People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.
John OrtbergRead
The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he's coming down.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that in the pursuit of success and ambition, one may overlook spiritual and moral values represented by Jesus.
John Ortberg's quote highlights the irony of focusing solely on worldly success and ambition, represented by 'climbing up the ladder.' It implies that in this relentless pursuit, individuals may miss the important spiritual guidance or presence of Jesus, who symbolizes a descent toward humility and the importance of prioritizing moral values over material achievements.
In practice
In a motivational speech about prioritizing values over career success.
People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.
It may be a very bad thing that I needed God to die for me, but it is a wonderful thing that God thinks I am worth dying for.
Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.
This is what I call understanding. If you understand, insecurity is an intrinsic part of life - and good that it is so, because it makes life a freedom, it makes life a continuous surprise. One never knows what is going to happen. It keeps you continuously in wonder. Don't call it uncertainty - call it wonder. Don't call it insecurity - call it freedom.
Because we believe that our ethnic group, our society, our political party, our God, is better than your God, we kill each other.
When you feel expansion of your consciousness, that is the most ecstatic experience possible, because suddenly you are the whole universe. Stars are within you. The sun rises within you and sets within you. The earth moves within you. The flowers blossom within you.
We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.
In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.
When we oppose the hidden conscience, it does us hurt. When we betray it, it judges us.
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