Wednesday, July 09, 2014


“More than anything else one suspects that this is at the root of irreligion. It is not skepticism, but preoccupation, which generally makes the innermost relationships of a man’s soul with God of no account. The highest is in us all. At times it flames up and we know that we are not dust but spirit, and that in fellowship with the Spiritual Life, from whom we came, is our power and our peace. But many a man who has known the meaning and the might of this relationship has largely lost it, not because theoretically he has disbelieved, but because practically he has crowded it out.
“Sometime,” the man says, “I will attend to these deepest and finest relationships.”
Meanwhile he picks up his life as a football runner does the ball and speeds across the field. He does not notice the ground across which he runs; his eyes are set upon the goal. He has no present; he has only a future. The most enriching relationships of life, from family love and friendship to religious faith, offer their best to him, but he runs by. “Sometime,” he says.
That time never comes; it never will come. What he needs most to learn is that the days are not a football field to be run over, but gardens to be tilled, and that, if tilled well, they can grow now the things of which heaven is made.”

Author unknown, pic from the internet.  

1 comment:

Douglas Abbott said...

I'm still trying to figure this one out, Fred. I think this is basically correct. However, I have tried many, many times to make God my primary focus in life. I have ended up in a stale netherworld empty of food and drink and felt the pain of deprivation --- and something else that hurts even worse. I always get drawn back to the things that preoccupy me. God, of course, has done wonders in spite of this situation. He has helped me, through adversity, fellowship, teaching and all sorts of other things, to give him more and more importance in my decisions and my thoughts. This has been his work, not mine.