poetry in the machine

This video is a swirl of metaphors, on so many levels that I suspect I will be thinking about it for a long time.  I feel provoked, in the best sense of the word. 




For my fellow readers of Leisure: The Basis of Culture in the Ordo Amoris book group, here I see a hopeful glimpse of Pieper's unproletariat -- a man both fully at work and fully at leisure, and why?  Because he works at something he finds worth loving.  The work of his hands is fueled by his whole being, by a mind that serves his hands as a wellspring of passion, beauty, order, meaning, and a bracing precision of thought.  For him, this work is both physical and spiritual; it keeps his body fed, but it also feeds his soul.

Here, then, is a rare glimpse of the artes serviles and the artes liberales happily waltzing together.

I see him as an agrarian in spirit -- one whose dirt is ink.  

Both this video and all the preceding chapters of Pieper's book have kept in the forefront of my thoughts a favorite quote from Charlotte Mason, from page 331 of Toward a Philosophy of Education:

"Only as he has been and is nourished upon books is a man able to "live his life." A great deal of mechanical labour is necessarily performed in solitude; the miner, the farm-labourer, cannot think all the time of the block he is hewing, the furrow he is ploughing; how good that he should be figuring to himself the trial scene in the Heart of Midlothian, the "high-jinks" in Guy Mannering, that his imagination should be playing with 'Ann Page' or 'Mrs. Quickly,' or that his labour goes the better "because his secret soul a holy strain repeats." People, working people, do these things. Many a one can say out of a rich experience, "My mind to me a kingdom is"..."

David had sheep to tend, but out in the pastures alone with his flocks, his mind was at play in the kingdom of God because he had hidden the Word in his heart -- and therefore we are blessed to have the Psalms.  This is clearly an example of productivity born of contemplation born of productivity -- an organic, symbiotic dance of heart, soul, and mind.  By the same means, my father's best sermons found their shape and substance and power not at his desk, but on a tractor in a wheat field.

So it strikes me that for any life to have the wherewithal to be enriched by both productivity and contemplation, it must be a life remarkable for its well-cultivated habit of attention.  One cannot have a kingdom for a mind unless one has learned to keenly attend; to absorb and order and synthesize and reproduce knowledge.  Contemplation is, in a sense, a patchwork quilt of all the pages one has carefully beheld, stitched together by unifying, living ideas.

Every good fruit, then, finds it beginnings in the rich soil of the Habit of Attention. 

All that to say that the more I read Mr. Pieper, the more grateful I feel toward Miss Mason, who crusaded tirelessly against the deadening utilitarianism that Pieper is attacking in this book.  Mason's final book, which I quoted from above, begins with a cautionary review of the vile social forces that brought about the World Wars.  Like Pieper, Mason saw clearly the dangers of a world that seeks to shackle the mind to the hands, and starve the soul.   I will be curious to see if his prescription ultimately resolves as akin to hers.

the dark night

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 10 ~ Spiritual Gluttony: Spiritual Feelings

The previous chapter explored many difficulties in the Christian life, but this chapter will focus on the internal spiritual challenge known as "the dark night of the soul," or a desert experience.

Thomas a Kempis: "It is very expedient for thy welfare, that thou be left sometimes without taste of spiritual sweetness, and in a dry condition, lest perhaps thou shouldest be vain about thy prosperous estate, and shouldest be willing to please thyself in that which thou art not."

The wise spiritual adviser will eventually need to tell the new believer, ever so gently, that maturity will one day demand that the euphoric feelings on which he or she is becoming dependent must come to an end. Feelings, even spiritual feelings, can become a roadblock to further spiritual growth; sooner or later, God in His mercy will begin the weaning process to mature the believer's faith.

"Spiritual caressing," if left unabated, would eventually cause us to lose focus. Thus we could begin to enjoy the fruits of worshiping God (our feelings) more than we enjoyed the God we worship.

Gluttony for spiritual feelings opens a wide door to the other appetites, including greed, overeating, sexual lusts, the hunger for power, and other sins. When feelings become the focus of our faith, religion becomes not a friend but an enemy, concealing the true state of our heart. We wonder why we fall into sin so soon after a seemingly powerful encounter with God. What we fail to realize is that our hearts were stolen by spiritual gluttony, not real reverence.

