Quotes from Kyle Strobel

While our sight is limited, so is our formation. While salvation entails many things (forgiveness, imputation of righteousness and so on), ultimately, it entails a new relationship. The sinner, cut off from the Father by his wrath now stands before him as child. She who was once rejected before God is now the beloved before him.

Unlike our current depictions of the church's relationship to Christ, which are often stoic—emotionless and without poetic imagination—Edwards refuses to hold back: "the soul shall, as it were, all dissolve in love in the arms of the glorious Son of God and breath itself wholly in ecstasies of divine love into his bosom."[5] People are fully alive in heaven, and being fully alive entails being saturated with love:

Therefore, instead of using the term spiritual disciplines, which points to a stance of independence and self-help, it would be better to use the term spiritual postures. These means of grace are ways to posture ourselves in the Spirit to God in Christ. Our "discipline" is really just a posturing.

The focus on the present reality of heaven and hell does not, in some way, raise the question of their existence. Far from it. The present realities of love and hate are proof that heaven and hell are real—so real, in fact, that their ways of life bleed into ours.

Our prayer life is our Christian life miniaturized. What we believe about life with God reveals itself in how we pray.

For those who do not know God, selfishness will eventually win out in their hearts; the forces of hell will run rampant in and through them to the world.

Prayer is not a place to be good, it is a place to be honest. Prayer is not a place to perform, it is a place to be present. Prayer is not a place to be right, it is a place to be known. Prayer is not a place to prove your worth, it is a place to receive worth and offer yourself in truth.

If your mind wanders to your worries or your weekly calendar, then be open with the Lord about why your heart turns to these places. Do you feel like you don't have control in God's presence, so you turn to something you can control? Do you feel like prayer isn't productive, so you turn to something that is? Talk to God about these matters.

Mind wandering is a gift; by it, the Lord shows us the treasures of our hearts. Our call is to bring this to the Lord, who meets us in the truth of ourselves as ones who need grace and mercy in these very places.

Allow your heart to respond to God's kindness in the midst of your brokenness.