"The agonizing moments through which I have passed during the last few years have also drawn me closer to God. More than ever before I am convinced of the reality of a personal God. True, I have always believed in the personality of God. But in the past the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category that I found theologically and philosophically satisfying. Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life. God has been profoundly real to me in recent years. In the midst of outer dangers, I felt an inner calm. In the midst of lonely days and dreary nights, I have heard an inner voice saying, 'Lo, I will be with you.' When the chains of fear and the manacles of frustration have all but stymied my efforts, I have felt the power of God transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope. I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship. Behind the harsh appearances of the world there is a benign power. To say that this God is personal is not to make him a finite object beside other finite objects or attribute to him the limitations of human personality; it is to take what is the finest and noblest in our consciousness and affirm its perfect existence in him. It is certainly true that human personality is limited, but personality as such involves no necessary limitations. It means simply self-consciousness and self-direction. So in the truest sense of the word, God is a living God. In him there is feeling and will responsive to the deepest yearnings of the human heart: This God both evokes and answers prayer."
P. 163, "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," STRENGTH TO LOVE, by Martin Luther King, Jr.(Fortress Press, Minn.MN: 1963, 2010)
Strength to Love
A collection of sermons by the African-American civil rights leader explains his convictions in terms of the conditions and problems of contemporary society.
BOOKS.GOOGLE.COM
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
STRENGTH TO LOVE....
"The agonizing moments through which I have passed during the last few years have also drawn me closer to God. More than ever before I am convinced of the reality of a personal God. True, I have always believed in the personality of God. But in the past the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category that I found theologically and philosophically satisfying. Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life. God has been profoundly real to me in recent years. In the midst of outer dangers, I felt an inner calm. In the midst of lonely days and dreary nights, I have heard an inner voice saying, 'Lo, I will be with you.' When the chains of fear and the manacles of frustration have all but stymied my efforts, I have felt the power of God transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope. I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship. Behind the harsh appearances of the world there is a benign power. To say that this God is personal is not to make him a finite object beside other finite objects or attribute to him the limitations of human personality; it is to take what is the finest and noblest in our consciousness and affirm its perfect existence in him. It is certainly true that human personality is limited, but personality as such involves no necessary limitations. It means simply self-consciousness and self-direction. So in the truest sense of the word, God is a living God. In him there is feeling and will responsive to the deepest yearnings of the human heart: This God both evokes and answers prayer."
P. 163, "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," STRENGTH TO LOVE, by Martin Luther King, Jr.(Fortress Press, Minn.MN: 1963, 2010)
Strength to Love
A collection of sermons by the African-American civil rights leader explains his convictions in terms of the conditions and problems of contemporary society.
BOOKS.GOOGLE.COM