We must avoid the trap of equating "good worship" with "good feeling." The two are unrelated.

When we love Christ only for what He brings us, including spiritual feelings, we are loving ourselves, not loving Him, regardless of the sacrifice we think we are offering. The dark night of the soul purifies our motivation and keeps us from becoming like the crowds in the New Testament who followed Jesus, not for His teaching, but for the miraculously supplied bread.

When we live by faith and not feelings, when we persevere no matter how dry we feel, Teresa of Avila said, we show we are among those souls who "would want the Lord to see that they do not serve Him for pay." That is, we want the Lord to see that we will serve Him regardless of whether it gives us pleasure or pain. We will serve Him because He is God and Lord and because He has captured our hearts and our wills.

Chapters 11 & 12 are compelling and useful chapters which focus on personal application --bringing the spiritual disciplines into a practical realm. I will not be journalling quotes from those chapters, so this will be my final post of quotes from this book.

I am glad so many of you have paused to contemplate the quotes I've shared from this rich, provocative book. Thank you for your comments. And thank you to Dr. George Grant for recommending it.


To see all of my posts of quotes from chapters of this book, either click the tag "reading journal" below this post, or simply type "Thomas Seeking" in the blog search box in the header.
.

a crushing mercy

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 9 - A Difficult Road: The Christian Life

Those who have gone before us have left a clear witness: We may seek God or we may seek ease, but we cannot seek both.

Our surgical and medical advancements lull into false security, causing us to forget that we are one missed heartbeat away from heaven... The physical and social luxuries of our world also make it more difficult for us to face the hard internal issues because we don't have to -- there are plenty of escapes... We can literally hide from the truth of the Gospel and our responsibility to serve God by filling our lives with noise.

Former saints had nowhere to turn but to God; we can take our pick.

How do we talk about the cross to a generation that finds unfluffed pillows intolerable?

Scripture says the disciples "strengthened" or "encouraged" each other with the words, "we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God." (Acts 14:22) Notice Scripture doesn't say they "threatened" each other with the possibility of suffering. No, they encouraged and strengthened each other.

It is not a coincidence that Jesus chose twelve disciples who would naturally have problems with the beliefs, attitudes, or dispositions of the others. If I were seeking peace and harmony, I certainly wouldn't put a tax collector with a zealot -- two natural enemies. But Jesus knew that real spirituality is proven in our relationships with others and He was willing to call people into relationships that would put them beyond their comfort level.

How many of us have used a gift God has given us to serve Satan's ends rather than build God's kingdom? How many of us have been given the gift of making money and then let that money waste away on selfish pursuits? How many of us have been gifted with serving, but perverted that gift of service by trying to make others feel indebted to us? How many of us have been given the gift of leadership and then turned that gift into a tool of manipulation and control? If we forget the law of sin in our lives, if we forget how very difficult it is to obtain mastery over it, Satan will have a field day with our self-righteous carelessness. Even our strengths can become weaknesses if we're not careful.

The most dangerous Christians are those who have forgotten their tendency to sin -- and Satan's agenda to capitalize on that tendency.

Difficulty teaches us to be pastoral people, something that does not come naturally to us. If we deny our own pain, we must also blind ourselves to the pain of others. We also need difficulty because without it we become proud, self-centered, and uncaring monsters who are full of ourselves.

I used to be a vicious discipler. I never missed a quiet time, and if someone I was working with did, I questioned the sincerity of his or her faith. Then God in His mercy crushed me for eight long years. Sins I had never faced before came roaring to life. Prayer became difficult. Ministry felt strained and awkward; there was no sense of God's power coursing through me. At the end of this period a door flew open, the darkness was lifted, and I was changed. I realized God didn't need someone who could preach better than anyone else or who could fast longer, pray more or evangelize more. He wanted somebody who would love His people. I knew a lot about discipline and commitment, but I knew nothing about love.

The sweetness of pain can woo us from the world if we are determined to learn from it rather than complain about it. Teresa of Avila wrote, "The soul is left with greater contempt for the world than before because it sees that nothing in the world was any help to it in that torment and it is much more detached from creatures because it now sees that only the Creator can console and satisfy it."

