A Strategy Bound To Fail

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the "second mile", turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully - while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does. This is like the aspiring young baseball players mentioned earlier. It's a strategy bound to fail and to make the way of Christ "difficult and left untried." In truth it is not the way of Christ anymore than striving to act in a certain manner in the heat of a game is the way of the champion athlete.

Source: Willard, Dallas; The Spirit of the Disciplines, pp.5-6, 1988.