Classic and contemporary excerpts.
Omnipotent Media
Speaking to a group of broadcasters, Ted [Turner] described who God really was: “Delegates to the United Nations are not as important as the people in this room. We’re the ones that determine what the people’s attitudes are. It’s in our hands.”
—Cornerstone magazine
(Vol. 18, No. 90)
Bigheartedness Turned Small
The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions.
And one of the world’s greatest tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in them for little beside ourselves.
—A. W. Tozer in The Root of the Righteous
Toxic Waste
TV is not just a vast wasteland; it is a toxic-waste dump. The problem isn’t that nothing is there; that would be bad enough. The problem is that something is there and it’s poisonous to the spirit.
—James Breig in U.S. Catholic
(Jan. 1990)
Literary Slide
The two most popular novels in nineteenth-century America were Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur (1880) and Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps (1896). (In fact, Sheldon’s book remained the dominant twentieth-century best-seller right up until Peyton Place overtook it in the late 1950s.)
—Patrick Alitt in American
Heritage (Nov. 1988)
Mum’S The Word
In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.
—Meister Eckhart in Directions for the Contemplative Life
“Success” Doesn’T Count
A missionary wrote me: “Sometimes adversity tempts me to discouragement in the face of seeming failure. But I take courage and press on anew, as I remember that God does not hold me responsible for success, but for faithfulness.” Jesus said, “Well done, you faithful servant,” not “Well done, you successful servant.”
—Corrie Ten Boom in
Each New Day
Look Before You Leap
All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature … if we do not walk circumspectly.
The least movement affects all nature; the entire sea changes because of a rock. Thus in grace, the least action affects everything by its consequences; therefore everything is important.
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
—Pascal in Pensées
Living Symbol
In criticizing Christian symbolism, they talk much of dead churches and decaying creeds; they talk of a creed as a cant. But their own talk is itself a cant. They do not dislike the Cross because it is a dead symbol; but because it is a live symbol.
—G. K. Chesterton in the London Illustrated News (Sept. 20, 1919)
Inseparable
We have fallen into the temptation of separating ministry from spirituality, service from prayer. Our demon says: “We are too busy to pray; we have too many needs to attend to, too many people to respond to, too many wounds to heal. Prayer is a luxury, something to do during a free hour, a day away from work or on a retreat.… But to think this way is harmful.
… Service and prayer can never be separated; they are related to each other as the Yin and Yang of the [Chinese] Circle.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen in
The Living Reminder
Poorest Notion
It is much worse to have a false idea of God than no idea at all.
—William Temple, quoted in
Context (Sept. 15, 1989)
The Best Gifts
He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.
—Sir Henry Taylor, quoted in
New Beginnings
Human trinity
As I see it, the Christian life must [comprise] three concentric circles, each of which must be kept in its proper place. In the outer circle must be the correct theological position, true biblical orthodoxy and the purity of the visible church. This is first, but if that is all there is, it is just one more seedbed for spiritual pride. In the second circle must be good intellectual training and comprehension of our own generation. But having only this leads to intellectualism and again provides a seedbed for pride. In the inner circle must be the humble heart—the love of God, the devotional attitude toward God. There must be the daily practice of the reality of the God whom we know is there. These three circles must be properly established, emphasized and related to each other.
—Francis A. Schaeffer in
No Little People
