Opening Yourself to God
I don't know about you, but when I go through difficult times,
often that's when I am most cautious and closed to God. I am
learning, however, that God cannot place a gift or a seed in a
clenched fist, a closed soul. The heart and soul must be open,
radically open, in order for us to receive the seeds of authentic
faith….

Faith is not discovery. Faith is recovery. Faith is recovering
again and again, particularly after we go through all of our dry
times. Faith is not possession. Faith is the posture of openness.

--from the sermon "Preparing the Soil of Your Soul"
by the Rev. Dr. Douglass M. Bailey

Read the sermon in its entirety.