I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.
JOHN ORTBERGRelated Topics
Anand Thakur
I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.
JOHN ORTBERGGod sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become.
JOHN ORTBERGWe who preach have one tool. We are people of the book.
JOHN ORTBERGIt’s better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.
JOHN ORTBERGSloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done – like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.
JOHN ORTBERGGod is so immense that if he were ‘too visible,’ people would give forced compliance without expressing their heart. So God made it possible, in enormous love, for us to live as if he were not there.
JOHN ORTBERGAs long as we have unsolved problems, unfulfilled desires, and a mustard seed of faith, we have all we need for a vibrant prayer life.
JOHN ORTBERGIn reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
JOHN ORTBERGLeadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand.
JOHN ORTBERGThe greatest bloodbaths in the history of the human race were recorded in the twentieth century in countries that sought to eliminate God, worship, and faith.
JOHN ORTBERGWhen we live in the love of God, we begin to pay attention to people the way God pays attention to us.
JOHN ORTBERGOne of the most painful aspects of suffering is the loneliness of it. Others may offer support or empathy, but no one can walk the road to Moriah in our place.
JOHN ORTBERGThe character of the faith that allows us to be transformed by suffering and darkness is not doubt-free certainty; rather, it is tenacious obedience.
JOHN ORTBERGLove and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don’t have.
JOHN ORTBERGWhen preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it’s done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.
JOHN ORTBERGEvery human being who has ever lived has suffered from a messiah complex-except one.
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