Detachment” and Loving Well (Donald McCullough)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Detachment and Attachment, Loving Well, Self-care

“Love flourishes only in freedom. Relationships based on the illusions born of insecurities inevitably will become coercive, and nothing destroys love faster then coercion. How could it be otherwise? Love is a gift, one that cannot be given under compulsion or taken by force. Love cannot happen if others are treated as mere extensions of ourselves as slaves of our needs and desires. Only through detachment–the separation of ourselves from others and others from ourselves–can we find the freedom that makes room for the mutual attentiveness and mutual honoring and mutual delight and mutual serving that are the foursquare foundation of authentic love.” Donald McCullough

“I have loved you
even as the Father has loved me.
Remain in my love.
… Love each other in the same way
I have loved you.”
John 15:9,12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does such “detachment” from others seem like a good and proper thing, or a selfish, misguided thing? Are you able to give someone freedom to solve their own problem – or not? to fail – or not? What does your answer say about you?
  • Have you even had someone try to control you or manipulate you “for your own good?” Did you feel loved?
  • Is your love ever coercive or manipulative – really about some need of yours? If so, can you put your finger on what that need of yours might be?
  • God loves you greatly, but allows you to make lots of mistakes, and often, to suffer the consequences. He respects your freedom, and waits for you to choose to love him. All this could be otherwise. Do you think it’s good the way it is? Why or why not?

Abba, help me to love others, not because of some need of my own, but for their good. Help me to love enough to release control of those I love, even when sometimes it means watching them struggle and fail. Even when I think I have the answer. Even when I think they can’t do without me.

__________

For More: The Consolations of Imperfection by Donald McCullough

_________________________________________________

My goal in sharing these ‘daily riches” is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words of less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest! –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Approval Addiction and Being the Beloved (Donald McCullough)

Posted on by under applause, Being the Beloved, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits

“One of the most important gifts that came my way in those days of misery [removal from ministry], I now realize, was the loss of public approval. … It forcibly separated me–the essential me– from the public’s perception of me. … To learn, not just in my head but in the depths of my being, that I was someone different from and always more than the perception of others was like being in a hot, stuffy room and having the windows thrown open. … [Now] I’m not much impressed with the cheering or overly worried about the jeering. I am who I am thank God. And yes, thank God, because who I am is a child of God, a beloved of God, a man in whom God takes delight. I had known this before, to be sure, but I didn’t know how much I still needed to learn it until I came to the limitations of public approval. Enduring these limitations was something I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy; now it’s something that, if not for the dishonor of it, I would covet for my dearest friends.”  Donald McCullough

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court;
indeed, I do not even judge myself.  …
It is the Lord who judges me. …
He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness
and will expose the motives of the heart.
At that time each will receive their praise from God.”
the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:3-5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you know in the depths of your being that you’re “someone different from and always more than the perception of others?”
  • Have you come to the place where you can “care very little” about the cheering or jeering (or judgment) of others?
  • The next time someone cheers you or jeers you, can you return to your “essential” status as “beloved of God” instead of letting cheering or jeering define you?

__________

For More: The Consolations of Desolation by Donald McCullough

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)