Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard J. Foster
Praying
Condemn
Failing
Experiencing
Prayer
Glass
Often
Glasses
People
Pray
Recognize
Fail
Stained
Image
Countless

More quotes by Richard J. Foster

Image
Spiritual direction involves a process through which one person helps another person understand what God is doing and saying.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Prayer is the human response to the perpetual outpouring of love by which God lays siege to every soul.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.
Richard J. Foster
Image
The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its way into our experience, then we have missed the point of the Disciplines. We are dealing with actions, not merely states of mind.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Prayer is simply saying thank you, bless you, praise you.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Simplicity, then, is getting in touch with the divine center
Richard J. Foster
Image
Prayer involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills.
Richard J. Foster
Image
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
Image
The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find Him at all.
Richard J. Foster
Image
One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.
Richard J. Foster
Image
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
Image
Go another step. Try to live one entire day without words at all. Do it not as a law, but as an experiment. Note your feelings of helplessness and excessive dependence upon words to communicate. Try to find new ways to relate to tohers that are not dependent upon words. Enjoy, savor the day. Learn from it.
Richard J. Foster
Image
To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Resentments cannot be held with the same tenacity when we enter his gracious light.
Richard J. Foster
Image
As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.
Richard J. Foster
Image
The message from all quarters is the same: our undisciplined consumption must end. If we continue to gobble up our resources without any regard to stewardship and to spew out our deadly wastes over land, sea, and air, we may well be drawing down the final curtain upon ourselves.
Richard J. Foster
Image
You will never have time for prayer you must make time.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of forms and rituals. We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshiped the Lord until Spirit touches spirit.
Richard J. Foster