Chapter 8 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there. Or you can go to our November 2008 archives and start with the first post on Chapter 1.)

.

sentenced

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 8 -- Living in a Dying World: The Remembrance of Death

Fenelon believed we avoid the thought of death so we are not saddened by it. But this, he said, is shortsighted. "It will only be sad for those who have not thought about it."

Young people have a distorted view of life. We forget that funerals are waiting on the other end of weddings and baby showers. When we segregate ourselves -- when we don't know anyone who is suffering from arthritis -- we can be lulled to sleep.

The ancients found great spiritual benefit in looking death in the face, seizing its reality, and making it their servant. They used death to teach themselves how to live.

Remembering death acts like a filter, helping us to hold on to the essential and let go of the trivial. Climacus pointed out that "a man who has heard himself sentenced to death will not worry about the way theaters are run." His point, of course, is that all of us have been sentenced to death; it's just a matter of time, so shouldn't we live our lives accordingly?

Eternity turns everything around. I'm reminded of this every year when I figure my taxes. During the year, I rejoice at the paychecks and extra income, and sometimes I wince when I write out the tithe and offering... At the end of the year, however, all of that changes. As I'm figuring my tax liability, I wince at every source of income and rejoice with every tithe and offering check -- more income means more taxes, but every offering and tithe means fewer taxes. Everything is turned upside down, or perhaps more appropriately, rightside up... I suspect Judgment Day will be like that.

Death not only filters our priorities, it also filters our passions. Pascal wrote, "To render passion harmless let us behave as though we had only a week to live."

What person would risk entering eternity in a drunken stupor? What fool would ignore his loved ones and his God for one last night so he could make another quick ten thousand dollars just before he died?

It is only the denial of death that allows us to continue rebelling against God. It is only because we are presuming on some future time to set things right that we ever even consider letting them go wrong.

I want to enter death tired. I want to have spent what energy God has apportioned me... An eternal rest awaits all who know Christ, so why are we preoccupied with rest now?

The supreme way for a Christian to keep the thought of death alive is to remember the crucifixion of our Lord. Every time we take Communion we should do so with the awareness that, just as Christ's work on earth had a beginning and an end (as He ministered in a human body), so the mission He has given us has a beginning and an end.

"It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart." Eccl 7:2


Chapter 7 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)

.

a child squinting

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 7 - The High and the Low: A Double-Sided Humility

"Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness." - Blaise Pascal

"There was a time in my life when I feared sin so much that I focused almost exclusively on not sinning. Now sin is a very disturbing thing and you might well ask what could be wrong with fearing it. The answer is that my fear was so separated from God's grace that I was afraid to take an honest look into my own heart. I thus lost touch with my weaknesses, and the result was pride. I lived in an illusory and self-deceiving "holiness" based on discipline and works while my heart was full of evil attitudes and judgments. God used a period of dryness to reveal the true state of my heart."

"In the dryness and emptiness of this night of the appetite, a person also procures spiritual humility, that virtue opposed to the first capital vice, spiritual pride. Through this humility acquired by means of self-knowledge, individuals are purged of all those imperfections of the vice of pride into which they fell in the time of their prosperity. Aware of their own dryness and wretchedness, the thought of their being more advanced than others does not even occur in its first movements, as it did before; on the contrary, they realize that others are better. From this humility stems love of neighbor, for they will esteem them and not judge them as they did before when they were aware that they enjoyed an intense fervor while others did not. These persons will know only their own misery and keep it so much in sight that they will have no opportunity to watch anyone else's conduct." ~John of the Cross

"Ironically, if our self-understanding is truly born in heaven it will actually encourage us rather than discourage us... Once our self-view is no longer tied to our own worth but to the worth ascribed to us in God, we can readily admit our shortcomings and begin working on them while we are encouraged that we are not left alone in our failings."

"When we are ashamed about where we are spiritually, we have two choices: We can create a false front and a glittering image, or we can be honest before God, ourselves and others about our weakness and allow transformation to occur. We will not have the energy or resources to do both; we must choose one or the other."

