Nou, Stanley Donne legde ons uit dat alle godsdiensten ter wereld, occulte broederschappen, alle mystici en sjamanen, of het nu Rozenkruisers, Ridders van de Ronde Tafel, Egyptische hogepriesters, Tibetaanse boeddhistishce monniken, Zuid-Amerikaanse naguals, Indiase yogi's, Keltische druïden of discipelen van Jezus waren, allemaal hetzelfde doel nastreefden, namelijk om het bewustzijn van het individu dusdanig te vergroten en te verheffen dat hij of zij uiteindelijk tot een kosmisch bewustzijn komt en toetreedt tot hogere dimensies.

What has happened to create this doubt is that a problem (such as a deep conflict or a bad experience) has been allowed to usurp God's place and become the controlling principle of life. Instead of viewing the problem from the vantage point of faith, the doubter views faith from the vantage point of the problem. Instead of faith sizing up the problem, the situation ends with the problem scaling down faith. The world of faith is upside down, and in the topsy-turvy reality of doubt, a problem has become god and God has become a problem.

Concerning our faith in the Lord, I am convincedthat most of us have relied on willpower, self-effort, and religious activities in our attempts tolive a holy life. And eventually when we figure outthat those things don’t work, we do one of twothings: we start faking that we’re holy and developlives of duplicity and hypocrisy, or we simply agreewith one another that “the bar of holiness” is toohigh. We convince ourselves and one another thatGod doesn’t really expect us to live up to suchimpossible standards.

To trust in spite of the look of being forsaken; to keep crying out into the vast, whence comes no returning voice, and where seems no hearing; to see the machinery of the world pauselessly grinding on as if self-moved, caring for no life, nor shifting a hair-breadth for all entreaty, and yet believe that God is awake and utterly loving; to desire nothing but what comes meant for us from His hand; to wait patiently, ready to die of hunger, fearing only lest faith should fail--such is the victory that overcometh the world, such is faith indeed.

This in essence is my goal. To set an example by doing what is good. If I live openly and honestly, I set an example of virtue, humanness, restoration, and healing. I give others permission to join me on my journey despite the fear of failure or the rejection it might elicit when they know they are not alone in their experience. The more of us who amass the courage to embark openly on this path, the more normal this experience becomes, effectively eliminating the tactic of shame and isolation that the enemy so often uses to cause us to falter.

i thank You God for most this amazingday: for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky; and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)how should tasting touching hearing seeingbreathing any---lifted from the noof all nothing---human merely beingdoubt unimaginably You?(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)

A custom existed among the first generations of Christians, when faith was a bright fire that warmed more than those who kept it burning. In every house then a room was kept ready for any stranger who might ask for shelter; it was even called “the stranger’s room.” Not because these people thought they could trace something of someone they loved in the stranger who used it, not because the man or woman to whom they gave shelter reminded them of Christ, but because—plain and simple and stupendous fact—he or she was Christ.

In my return to church, I had learned the hard way to avoid assumptions about other people's faith. For one thing, people kept surprising me. If I listened carefully to them, my conjectures about what they thought usually turned out to be wrong. For another thing, I was insecure enough about my own faith, such as it was, to resent other people telling me what they thought I believed and why they thought I believed it. So I tried to hear what my friends say about joining their loved ones after death without assuming I knew exactly what they meant.

I don't follow Christ because I like how it makes me feel. I don't follow Christ because it was how I was raised. I don't follow Christ and believe the things I do as a crutch or because it's hipster or trendy. I follow Jesus Christ as Lord because based on the evidence from all areas and disciplines I study, as well my personal experience with Jesus Christ, Christianity is the most plausible answer. I follow Jesus Christ because unlike many things I used to tell myself, Jesus Christ is actually real and Christianity is actually true.

Who gets to be the judge of reality? If it was deeply felt, believed, spoken about often or altered your life course, then it was real enough. Faith doesn't get the luxury of all those things one hundred percent of the time, but we call that normal behavior based on a gut feeling.” I said. I looked at his wife and she busted out laughing. Her husband was trying to catch invisible butterflies above his head—dementia. My patients teach me the most sobering of truths: Why wreck his smile. If I could see them, I would want to catch them too.

[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.

I was challenged to do a little exercise with these verses (1 Cor 13:4-8), one that was profoundly convicting. Take the phrase "Love is patient" and substitute your name for the word "love." (For me, "Francis is patient...") Do it for every phrase in the passage. By the end, don't you feel like a liar? If I am meant to represent what love is, then I often fail to love people well.Following Christ isn't something that can be done halfheartedly or on the side. It is not a label we can display when it is useful. It must be central to everything we do and are.

Reading a book about something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives you the impression that you are doing what you are only thinking about doing. It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of our imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you. It is like a book on a shelf. But, as Dostoyevsky says, 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams' (The Brothers Karamazov).

But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.

I still find my corrupt heart longing for tomorrow's bread. I can make a good argument to the Lord about how effective I can be if He would supply me with enough advance funds. It's a little frightening to pray for TODAY's bread. That means I must pray again for tomorrow and believe again for tomorrow. My greedy heart is willing to be corrupted by a little bit of riches so that I see my warehouse full of loaves. I can make a good argument about how God won’t have to be bothered with me every day if He would only advance me about ten years worth of bread.