Tuesday, February 14, 2012

the deep, strong, blessed restlessness

But even though errors are numerous, truths are still only one, and there is only one who is “the Way and the Life,” only one guidance that indeed leads a person through life to life. Thousands upon thousands carry a name by which it is indicated that they have chosen this guidance, that they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, after whom they call themselves Christians, that they are his bond-servants, whether they be masters or servants, slaves or freeborn, men or women. Christians they call themselves and they also call themselves by other names, and all of them designate the relation to this one guidance. They call themselves believers and thereby signify that they are pilgrims, strangers and aliens in the world. Indeed, a staff in the hand does not identify a pilgrim as definitely as calling oneself a believer publicly testifies that one is on a journey, because faith simply means: What I am seeking is not here, and for that very reason I believe it. Faith expressly signifies the deep, strong, blessed restlessness that drives the believer so that he cannot settle down at rest in this world, and therefore the person who has settled down completely at rest has also ceased to be a believer, because a believer cannot sit still as one sits with a pilgrim's staff in one's hand – a believer travels forward. 

Soren Kierkegaard

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