I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of restraint in communication, valuing understanding over the need to always be right.
Dallas Willard's quote highlights a crucial aspect of personal growth and effective communication: the discipline of not needing to have the last word in a discussion. It suggests that true wisdom lies in listening and understanding others rather than insisting on one's own perspective, fostering healthier relationships and deeper connections with those around us.
In practice
During a team meeting, I reminded myself of this quote to promote a more collaborative atmosphere.
The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as βChristiansβ will become disciples β students, apprentices, practitioners β of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.
The first act of love is always the giving of attention.
So many people would like to have guidance from God because obviously, if you have a word from God, it's the best possible thing. But they don't relate that to life as a whole. Often they want guidance as a way of opting out of the responsibility of making decisions.
What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. That is what it means to fly upside down.
The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.
When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.
But if our sex would but well consider and rationally ponder, they will perceive and find that it is neither words nor place that can advance them, but worth and merit.
Work is always an antidote to depression.
Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.
The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
Women should have the true nurse calling, the good of the sick first the second only the consideration of what is their 'place' to do - and that women who want for a housemaid to do this or the charwomen to do that, when the patient is suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.