Quotes from Rob Bell

Connection is an engine of creation.

heaven has the potential to be a kind of starting over. Learning how to be human all over again. Imagine living with no fear.

This is why loneliness creates such a deep ache in our bones. It's holding up—and working against—the direction the universe has been heading for over thirteen billion years. Same with racism. Regardless of where we come from or what we look like, we're all humans, and when humans fail to bond and unite and connect with other humans, that's going against the direction the universe has been going for thirteen billion years.

Jesus called disciples—students of life—to learn from him how to live in God's world God's way. Constantly learning and growing and evolving and absorbing. Tomorrow is never simply a repeat of today.

In that ancient Genesis poem, this animating energy is called Spirit. And in that poem, Spirit enters and animates forms, which then create new forms.

This is the opposite of brainwashing. This is the opposite of Just believe and don't ask questions. He keeps inviting people to think critically, to examine, question, doubt, test, struggle. To own it for themselves. I came across this line in the New Testament: Test everything. I love that line. It's

Particles couldn't contain the fullness of Spirit, and that led to something new.

That's what Spirit does, it brings about new creation. And what was true thirteen billion years ago is true now.

What this particular religious system that I was working in did was ever so subtly divide the world up into two spheres Ãƒ¢Ã¢'¬Ã‚¦ the spiritual, and then the rest of life. As if spiritual is a dimension of life that some people have, and some don't. As if spiritual means less real than the stuff of everyday life like money and bodies and kids and houses and jobs. As if spiritual is about another time and another place when you die and leave this place.

Do you believe that God is for you? Do you believe that God's desire is that you flourish, thrive, shine? Do you believe that God wants you to be everything you could possibly be as you become more and more and more your true self?

Of course Jonah is angry. When you haven't forgiven someone who has wronged you and then something good happens to them—when they are blessed or shown mercy or experience favor—it's infuriating.

It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn't as bright as it could be.