Monday, April 08, 2013

Do not forget Repentance














In the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness. One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.

Selah. Kierkegaard, "Emissaries from Eternity," Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, edited by Charles Moore, 41.

Friday, April 05, 2013

A new kind of perfection vs. the saddest thing in the world



With respect to physical existence, one needs little, and to the degree that one needs less, the more perfect one is. In a human being’s relationship with God, however, it is inverted: the more one needs God the more perfect he is. To need God is nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself. It is the saddest thing in the world if a human being goes through life without discovering that he needs God!

Selah.

Soren Kierkegaard, "To Need God Is Perfection," Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, edited by Charles Moore, 30.