Matthew Wright’s Reviews > Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life > Status Update

Christians created coffee!

Pleasure is our deep human response to an encounter with beauty and goodness. And these moments of pleasure-of delight, enjoyment, aw, and a reverie-we respond to God, impulsively with our very bodies: “ Yes, we agree! Your creation is very good!”

Christians throughout history-Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox alike— have confessed that it is impossible to have a relationship with Christ outside of a vital relationship with the church, Christ's body and bride.

But while an individual relationship with Jesus is an important part of the Christian life, it is not the sum total of the Christian life. Our relationship with God is never less than an intimate relationship with Christ, but it is always more than that.

If we believe that church is merely a voluntary society of people with shared values, then it is entirely optional. If the church helps you with your personal relationship with God, great; if not, I know a great brunch place that's open on Sunday.

Some people suggest that impatience is at the root of all sing.

God intended man to have all good, but in Godish time; and therefore, all disobedience, All sin, consist, essentially in breaking out of time.
Patience is the basic constituent of Christianity… The power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endured to the end, to practice the meekness of the Lamb.

Our task is not to somehow inject God into our work but to join God in the work He is already doing in and through our vocational lives.

But we must also learn to follow Jesus in this work-a-day world of raising kids, caring for our neighbors,
Budgeting, doing laundry, and living our days responsibly, which stability, generosity, and faithfulness.