"Humility is at root a celebration of our freedom in Christ; we are freed from having to make a certain impression or create a false front."

"Humility is simply admitting what is true."

"...God is supreme truth; and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is a very deep truth that of ourselves we have nothing good but only misery and nothingness. Whoever does not understand this walks in falsehood." ~Teresa of Avila

"A peasant shut up in his village only partially knows his wretchedness, but let him see rich palaces, a superb court, and he will realize all the poverty of his village. He cannot endure its hovels after a sight of so much magnificence. It is thus that we see our ugliness and worthlessness in the beauty and infinite grandeur of God." ~Fenelon

"It's easy for a man or woman to be proud until he or she gains a glimpse of the God of the universe. Once we see what could be, humility is as natural a reaction as a child squinting his or her eyes to block out the glare of the sun."

"I need to be in awe of God today... If I ever lose that profound reverence that leaves me standing silent in fascination and wonder, pride and sin will be waiting to claim my soul."

"Keeping sight of God is vital to humility, just as keeping in touch with humility is vital to seeing God. We cannot maintain one without the other."

"Christian communities, including families and churches, break down in proportion to the loss of humility of their members."

"Community is essential for humility because how we treat others is a better test of our humility than how we treat ourselves."

"If you were in this happy [humbled] state, far from impatiently enduring those who are not, the immense stretch of your heart would make you indulgent and compassionate toward all the weaknesses which shrink selfish hearts. The more perfect we are, the more we get along with imperfection. The Pharisees could not bear the publicans and the women sinners, whom Jesus Christ treated with such gentleness and kindness." ~Fenelon

"When Jesus faced self-righteous hypocrisy He was brutal and unyielding in His confrontation, but when He faced those caught in the misery of sin He often showed a softer face, becoming a Savior who would not break a bruised read or blow out a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3).

"The enemy often suggests a great desire of things that are absent, and which shall never occur, so that he may divert our mind from present objects, from which, however trivial they may be, we might obtain considerable profit to ourselves." ~Francis de Sales

"The King of Glory does not recompense his servants according to the dignity of the offices they hold, but according to the measure of love and humility with which they exercise them. Saul, seeking the asses of his father, found the kingdom of Israel. Rebecca, watering the camels of Abraham, became the spouse of his son. Ruth, gleaning after the reapers of Boaz, and laying down at his feet, was advanced to his side and made his wife..." ~Francis de Sales

"The proud man, who trusts in himself, has just reason not to attempt anything; but he that is humble is so much the more courageous, by how much the more he acknowledges his own inability; and the more wretched he esteems himself the more confident he becomes; because he places his whole trust in God, who delights to display his omnipotence in our weakness and to elevate his mercy upon our misery." ~Francis de Sales

Chapter 6 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)

.

a heart full of noise

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 6 - Cultivating the Quiet: Simplicity

"The sin many of us fall into is not that we shake our fists at God and defy Him to His face; that is the sin of unbelievers. Our sin is that we passively rebel against God, filling our lives with so much noise and busyness that God's voice cannot, or will not, penetrate."

"Cultivating the quiet is a painful experience when we are addicted to noise, excitement, and occupation. Opening the door to spiritual quiet can also open the door to spiritual fear and loneliness. It takes a great amount of courage to face God."

"[Blaise] Pascal believed that many young people live in a fundamentally dishonest existence, pretending they're having a good time while they live in constant terror of the truth of their hearts. Their "lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future. But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it...""

[He cites Augustine as saying that adults do the same thing, but often cover their idleness by calling it "business." Ironic - and convicting.]

"Pascal said the boredom that drives us to diversion could be the catalyst that calls us to change -- if only we were not afraid to do the necessary work. But Satan offers us his narcotics* as alternatives..."

"The difficulty of simplicity is that it will, at times (especially in the early stages as we break our addiction to diversion), lead us into soul boredom, gloom, depression, and possibly even to despair... I would be less than honest if I suggested that one day our lives are filled with diversions and the next day we walk hand-in-hand with God in glorious rapture... We who have been drugged by diversions cannot expect to enter the quiet without a struggle. Our souls will roar for diversion, the fix that saves us from God's presence."

