Os Guinness
Os Guinness
Os Guinnessis an English author and social critic...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth30 September 1941
CountryIreland
audience-of-one work-out calling
In working out our callings, we are to perform for one audience, the audience of One.
irrelevance effort faithful
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
keys stories calling
Calling is a 'yes' to God that carries a 'no' to the chaos of modern demands. Calling is the key to tracing the story line of our lives and unriddling the meaning of our existence in a chaotic world.
becoming calling matter
Calling is not only a matter of being and doing what we are but also of becoming what we are not yet but are called by God to be.
christian missionary bishops
Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting--it has been found wanting, and not tried.
agency perfect employment
This is also why it is wrong to treat God as a grand employment agency, a celestial executive searcher to find perfect fits for our perfect gifts. The truth is not that God is finding a place for our gifts but that God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing – and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there.
christian religious united-states
The United States is at a turning point because of a decreasing influence of faith .
christian understanding quality
To come to faith on the basis of experience alone is unwise, though not so foolish as to reject faith altogether because of lack of experience ... the quality of a Christian's experience depends on the quality of his faith, just as the quality of his faith depends in turn on the quality of his understanding of God's truth.
addiction alcohol today
Negative freedom is freedom from - freedom from oppression, whether it's a colonial power or addiction to alcohol oppressing you. You need to be freed from negative freedom. Positive freedom is freedom for, freedom to be. And that's what's routinely ignored today.
opposites self have-faith
The opposite of having faith is having self-pity.
waiting argument
Culturally, one of the best arguments we can make is, wait and see.
christian problem should
The problem with Western Christians is not that they aren't where they should be but that they aren't what they should be where they are.
arrogance mystery forget
We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in God's dealing with us.
purpose asceticism emotion
Mastering our emotions has nothing to do with asceticism or repression, for the purpose is not to break the emotions or deny them but to "break in" the emotions, making them teachable because they are tamed.