The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.

Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.

Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.

As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.

In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of the Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicaed, Spirit-empowered peole. All of creation watches expectantly for the springing up of a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this likfe the life and power of the Kindgom of God. It happened before, it can happen again.

Overpopulation is the problem of the third and fourth World; over-consumption is the problem of the West. The average American child this year will consume as much of the world's resources as twenty children born in India. Deliberate and calculated waste is the central aspect of the American economy. We over-eat, over-buy, and over-built, spewing out our toxic wastes upon the earth and into the air.