Great Throughts Treasury

"We live in an “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship."

"We must extend the boundaries of our lives beyond the dates enclosed by our birth and death and acquire an understanding of God’s way as something larger and more complete than the anecdotes in our private diaries. Otherwise, we will always be “mistaking a sore throat for a descent into hell.”"

"We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God sticks with us."

"We must desire God for ourselves and not as a means of fulfillment of our own wishes. It is a blessed mark of growth out of spiritual infancy when we can forgo the joys which once appeared to be essential, and can find our solace in him who denies them to us."

"We take precautions by learning safety rules, fastening our seat belts and taking out insurance policies, but we cannot guarantee safety."

"What does make a difference is the personal relationships that we create and develop."

"When we see the other as GodÂ’s anointed, a priest to us, our relationships are profoundly affected."

"When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us."

"When we suffer we attract counselors as money attracts thieves. We are flooded first with sympathy and then with advice, and when we donÂ’t come around quickly we are abandoned as a hopeless case."

"Why are we put on the spot of being God’s defender. We are expected to explain God to his disappointed clients. We’re thrust into the role of a clerk at Wal-Mart’s customer service desk – the complaints department of humanity."

"Why there’s never been a “successful” church."

"Without wonder, we approach spiritual formation as a self-help project. We employ techniques. we analyze gifts and potentialities. We set goals. We assess progress. Spiritual formation is reduced to cosmetics."

"When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves."

"Why he thought no one would ever buy The Message (boy, was he wrong)."

"Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite."

"Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God."

"World is an atmosphere, a mood. It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the worldÂ’s temptations as it is for a fish to discover impurities in the water. There is a sense, a feeling, that things arenÂ’t right, that the environment is not whole, but just what it is eludes analysis."

"You are much more likely to find passionate prayer in a foxhole than in a church pew; and you will certainly find more otherworldly visions and supernatural voices in a mental hospital than you will in a church."

"You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise."

"You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true."

"You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in spiritual direction. Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters."