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Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come underneath, where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.

Richard J. Foster

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Richard J. Foster
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More quotes by Richard J. Foster

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Conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
Richard J. Foster
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In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of the Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicaed, Spirit-empowered peole. All of creation watches expectantly for the springing up of a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this likfe the life and power of the Kindgom of God. It happened before, it can happen again.
Richard J. Foster
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Over-consumption is a cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask the moral questions.
Richard J. Foster
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Simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us.
Richard J. Foster
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Inward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.
Richard J. Foster
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Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in muchness and manyness, he will rest satisfied.
Richard J. Foster
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It is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores. This should not be. Of all people, we should be the most free, alive, interesting.
Richard J. Foster
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We must understand the connection between inner solitude and inner silence they are inseparable. All the masters of the interior life speak of the two in the same breath.
Richard J. Foster
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Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to Him. He grieves that we have forgotten Him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence.
Richard J. Foster
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Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.
Richard J. Foster
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Thinking is the hardest work we can do, and among the most important
Richard J. Foster
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In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience.
Richard J. Foster
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God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.
Richard J. Foster
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Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.
Richard J. Foster
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To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.
Richard J. Foster
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In the context of Quaker worship, it is perfectly appropriate for any person in the congregation to speak a timely word from the Lord.
Richard J. Foster
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Countless people pray far more than they know. Often they have such a stained-glass image of prayer that they fail to recognize what they are experiencing as prayer and so condemn themselves for not praying.
Richard J. Foster
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Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.
Richard J. Foster
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Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.
Richard J. Foster
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Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action.
Richard J. Foster