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In intellectual honesty, we should be willing to study and explore the spiritual life with all the rigor and determination we would give to any field of research.

Richard J. Foster

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Richard J. Foster
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More quotes by Richard J. Foster

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It is Stoicism that demands a closed universe, not the Bible.
Richard J. Foster
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When the poor farmer of India is unable to buy a gallon of gasoline to run his simple water pump because the world's demand has priced him out of the market, who is to blame?
Richard J. Foster
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Spiritual direction involves a process through which one person helps another person understand what God is doing and saying.
Richard J. Foster
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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
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The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.
Richard J. Foster
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We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.
Richard J. Foster
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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
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In spiritual direction there is absolutely no domination or control.
Richard J. Foster
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Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.
Richard J. Foster
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The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it is a grace that is given.
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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Conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
Richard J. Foster
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I think of Pope Gregory the Great. He wanted the cloister. He wanted to pray and study, and yet he was thrust into this administrative job, and he submitted to that. And in that submission, he became a great leader. You could say that the only person who is safe to lead is the person who is free to submit.
Richard J. Foster
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Our God is not made of stone. His heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God. God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude.
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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You will never have time for prayer you must make time.
Richard J. Foster
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Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
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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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
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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