Annie Dillard Quotes

What does the divine sufferer (Jesus) demand from us? Only our faith, our love, our grateful praise, our consecrated hearts and lives. Is that too much to ask?

Work, my children, work with your whole heart and soul! That is the thing. Mind not the fruit of work. What if you go to hell working for others? That is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation... Sri Ramakrishna came and gave his life for the world. I will also sacrifice my life.

Passion is best spent on God; so get committed.

I'm proud, I've been working with this kind of self-sacrificing people like you.

Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort but what they find in one another and their work.

When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.

We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king.

He who labours, prays.

God requires you individually to come up to the point, to make an entire surrender. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Trying to do Christianity properly is tough. Life as a priest is rigorous and disciplined. It involves sacrifices.

Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

I play Dwight. That is just much me being of service and worshiping as if I'm on my knees in some temple somewhere or bowing my head in prayer to God in some way. It's really all just the same thing.

Nothing is menial where there is love.

Singing is as much an act of worship as is prayer.

Worship is love on its knees before the beloved; just as mission is love on its feet to serve the beloved

Labor, you know, is prayer.

Phrases like Worship Service or Service of Worship are tautologies. To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for Him that He needs to have done - run errands for Him, carry messages for Him, fight on His side, feed His lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for Him that you need to do - sing songs for Him, tell Him what's on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in Him.

When you use your life for God's glory, everything you do can become an act of worship

Whatever thing a man sets his heart on...is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel that man is laboring in idolatry.

Unless we put heart and soul into our labor we but brutify our actions.

The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him.

The religion of which you are a part is 7 days a week. It isn't just Sunday, it isn't the block plan, it isn't just 3 hours in church, it isn't just the time you spend in Seminary - it's all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

I am a missionary, heart and soul. God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. I am a poor, poor imitation of Him, or wish to be. In this service I hope to live; in it I wish to die!

I think Oscar Wilde wrote a poem about a robin who loved a white rose. He loved it so much that he pierced his breast and let his heart's blood turn the white rose red. Maybe this sounds very sentimental, but for anybody who has loved a career as much as I've loved mine, there can be no short cuts.

Only in prayer can we learn to love God with all our heart, mind and soul.