WHAT DO YOU WANT?...WHAT DO YOU WANT?...WHAT DO YOU WANT?

"Not surprisingly, Ellul has continued to magnify the place of prayer, contending that as we pray God fashions a genuine future for humankind; indeed, God's future is the only future, all other "futures" being but a dressed-up repetition of the Fall."

That was taken from this piece describing a little about Jacques Ellul's life. I am so grateful for having ran across this brother's work. I can't think of anyone that I have read that has come close to helping me understand, in a much clearer way, the effects of the world that surrounds us and it's powers, more than Ellul. And the timing of my introduction to him was so perfect thanks to God and to another very influential dear brother.

I am also so humbled by how God has been so Faithfully Dangerous in answering the prayers that began to form in me several years ago and even more specifically at the beginning of 05 and through the beginning of 06. I have found out that he loves to answer these prayers in what turns out to be very surprising and sometimes shocking ways. Much of this blog, especially in the beginning, turns out to have really been prayers. Here's an example. Much of the past year this blog has still been prayers but also the outworking of many of the ways Father has been answering those prayers by turning me around from the lies I had allowed to control me.

I can't even listen to U2 anymore and not think of Ellul. I am convinced that U2's work during the 90's had been influenced by him. Bono and Edge are avid readers of theologians and philosophers and Ellul is from France where they have spent much of their life. The song Zooropa is full of Ellul like thinking about the world and the mess humans continue to make and wrongly call progress. This video works pretty well with the song.

Hopefully by mentioning Jacques Ellul around here often, others might be encouraged to pick up some of his books and check them out. I still have a pretty long list of his books I want to work through myself. Here is how he expresses what he hopes others find by reading his books.

"Perhaps through my words or my writing, someone met this saviour, the only one, the unique one, beside whom all human projects are childishness; then, if this has happened, I will be fulfilled, and for that, glory to God alone".