Writing to pay attention

I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention. Experience in itself wasn’t enough. The diary was my defense against waking up at the end of my life and realizing I’d missed it.

Sarah Manguso

Keller: praying without and with the gospel

...the Christian who understands the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit seeks God not primarily to gain reward or avoid punishment (since both are guaranteed in Christ anyway). Christians seek God for themselves.  Without the gospel we may come and ask for things. Without the gospel, we may conceive of a holy God who is intimidating and who can be approached with petitions only if we are very good.  Or we may conceive of a God whose "love" just means he regards everyone positively.  To approach the first kind of 'God' is fearsome; to approach the second kind of God is no big deal.  Thus without the gospel, there is no possibility of passioon and delight to praise and approach the true God.

Prayer, p79

Tozer: pursuing God

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end. 

The Pursuit of God, p20