SPIRITUALITY DEFINED
Spirituality is a slippery term but the phenomenon itself is not new. Christian spirituality is nothing other than life in Christ by the presence and power of the Spirit: being conformed to the person of Christ, and being united in communion with God and with others. Spirituality is not an aspect of Christian life, it is the Christian life.
-Michael Downed in “America” (April 2, 1994)
KEEP PUSHING ON
Never let success hide its emptiness from you, achievement its nothingness, toil its desolation. And so…keep alive the incentive to push on further, that pain in the soul which drives us beyond ourselves…. Do not look back.
And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward—your destiny—are here and now.
-Dag Hammarskjold in “Markings”
GIFT EXCHANGE
If life is to have meaning, and if God’s will is to be done, all of us have to accept who we are and what we are, give it back to God, and thank Him for the way He made us. What I am is God’s gift to me; what I do with it is my gift to Him.
-Warren W. Wiersbe in his autobiography, “Be Myself”
PLURALISM IS NOT NEW
While religious pluralism may be a novel experience for us, it is putting us in touch with the world that surrounded the biblical authors…. The pluralism and the paganism of Our Time were the common experience of the prophets and apostles. In Mesopotamia, there were thousands of gods and goddesses, many of which were known to the Israelites—indeed, sometimes known too well….
Nothing, therefore, could be more remarkable than to hear the contention, even from those within the Church, that the existence of religious pluralism today makes belief in the uniqueness of Christianity quite impossible. Had this been the necessary consequence of encountering a multitude of other religions, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul would have given up biblical faith long before it became fashionable…to do so.
-David Wells in “No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?”
NO INNER MUSIC
We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio to fill up the void…. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh in “Gift from the Sea”
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