passion on Enjoyment

We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ...

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have go...

Just this morning, my family attended church with our son who has autism. He was particularly enthused by the music today, and he was moving around quite a bit. A man in the choir noticed our son, and...

Passion creates, addiction consumes.”

Hope is passion for what is possible.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord. On his law he medita...

Suffering is nothing by itself. But suffering shared with the passion of Christ is a wonderful gift, the most beautiful gift, a token of love.

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion ...

The problem with making your passion the thing that guides you is that passion can trick you into avoiding tasks that maybe aren’t fun but that are absolutely vital to get you to where you need to be....

A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...

Success is waking up in the morning, whoever you are, wherever you are, however old or young, and bounding out of bed because there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that...

In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...

As any parent of small children will tell you, children have an amazingly acute sense of justice. Even the most fractional disparity in the distribution of the most trivial family good will be met wit...

Lack of interest in mission is not fundamentally caused by an absence of compassion or commitment, nor by lack of information or exhortation. And lack of interest in mission is not remedied by more sh...

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spiri...

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

Every one of us has a WHY, a deep-seated purpose, cause or belief that is the source of our passion and inspiration. You may not yet know what yours is or how to express it in words. But we guarantee,...

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Building a boat isn’t about weaving canvas, forging nails, or reading the sky. It’s about giving a shared taste for the sea, by the light of which you will see nothing contradictory but rather a commu...

One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions lack civility.

Almighty God, we settle for false peace. We see no need to rock the boat, so we allow injustice to rule and reign. God, give us the conviction to take on the work of peacemaking. Give us the courage, ...

I’ve never really played a single note in my life. For 8 years I played the clarinet growing up. Actually, that’s not true. I took lessons but I’m not sure I actually played the clarinet. I went to h...

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins— is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?

I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had car...

The story of Passion-Tide and Easter is the story of the winning of that freedom and of that victory over the evils of Time. The burden of the guilt is accepted (“He was made Sin”), the last agony of ...

Dearly Beloved, the ax lying at the root of the trees is not for punishment, but pruning. Therefore, trusting in God’s tender mercy, we examine ourselves, that we may see ourselves clearly...

Amazed, bewildered, they are gathered around him, whose pondered resolution comes to rest, withdrawing him from all the ties that bound him--a stranger gliding by with thoughts unguessed. He feels tha...

I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.

In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time, and…when the torch is put to it, that which is within you must burst into blaze...