"God calls us into the quiet (Isaiah 30:15**), not to chastise us, but to draw us into a deeper communion with Him. If we are to quit hiding from God, we need to know why we hide."

"...alone before God, we stand naked and vulnerable. We won't be able to pretend anymore; before God, we will have the choice to obey or to disobey, but pretending will no longer be an option. If we are miserable, we will have to face our misery. If we are sad, we will have to face our sadness. When we dwell in God's presence we must dwell in truth; we cannot control the outcome."

"...I realized that if I insisted on becoming consumed by every major sporting event or political race, every move of the stock market, or even every worry of parenting, if I let these things seize my heart, I simply could not enter into a true celebration of the Sabbath or the joy of a baptism, or the Lord's Supper, or Christmas and Easter, or any other true and significant celebration."

"I have learned the necessity of "guarding my heart" (Proverbs 4:23***) because my heart does not have an infinite capacity to rejoice or be alarmed. By becoming preoccupied with passing things, I exhaust my heart's ability to care about the things that really do matter."

"Just as someone who is allergic to cats learns the beginning symptoms of a reaction and makes haste to get away, so we often unknowingly begin to learn the sensation of God breaking into our hearts and we rush into some activity or diversion to avoid His presence."

"Simplicity frees us from being tabloid Christians."

"Our instant information age pounds us with up-to-the-second details about many things we simply don't need to know. These incessant bulletins can weigh us down and root our thinking in transitory matters."

"The spiritual life is impossible in a heart full of noise and occupation. God will not fill a heart that has no room."

"I seek simplicity only because God is so great I want to strip away the clutter that keeps me from Him."

*By "narcotics" Thomas refers to all manner of diversions and self-focusing distractions -- TV, computers, sports, shopping, gossip, etc.

**Isaiah 30:15-16 - For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.

***Proverbs 4:23 - Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.


Chapter 5 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)
.

thanksgiving snowballs

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 5 - Joyful Surrender: Christian Submission

The Two Essential Questions:
Is God good?
Is God Lord?

"Both the goodness and providence of God are well established in Scripture, but both are questioned today: "If God is so good, why does He allow evil things to happen?" and "If God is in control, why is the world such a mess?" Until we resolve these two questions in our own minds, we will find ourselves at virtual war with God."

"...maturity will eventually require that we come to this conclusion: "Yes, God is good, and yes, God is Lord." Until we have done that, the intimacy of surrender simply will not be possible."

"Many of us carry wounds that need to be healed before we can embrace these two truths... Whatever the case, we should do what we must do so we can resolve these two fundamental questions without delay. The scrapper in each of us must be retired."

"There will likely be a time in our Christian journeys when, like Jacob, we will wrestle with God all night long. That night may last for months or even years. But there must eventually come a dawn when we say, "OK, God, You win. You've broken me and I'm Yours. No more fighting. No more complaining. Lead me where You will. Not my will but Thine be done."

"The biggest block to our surrender is not our appetites and wayward desires, but our addiction to running our own lives."

"Thomas a Kempis said, "The love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.""

"We need to understand the seriousness of rebellion. When we refuse God in the big things, He will move to the small. When we refuse to give God even these, what else can He ask? We have then approached the land of apostasy, and all the spiritual disciplines in the world, all the beautiful songs we sing, and all the money we give away won't excuse the fact that our hearts are in rebellion."

"Christian surrender means the death of complaining."

"I learned that faith isn't tested by how often God answers my prayers with a yes, but by my willingness to continue serving Him and thanking Him, even when I don't have a clue as to what He is doing."

"Thanksgiving became my doorway to a more mature surrender. When I began to fight my sin of complaining with thanksgiving, the opposing virtue, this was a struggle for me. But God in His mercy placed gratitude in my heart, and like a snowball rolling down a hill, that gift of gratitude grew until the complaining was wiped out."

"When God birthed thanksgiving in my heart, my purest cry was simply, "God, I want to be on your side." My only request was to be wherever God was. If God was in riches or poverty, sickness or health, at home or far away, I wanted to be there. Whatever God was doing, that's what I wanted to be doing. Nothing else mattered."

"Rebellion means war, so it is no surprise that surrender means peace."

