The sense of being stranded in the midst of life . . . is enough to drain a person’s very personality until there is little left to recognize. Where did the joy go all of a sudden? Where did the feeling of self-confidence disappear to in the midst of this emptiness?...
It is a help to think of the life and death of Jesus as sacrifice, but the word needs to be used with care. In the world of religion a sacrifice is either an offering to the ultimately holy or the giving up of something in devotion to the holy. The two ideas can blend...
Christians, too, must maintain the mystery of God, must let God be God. But Christians do know how to respond to that mystery, how we can go toward God. We must follow the example of Jesus and join him in his journey. We must put all that we have in the service of the...
We are neither big nor small but what we are in the eyes of God, and as long as we surrender ourselves totally then God can use us. The emptier we are, the more room we give God to fill us. Even God cannot put anything into what is already full. By ourselves we may be...
Why is it so hard to believe Christ and trust him completely? Christ wants to give us his life and spirit, and if we look to him for only a moment, our hearts tell us: Here is one we can trust. Yet each of us knows feelings of fear and anxiety. Something in us seeks...
Surrender is not so much a giving up as it is an opening up. It is a dynamic living and striving in the face of the unknown. When we surrender in faith we enter into the power of God, into the realm of all possibility.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end; submit with...
We cannot discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say, there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that, if we try harder next time, we shall succeed in being completely...
Christmas is a time for “giving up” sin, bad habits, and selfish pleasures. Christmas is a time for “giving in” surrender to Christ, acceptance of Him as King. Christmas is a time for “giving out” real giving, not swapping.
How this dying [to self] occurs varies greatly from person to person: for some, it may involve an inrushing of the Spirit, for others a severe life crisis, for others a long, gradual journey. But in any case, the central movement in dying is a handing over, a...