The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
Philip YanceyRead
Someone asked the Swiss physician & author Paul Tournier how he helped his patients get rid of their fears. He replied, 'I don't. Everything that's worthwhile in life is scary. Choosing a school, choosing a career, getting married, having kids--all those things are scary. If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.'
Interpretation
Embracing fear is essential for meaningful experiences in life.
This quote highlights the idea that many significant life choices come with fear and uncertainty. It suggests that confronting and accepting these fears is a crucial part of pursuing meaningful experiences, as the most worthwhile endeavors often involve risk and challenge.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming fears in career choices.
The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.
In the stories of extravagant grace given to us by Jesus, there are no loopholes disqualifying us from God's love.
Parents learn the uses of power and its limits. They can insist on certain outward behavior but cannot change inner attitudes. They can require obedience but not goodness - and certainly not love.
Prayer is to the skeptic a delusion, a waste of time. To the believer it represents perhaps the most important use of time.
We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness, - an open and noble temper.
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
I’m ALIVE. Thinking about it, noticing it, is new. You do things and don’t watch. Then all of a sudden you look and see what you’re doing and it’s the first time, really.
Patience is that the heart does not feel anger towards that which is destined and that the mouth does not complain.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
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