Chapter 4 quotes here and here.
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)

.

soul sadness

.
This brief passage from Chapter 4* is rich and stunning and has been whirling in my thoughts for a couple of days now. I've re-read these seven sequential paragraphs slowly a half dozen times and they're still talking to me.

I'm posting the passage uncut in the hopes that some of you might think aloud on these things with me. I'd love some company here in the whirlwind.

Soul Sadness

A Pharisee who does nothing but focus on avoiding sin is still concentrating on sin, which makes him or her little different from the person who voraciously lives in sin. Both are consumed by sin -- one to avoid it, the other to live in it.

Undue fretting leads to "soul sadness," or despondency or "inquietude," as Francis de Sales* put it. Soul sadness is the result of a performance-based holiness and it often plagues those who most want to serve God.

De Sales wrote that true holiness is cultivated with "patience, meekness, humility, and tranquillity, expecting it more from the providence of God than from [our] own industry or diligence." If, however, we seek deliverance from sin out of performance (which is merely a form of self-love and self-exaltation), we will fatigue ourselves and fall into a soul sadness that, "instead of removing, aggravates the evil, and involves [the soul] in such anguish and distress, with so great loss of courage and strength," that we imagine ourselves "incurable."

Thus de Sales asserted that soul sadness, resulting from self-love and self-effort, "is the greatest evil that can befall the soul, sin only excepted." Soul sadness saps our strength, which is needed to resist the temptation. This is how it keeps us in the maze of "performance."

It is possible for us to desire holiness for the wrong reasons; perhaps we simply want to use holiness for fame, as others might use a beautiful voice or eloquent speech. Or perhaps we are steeped in pride and simply unwilling to count ourselves among the truly sinful. This unholy desire for holiness produces a soul sadness that Satan exploits to further defeat us, with the intent of driving us off the cliff of despair.

Soul sadness "proceeds from an inordinate desire of being delivered from the evil which we feel, or of acquiring the good which we desire: and yet there is nothing which tends more to increase evil, and to prevent the enjoyment of good, than an unquiet mind."

The essence of the Christian life is a love relationship with God. Our standing in the Christian life rests with Christ; when the virtues take on too much importance, that is, when acquiring virtues and avoiding sin become the primary focus of our walk, we have elevated the (admittedly important) secondary over the primary. Another way of putting it is that we have made an idol out of our own piety.

Comments?


*from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas. Search this month's archives for my reading journal quotes from Chapters 1-4.

**Francis de Sales was a Christian who wrote at the beginning of the 1600's.
.

the absurdity of sin

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 4 - Holiness of the Heart: Avoiding Sin and Temptation

"Our quest to understand holiness begins with understanding the absurdity of sin."

"Sin creates massive disturbances in our lives; holiness brings peace."

"A performance-based Christian says, "I want to do this, but I know I shouldn't. I must either find a way to not do this or to not get caught." The relation-based Christian asks, "Who do I want to be in love with? My Lord or this sin?""

"Christianity, with its moral calling, may seem repressive to the world, but when we see sin as it really is (slow suicide), the moral calling of Christianity takes on a whole new light. "

"Sin is not inviting but debilitating; holiness is not burdensome but liberating."

"We feel God's redeeming love and grace when we get together with some believers. Their holiness is a warm hearth, a shelter that invites us to come in from the cold. Even though we sense an underlying strength that tells us sin and manipulation are not acceptable in their presence -- and this can be somewhat fearful -- we still find ourselves drawn to them.

"There are others whose holiness seems to be a prison. It is forced, uncomfortable, and ragged at the edges. The biting edge of accusation and judgment pushes us away from them. When they talk about sin, their voices seem marked by fear, not understanding or wisdom."

"We cease from sin not just because we are disciplined, but because we have found something better."

"Focusing on sin, either by committing it or by being consumed with fighting it, keeps us from practicing God's presence. God forbid that we should ever define ourselves or our days solely by what we didn't do. Let us instead be people who define ourselves by practicing God's presence."

Chapter 1 quotes
Chapter 2 quotes
Chapter 3 quotes
.

eggs without shells

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 3 - Training the Body and Soul: Seven Methods of Spiritual Training*

"One of Satan's favorite traps is to let us acknowledge God's conviction, then cause us to mistakenly assume that just because we are convicted we are changed."

