June 17 1996

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Some people think the prayer of faith is crawling out on a limb and then begging God to keep someone from sawing it off. But that is not real prayer, that is presumption. If God makes it clear that he wants you out on a limb, fine--you will be perfectly safe there. If not, it is presumptuous to crawl out on that limb, expecting God to keep you there.

When we find ourselves deficient in wisdom, it is not because the Word of God has pages missing, but because we have not seen all there is on the pages we already have. It is not another book we need, but better attention to the book we have; it is not more knowledge we require, but better vision to see what has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.

The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.

The modern world has had far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.

Nathaniel [Nash] intuitively understood that there was a difference between skepticism and cynicism. . . . Skepticism is about asking questions, being dubious, being wary, not being gullible. Cynicism is about already having the answers--or thinking you do--about a person or an event. The skeptic says: "I don't ...