The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. Silence gives us a new outlook on everything. We need silence in order to touch others. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. God is always waiting...
Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.
Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked....I am filled with unutterable...
Missiologist Lamin Sanneh says that humility is at the heart of Christian mission because this faith--unlike "spirituality"--must be received from another. No one is born into this faith. Nobody stumbles upon it after walking in the woods or rummaging around in one's...
Connection is the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued--when they can give and receive without judgment.
If we were to accept large areas of life as pure gift, we would be forced to acknowledge that we are not in control. Were we to live as recipients rather than makers, we might feel dependent and diminished, like clients of some cosmic welfare system that demeans our...
What we are, what we have, even our salvation, all is gift, all is grace, not to be achieved but to be received as a gift freely given. God's bias in favor of sinners is so immense that it is said we will be surprised at those we find in heaven whom we had not...
Whatever your listening experience, you take music through the senses. Hearing is like breathing, but through the ears. Sound flows into and throughout your body like oxygen. You can think of the body, with its nerves and heartstrings, as the lyre upon which your life...
The basic issue for the Christian, it seems to me, is whether we believe we are stewards or owners of what we possess. A good steward receives gratefully anything his Lord gives to him. But he must account for it and use it wisely. We Christians also believe that this...
I have become convinced that Christianity is fundamentally an experience in losing the lives of our dreams in order to receive the lives that Jesus died to give us. from When God Interrupts: Finding New Life through Unwanted Change