186 Quotes by Richard J. Foster

Confession is a difficult discipline for us, because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin.

Prayer is more than thoughts and feelings expressed in words. It is the opening of mind and heart – our whole being to God our Abba Father. It is Divine Union.

The spiritual discipline of simplicity is not a lost dream, but a recurrent version throughout history. It can be recaptured today. It must be.

The truly Christian imagination never lets Jesus Christ out of her sight.

Thomas Merton says, “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!”2.

When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received. 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.

And so I urge you: carry on an ongoing conversation with God about the daily stuff of life, a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. For now, do not worry about “proper” praying, just talk to God.

Willpower will never succeed in dealing with the deeply ingrained habits of sin. Emmet.

Prayer is seeing His greatness to the extent we can receive it.