Quotes about Awakening

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things. —Mechtild of Magdeburg (1212—1282)

The Biblical revelation is about awakening, not accomplishing. You cannot get there, you can only be there, but the foundational Being-in-God, for some reason, is too hard to believe, and too good to be true for most people. Only the humble will usually believe it and receive it, because it affirms more about God than it does about us. Proud people are not attracted to such explanations.

This Holy Spirit guiding all of us from home and toward home is also described in John's Gospel as an "advocate" ("a defense attorney," as paraclete literally means, John 14:16), who will "teach us" and "remind us," as if some part of us already knew but still needed an inner buzz or alarm clock to wake us up.

Once you wake up, as Jesus and Pope Francis have, you know that cleaning up is a constant process that comes on different timetables for different people, around many different issues, and for very different motivations. This is why love and growth demand discernment, not enforcement.

Asking for something from God does not mean talking God into it; it means an awakening of the gift within ourselves.

The flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day. The light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.

Everyone has some inner power that awaits discovery.

Surely revival delays because prayer decays.

It takes discipline and compassion to awaken the divine in ourselves long enough to recognize the divine in another.

Truths that wake, to perish never.

The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.

We must be serious about church growth if we are concerned about the future of the Church of Jesus Christ. Church growth is not just another fad. Jesus came to build a Church, and that Church has been asleep until now. It is waking up! Any church that wakes up is going to grow.