Idolizing Quotes

“The temptation is to make an idol of our own experience, to assume our pain is more singular than it is. Experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself: we mean nothing unless and until our hard-won meanings are internalized and catalyzed within the lives of others. There is something I am meant to see, something for which my own situation and suffering are the lens, but the cost of such seeing—I am just beginning to realize—may very well be any final clarity or perspective on my own life, my own faith. That would not be a bad fate, to burn up like the booster engine that falls away from the throttling rocket, lighting a little dark as I go.”

“The temptation is to make an idol of our own experience, to assume our pain is more singular than it is. Experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself: we mean nothing unless and until our hard-won meanings are internalized and catalyzed within the lives of others. There is something I am meant to see, something for which my own situation and suffering are the lens, but the cost of such seeing—I am just beginning to realize—may very well be any final clarity or perspective on my own life, my own faith. That would not be a bad fate, to burn up like the booster engine that falls away from the throttling rocket, lighting a little dark as I go.”

“Sometimes we control our family members because we idolize and idealize our perfect plan over the journey that God has laid out for them. (p. 56)”

“I usually don't like to 'spoon feed' my audience, because I grew up idolizing story tellers who tell stories using symbolism, so it was in my nature to do the same.”

“Healthy personalities accept themselves not in any self-idolizing way but in the sense that they see themselves as persons who are worth giving to another and worthy to receive from another.”

“Rather than idolizing perfection, we must choose to cherish what is real. To truly live is to love deeply, to get messy, to sometimes get hurt, and to stumble and fall. It is worth it. The alternative of living a life barren of these things in the pursuit of perfection would be tragically uninteresting.”

“Sadly enough, some people are insecure in such a way that they cannot bear the thought of the sovereignty of God, the thought of His Being as greater than themselves. It makes them feel insignificant. But I know if I were to worship and obey anything, I would like it far greater than myself or any person or human system, preferably to the point that which it, perhaps, in all its majesty, makes me feel lost and even 'creatural' in my sheer humanity. Only this God - He who is great beyond human measure, yet still considers His creation precious - I find to be more than worthy of praise; otherwise, I bow down and worship nothing. And if the thought of such a superior and almighty God were to indeed offend me, I would have to remember that it is because I am only as significant as the things which I am idolizing, things which are ultimately separating me, the creation, from my original Creator.”

“I cursed myself. For once, heaven had sent me "Beauty" in its most perfected form and I abandoned it. She might not have been a girl after all but an angel: a force to guide me on this hazardous path of life I hurry down... How can life be hazardous if it can only end in death?”