Richard Foster (theologian) - Celebration of discipline (1978)

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Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father.

Richard Foster
We must understand the connection between inner solitude and inner silence; they are inseparable. All the masters of the interior life speak of the two in the same breath.

Richard Foster
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.

Richard Foster
In the chapter on study we considered the importance of observing ourselves to see how often our speech is a frantic attempt to explain and justify our actions. Having seen this in ourselves, let's experiment with doing deeds without any words of explanation whatever. We note our sense of fear that people will misunderstand why we have done what we have done. We seek to allow God to be our justifier.

Richard Foster
Let's discipline ourselves so that our words are few and full.

Richard Foster
The inner attitude of the heart is far more crucial than the mechanics for coming into the reality of the spiritual life.

Richard Foster
The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its way into our experience, then we have missed the point of the Disciplines. We are dealing with actions, not merely states of mind.

Richard Foster
If the Lord is to be Lord, worship must have priority in our lives. The divine priority is worship first, service second.

Richard Foster
Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different.

Richard Foster
Simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us.

Richard Foster
If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.

Richard Foster