# Grace Notes ![rw-book-cover](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516C2rzzOkL._SL200_.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Philip Yancey]] - Full Title: Grace Notes - Category: #books ## Highlights - found that the process of mulling over life experiences and ordering them on paper fit my cautious, introverted personality. I could interview people and observe the world through the safety screen of a journalist. ([Location 96](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=96)) - I learned that the reader controls the transaction, not the writer; fail to hold the reader’s attention and you’re out of a job. ([Location 99](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=99)) - Many Christian books are written by experts of some sort: a pastor, theologian, professor, or other specialist. I began my career as a journalist, by definition a generalist or nonexpert, and ever since have clung to that identity. Only later did I find my own voice, the voice of an earnest pilgrim, wounded by the church, sifting through faith issues and finding my way back. I feel blessed, truly, to have a profession that allows me to work out on paper what I struggle with internally, a calling that mirrors my own biography. ([Location 100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=100)) - Every writer who touches on spirituality can identify with Thomas Merton’s concern that his books expressed the spiritual life so confidently and surely when actually he was plagued by insecurities, doubts, and even terrors. I often have the impression that the words I write have more lasting value than my life, and I sense that the higher I reach in my writing about the spiritual life, the more I misrepresent my own disorderly life. It is far easier, I find, to edit words than to edit life. ([Location 128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=128)) - gospel. Jesus said that the truth will set us free and that he came to give life in all its fullness. If it’s not setting you free and enlarging life, then it’s not Jesus’ message. If it doesn’t sound like good news, it’s not the gospel. ([Location 154](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=154)) - In truth, I write my books for myself. I take an issue that puzzles and intrigues me and dive in, not knowing where I’ll emerge. Someone may eventually dive in behind me, but while I’m writing the book I’m alone, grappling with issues and herding words (like small animals, they keep trying to escape). Writing has afforded me a way to work out my faith, word by word. And to my astonishment my words have helped encourage others in their faith. ([Location 169](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=169)) - “We read to know that we’re not alone,” said one of the students tutored by C. S. Lewis in the movie Shadowlands. True, and those of us who write do so in desperate hope that we’re not alone. ([Location 198](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=198)) - Jesus? I fall back on the response of Bishop Ambrose, mentor of Augustine, who was asked on his deathbed whether he feared facing God at judgment. “We have a good Master,” Ambrose replied with a smile. I learn to trust God with my doubts and struggles by getting to know Jesus. ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=294)) - Looking back, the hand of God seems evident in those and many other choices. I had always thought of guidance as forward-looking. Yet in my own experience I have found the direction to be reversed. For me, guidance only becomes clear as I look backward. As for the present, my focus must be my relationship to God. Am I responding with obedience and trust? “Life must be understood backwards; but …it must be lived forward,” said Kierkegaard. ([Location 598](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=598)) - Brennan Manning tells the story of an Irish priest who, on a walking tour of a rural parish, sees an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. Impressed, the priest says to the man, “You must be very close to God.” The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, “Yes, he’s very fond of me.” ([Location 3409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=3409)) - The real goal, King used to say, was not to defeat the white man, but “to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority…. The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.” ([Location 3463](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=3463)) - Clothes, fashions, apartment furnishings, job titles, new cars—what do these things mean to people who are preparing to die? ([Location 3479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=3479)) - A doctor is probably the most helpful image for me to keep in mind while thinking about God and sin. Why should I seek out God’s view on how to live my life? For the same reason I seek my doctor’s opinion. I defer to my doctor, trusting that we share the same goal, my physical health, but that he brings to the process greater wisdom and expertise. And I am learning to view sins as spiritual dangers—much like carcinogens, bacteria, viruses, and injuries—that must be avoided. I am learning to trust that God wants the best life for me in this world, not some diminished, repressed life. ([Location 4142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4142)) - The role of a doctor may be the most revealing image in thinking about God and sin. What a doctor does for me physically—guide me toward health—God does for me spiritually. I am learning to view sins not as an arbitrary list of rules drawn up by a cranky Judge, but rather as a list of dangers that must be avoided at all costs—for our own sakes. ([Location 4184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4184)) - I never “see” God. I seldom run into visual clues that remind me of God unless I am looking. The act of looking, the pursuit itself, makes possible the encounter. For this reason, Christianity has always insisted that trust and obedience come first, and knowledge follows. Because of that difference, I persevere at spiritual disciplines no matter how I feel. I want to know God. And in pursuing a relationship, we must come on God’s terms, not our own. Old Testament prophets set out the preconditions for knowing God, as in this verse from Micah: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” ([Location 4233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4233)) - Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks—and a faithful person does not debate each day whether he or she is in the mood to follow the sergeant’s orders or show up at a boring job. ([Location 4256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4256)) - Only one life, ’twill soon be past        Only what’s done for Christ will last. ([Location 4306](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4306)) - I ask myself how my life would differ if I truly played to an audience of One, if I continually asked not “What do I want to do?” or “What would bring me approval from others?” but “What would God have me do?” Certainly my sense of ego and rivalry would fade because I would no longer need to worry about proving myself to other people. I could concentrate instead on pleasing God, by living in such a way that would attract people to Jesus’ style of life. ([Location 4317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002S6UNGK&location=4317))