In one way or another, it is a common mistake to think transformation is all in the will. And it isn’t! It’s in the mind – how we think, what occupies our minds, and so forth. It’s in our feelings. It’s in our body.
The aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from…Circumcision of the heart.
In solitude we find psychic distance, the perspective from which we can see, in the light of eternity, the created things that trap, worry, and oppress us.
The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer-the responses of our Father to our requests-our confidence in God’s power spills over into other areas of our life.
Discipline, strictly speaking, is activity carried on to prepare us indirectly for some activity other than itself. We do not practice the piano to practice the piano well, but to play it well.
Bodily pleasure is not in itself a bad thing. But when it is exalted to a necessity and we become dependent upon it, then we are slaves of our body and its feelings. Only misery lies ahead.
The different parts of the automobile like the ignition switch, the various buttons, the steering wheel – the interfaces between the driver and the machine – is our spirit or heart.
Suppose we have a motor and our transmission doesn’t work or our clutch or whatever. Then our body, our motor, just takes us down the road. Or our brakes don’t work! We must have a coordination system.
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