"Setting goals but being unwilling to train toward them leaves us worse off than ignoring goals altogether, for we have done nothing but add an element of insincerity to our lives."

"Spiritual training assumes we can change -- that the lazy can, in cooperation with the Spirit's work, become diligent, the selfish can learn to love, and the cruel can learn to be kind. We needn't see ourselves as slaves to the darker sides of our personalities."

""That's just the way I am" is a confession of sloth, not humility."

"...there is something sacred about the early side of morning... Early rising historically has been an important part of Christian spiritual training... There is a style of life generally consistent with those who cultivate spiritual growth and a style of life generally consistent with those who wouldn't know a spiritual thought unless it bit them in bodily form."

"... as I disciple others, especially younger men, I've noticed that many of the most troublesome difficulties occur in the late evening. A disciplined schedule can actually cut the opportunity to sin -- and, therefore, help cut the place of sin in our hearts and lives."

"If your prayers have become rote recitations of intercession, you're probably praying two or three hours too late."

"A righteous life and rigorous training without a heart full of grace is like an egg without a yolk -- a fragile shell that will break under the slightest pressure. Not only are Pharisees a bore and an active bother, thy eventually crack under the strain of impossible expectations. That is only one side of the truth, however, for though Pharisees are eggs without yolks, those who try to exist solely on mercy without structure or discipline are like eggs without shells -- a sticky, gooey mess."

"Legalism, on the one hand, and complacency, on the other, are the twin enemies to true Christian spirituality. Paul spoke scathingly of anyone who added a milligram to grace, but he could scarcely mention the word without adding, in essence, "But we don't continue to live the way we used to." (Romans 5:20-6:2)**

"The problem with so many of us is that we don't labor during the six days and we don't rest during the seventh. We live in the gray wasteland of killing time, which is neither restful nor productive. Thus we feel unable to keep one day devoted to rest because we failed to fill the previous six days with work."

Chapter 1 quotes
Chapter 2 quotes

*The 7 methods:

1. Pious Readings

2. Imitate Living Examples

3. Cultivate Virtues

4. Use Discomfort

5. Practice Holiness

6. Early Rising

7. Living a Life of Reflection

**Romans 5:20-6:2 -- "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

.

hell broke apart at His feet

.
Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 2 - Starting at the Finish Line: Spiritual Goals

"Jesus chased out ignorance, defeated the demonic, and released the ill and oppressed. In other words, as Jesus walked, hell broke apart at His feet."

"Jesus and hell could not occupy the same spot, so wherever Jesus went, hell was dismantled."

"I can be immature and reach heaven. I'm not sure, however, that I can remain immature and see hell break apart at my feet. If I am steeped in habitual sin, if I remain a spiritual adolescent, I cannot threaten hell, not while kissing its feet or lusting after its trinkets."

"If we don't experience the dissolution of hell in our own lives, we would do well to ask ourselves why. Are we flirting with hell and thus unable to confront it? Have we refused to deal with needy issues in our lives, perhaps denying they exist, and therefore blinded ourselves to the needs and hurts of others? Or have we just become lazy, content to coast into heaven rather than be faithful servants?"

"This goal, to love God so much that we overflow with love for others and consequently see hell break apart at our feet, encourages us to press on to be the type of person God can use consistently and powerfully. It spurs us on toward active ministry surrounded by times of intimate prayer -- for we dare not enter this ministry without the sure presence of God. The goal is also clearly defined by a central question: Are people around us being changed?"

Chapter 1 quotes

our lack of wonder

.
I'll be journalling some quotes here in coming days from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas, which I am reading through at a snail's pace (on purpose).


Quotes from Chapter 1: The Journey of Faith

"Surely there has never been a more unequal relationship than the one Christ calls us to when He says, "Come, follow Me." Our lack of wonder at the absolute inequality of the relationship is evidence enough that we do not fully comprehend the greatness of the God who speaks and the humility of us who listen."

"We need not be mature to reach heaven... However, without maturity, we will have neither the motivation nor the ability to get involved in the lives of others."