I’m reading this little book by Richard Foster. I think a lot of folks are turned off by people who call themselves Christians because the Scriptures are presented as a sort of textbook or rule book. When, in truth, it’s really a story book.
The Bible is filled with a bunch of stories about how God wants to be with us. It’s all about his pursuit of people. When read like that, the Scriptures breath life into dry, thirsty souls . . . like mine.
Just as God kept saying in ancient times, so God keeps saying today: “I am with you in all the love and terror and pity and pain and wonder that is your life. I am with you. Are you willing to be with Me?”
- Richard Foster, Life With God, p. viii.
Perhaps somewhere in the subterranean chambers of your life you have heard the call to deeper, fuller living. You have become weary of frothy experiences and shallow teaching. Every now and then you have caught glimpses, hints of something more than you have known. Inwardly you long to launch out into the deep.
Richard Foster. Celebration of Discipline.
Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline.
I pursue you, Jesus, so that I may be caught by you.
I press in so that I may know your heart.
I stay close so that I may be like you.
Loving Lord, grant me:
purity of heart,
humility of soul,
integrity of life,
charity for all.
Richard Foster, Prayers from the Heart
We follow him in all things, learning from him, receiving his strength, and living as he would live if he were in our place.
Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water, p. 15.
Loving God, I choose this day to be a servant. I yield my right to command and demand. I give up my need to manage and control. I relinquish all schemes of manipulation and exploitation
For Jesus’ sake,
Amen
Richard Foster, Prayers from the Heart. p. 26.
Spirit of the living God, be the Gardener of my soul. For so long I have been waiting, silent and still — experiencing a winter of the soul. But now, in the strong name of Jesus Christ, I dare to ask:
Clear away the dead growth of the past,
Break up the hard clods of custom and routine,
Stir in the rich compost of vision and challenge,
Bury deep in my soul the implanted Word,
Cultivate and water and tend my heart,
Until new life buds and opens and flowers
Amen.
- Richard Foster, Prayers from the Heart, p. 3.
My whole life in one sense, has been an experiment in how to be a portable sanctuary — learning to practice the presence of God in the midst of the stresses and strains of contemporary life. Some people who read my books are surprised that I have never been drawn to a monastic life, as important and valuable as that way of life is. For me, the great challenge has always been to experience the reality of God in the midst of going to work and raising kids and cleaning house and paying the bills.
- Richard Foster, Prayers from the Heart. p. xi.
That’s pretty much what I want my life to be. A continual practice of the presence of God. Nothing fancy. Nothing spiritual. Just life the way it was intended to live. Dang, I’m terrible at it! Thankfully, Jesus is very patient with me.
Jesus lived in this broken, painful world, learning obedience, through the things that he suffered, tempted in all the ways we are, and yet remaining without sin. We are, to be sure, reconciled by God by Jesus’ death, but even more, we are “saved” by his life (Rom. 5.10) — saved in the sense of entering into his eternal kind of life, not just in some distant heaven but right now in the midst of our broken and sorrowful world. When we carefully consider how Jesus lived while among us in the flesh, we learn how we are to live — truly live – empowered by him who is with us always even to the end of the age. We then begin an intentional imitation of Christ, not in some slavish or literal fashion, but by catching the spirit and power in which he lived and by learning to walk in his steps.
- Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water. Pg. 1.