Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard J. Foster
Giving
Control
Things
Pleasure
Idea
Culture
Give
Ideas
Owning
Feel
Obsession
Feels
Illusion

More quotes by 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
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
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
Richard J. Foster
Image
You will never have time for prayer you must make time.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. Its central reality is found 'in spirit and truth.' It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit.
Richard J. Foster
Image
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
Image
If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy.
Richard J. Foster
Image
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.
Richard J. Foster
Image
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
Image
If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.
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
If the Lord is to be Lord, worship must have priority in our lives. The divine priority is worship first, service second.
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
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
Image
Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different
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
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
May God give you - and me- the courage, the wisdom, the strength always to hold the kingdom of God as the number one priority of our lives. To do so is to live in simplicity.
Richard J. Foster
Image
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
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