...I realized that in so much of my life I had been a spiritual sensualist, always wanting to feel God's presence in my prayers and feeling depressed when I didn't. I saw that until I could believe without spiritual goose pimples I would always be vacillating, and my faith would be at the mercy of my emotional feelings. So I tried this praying whether I felt spiritual or not; and for the first time in my life found that we can live on raw faith. I found that very often the very act of praying this way brings later a closer sense of God's presence. And I realized a strange thing: that if a person in his praying has the feeling, he doesn't really need the faith. I began to feel very tender toward God on those mornings during which I would pray without any conscious sense of His Presence. I felt this way because at last I was giving back to Him the gift of faith.
-Keith Miller, The Taste of New Wine
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