Michael Heidle

“Psalm 24 doesn’t ask us any questions to which it doesn’t give us the answers: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” The answer: the person with clean hands, a pure heart, a true soul and honest speech. And that puts us in a bind. For in one way or another, we all have dirtied our hands and muddied our souls in a selfish life. So who’s going to ascend this hill? Stand in God’s holy place? The King of Glory, that’s who. The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! The Lord of Advent stayed clean to make us clean. And he became unclean with our evil on the cross to strip it away from us.”
― Chad Bird, Glory to God in the Highest: Devotions for Advent

“The glory of Advent and Christmas is camouflaged by humility, anonymity and even foolishness, for our God likes to hide himself beneath his opposite.”
― Chad Bird, Glory to God in the Highest: Devotions for Advent

“When Jesus “starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably,” when his work in our lives “does not seem to make sense,” then he’s really getting somewhere. He’s pounding gaping holes in the painted drywall of our own wisdom to reveal the termite-infested 2x4s on the other side. Ripping up the carpet to point out an inch-wide crack in the foundation. What we thought would take a few months to fix and fancy up will, it turns out, require a lifetime of labor. But Christ is okay with that. He was, after all, raised in the home of a carpenter. And he’ll take his sweet time. C. S. Lewis says he “intends to come and live in it Himself,” but the truth is, he’s already moved in, put his underwear and socks in the drawers, and buckled on his tool belt. He’s here for the long haul.”
― Chad Bird, Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life