Most biblical stories are descriptive, not prescriptive. They show what it looks like to wrestle with trying to live a moral life—recording success and failure. But here's the thing: That makes the Bible more holy, not less. Treating spiritual texts like a recipe book...
One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men.----------------------------------------------Gender-inclusive version:...
We strain at cuss words but swallow camels of racism, classism, and misogyny and call it holy.
I give myself completely to you, God.Assign me to my place in your creation.Let me suffer for you.Give me the work you would have me do.Give me many tasksOr have me step aside while you call others.Put me forward or humble me.Give me riches or let me live in poverty.I...
God has only one intended destiny for mankind—holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use…. Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy...
The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God.------------------------------------------------------------Gender-inclusive version: The...
The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on...
Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. It is not that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a God who prevents suffering, only that is not the God we have got. What the Cross teaches us is that God's power is not the...
You are holy, Lord, the only God,and Your deeds are wonderful…You are Good, all Good,supreme Good,Lord God, living and true.You are love.You are wisdom.You are humility.You are endurance.You are rest.You are peace.You are joy and gladness.You are justice and...
If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less...