“We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone… (We) have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost.”
A. W. Tozer
On purpose
“What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as ‘play’ is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate, the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance … . we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Meditation XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
Except you enthrall me
Sonnet XIV
By John Donne (1635)
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for You
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit You, but O, to no end.
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love...
The Cross
“I confess God before the world and all his enemies when, in the deepest distress, I believe in God’s goodness; when, in guilt, I believe in his forgiveness; in death, life; in defeat, victory; in abandonment, God’s gracious presence. Whoever has found God in the cross of Jesus Christ knows how mysteriously God hides himself in this world and how, when we believe him farthest away, he is just there beside us. Whoever has found God in the cross forgives all her enemies because God has forgiven her.”
Meditating on the Word by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Doubt
“Why have you forgotten me? Every Christian asks this question at some time, when everything is going against her, when all earthly hope is smashed, when she feels completely lost in the course of great world events, when all of life’s goals collapse and everything seems to lack sense. But what matters then is who she is...
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He scatters his hail like bread crumbs;
who can stand against his cold?
He sends forth his word and melts them;
he blows with his wind, and the waters flow.
(Ps. 147:17-19)
Winter
“Summer is near at hand, the winter is past, the tender blossoms appear; he who has begun this work will also bring it to completion.“
-Martin Luther
Invisible God
“Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.“
-Albert Einstein
Humility
“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”
G.K. Chesterton, The Hammer of God
Prayer
“Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.”
A Praying Life by Paul Miller
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
The United Methodist Hymnal in the Covenant Renewal Tradition of John Wesley
The Lord’s Prayer
We pray for two things; 1: For active obedience; that we may do God’s will actively in what he commands. 2. For passive obedience; that we may submit to God’s will patiently in what he inflicts.
Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer