Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Trump: 'We're going to win so much, you're going to be so sick and tired of winning'. Had enough yet, or do you desire more in the same as gluttons who loved punishment.

New research shows why those who search for personal glory fail as leaders.

You would most likely agree that a key component of leadership is the ability to inspire others through one’s own personal charismatic appeal. During times of crisis, such as during the current COVID-19 pandemic, you particularly need to be able to trust those who offer public guidelines, reassurances, and updates. It might be the head of your organization who sends out a video message, a national or regional politician, or a local religious official.

You want to believe the people in charge who deliver their words with great confidence. However, what if these are people you've come to conclude from their past behavior that they derive their self-assurance from the grandiose form of narcissism? Does it make you wonder whether they have your best interests in mind or does it seem that they just want to grab the limelight?

To be sure, a key component of leadership is the ability to inspire others so that they will follow and this can require a healthy dose of positive self-regard. Equally important to leadership is the ability to withstand criticism if not the public humiliation of losing an election. Indeed, people who run for their nation’s highest offices may famously fail on their first try or two.
Those who seek promotions in the workplace, similarly, may be turned down a few times before they receive the advancement they crave. 


You might have even experienced the pain of losing the confidence of those you want to lead if you’ve ever lost a committee election in a volunteer organization. As much as you’d like to try again, though, you can’t muster up the self-confidence you need to give it another go. It makes you realize just what it takes for people to repeatedly put themselves on the line. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Unfortunately, the very qualities that can contribute both to charismatic crowd-pleasing and the thick skin needed to survive psychologically after a loss can require a certain degree of narcissistic grandiosity. 


Johannes Gutenberg—Universität’s Nina Wirtz and Thomas Rigatti (2020), studying workplace relationships, note that leaders high in grandiosity may be able to rise to the top of their organizations but at the cost of those they lead of becoming emotionally exhausted and turned off by their work under leaders who exploit and take advantage of them.
As the German authors note, "on the one hand, narcissists are perceived as charismatic and visionary, emerge more easily as leaders, possess public persuasiveness, and demonstrate good crisis management" ... but "on the other hand, narcissism has been related to low levels of integrity and contextual, interpersonal performance, as well as workplace deviance." Within the workplace, their "sense of entitlement, lack of interest in personal relationships, and strong emotional reactivity are likely to cause interpersonal difficulties" (p. 1). Furthermore, for employees high in the vulnerable form of narcissism, exposure to such leaders can be particularly stressful and emotionally exhausting.

One conclusion from the German study is that not everyone will be negatively impacted by a leader high in grandiose narcissism. However, for those who are, the workplace becomes a scene of constant stress and turmoil. However, if you think about what such situations are actually like, you know that seeing narcissistic leaders prey on the weak creates an uncomfortable, if not toxic, environment for everyone else as well. 

According to Envisia Learning’s Kenneth Nowack and Claremont Graduate School’s Paul Zak (2020), this toxicity stems in large part from a lack of empathy on the part of those in charge. Again, you can probably relate to this if you’ve seen a coworker constantly belittled by a supervisor who seems impervious to the damaging effects of this behavior on the coworker’s self-esteem.

According to what Nowack and Zak refer to as the "empathy-altruism hypothesis," a leader whose lack of empathy translates into a toxic interpersonal style creates “serious problems for employees, organizations, and society.” Conversely, altruistic leaders are able to experience the distress of others, show concern for other people’s feelings, and take the perspective of those under their authority. This type of altruism requires that the leader puts the goals of the group ahead of the personal need to gain acclaim. Such leaders want those they lead to do well not because it enhances their own image but because success benefits everyone. Some of the "empathy antidotes" that they recommend include supporting and practicing a culture of appreciation, enhancing an "empathy mindset," and even more radically, for organizations to "screen, select, and promote for empathy" (p. 6).

Returning to the example of your belittled coworker, an empathic leader would refrain from public shaming but instead would seek a one-on-one chat to try to help resolve the situation. Maybe that coworker forgot to set up the conference room for a scheduled meeting. An empathic leader would try to understand the reason for the memory slip from the employee’s point of view. When workers feel that their superiors care about their feelings, they should be more likely to remain loyal to the organization, feel more engaged, and even experience better physical and mental health.

It’s possible that such interventions could have a beneficial impact due to changes in the electrical activity of the brain. Catholic University of Milan’s Michela Balconi and colleagues (2020) used EEG to measure what they call “interpersonal tuning” between managers and employers. The Italian team asked a sample of 11 managers and their employees to role-play a performance review under two conditions varying in empathy while their EEGs were recorded.

In the low-empathic condition, managers provided their employees with a numerical rating only, and in the no-rating, high empathic condition, the leaders used explanations to provide a more softened form of feedback on the employee's performance. The high empathy condition, as predicted, produced EEGs that reflected greater synchronization between the role-playing pairs as well as perceptions of greater emotional tuning and feelings of cooperation on the part of both team members.

If we extrapolate now from these findings in the workplace to situations involving leadership more generally, it seems clear that empathy can become a key component to ensuring that the actions of leaders have a favorable impact on those they lead. Leaders obsessed with trying to feed their narcissistic sense of self instead of understanding the plight of the average individual fail to provide the necessary reassurances to make those average individuals feel better about their situations and "interpersonally tuned up" enough to carry on despite any hardships they may be experiencing.







Educational article share: 
Why Do Narcissists Make Such Poor Leaders? 

Sunday, May 24, 2020

When real leaders speak people listen.

leaders often walk confidently into a room full of people only to discover that they have totally misjudged the leadership dynamics of the situation.

A LOT OF POSITIONAL LEADERS DO THAT OVER THE YEARS. THEY TELL THEIR PEOPLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS: “HEY, WAIT! I’M THE LEADER. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FOLLOW ME.” BUT THAT DOESN’T WORK. PEOPLE MIGHT BE POLITE TO YOU, BUT THEY WON’T REALLY FOLLOW.


IT’S SIMILAR TO SOMETHING FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER ONCE SAID: “BEING IN POWER IS LIKE BEING A LADY. IF YOU HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE YOU ARE, YOU AREN’T.”

THE BOTTOM LINE FOR FOLLOWERS IS WHAT A LEADER IS CAPABLE OF. ULTIMATELY, THAT’S THE REASON PEOPLE WILL LISTEN TO AND ACKNOWLEDGE AS THEIR LEADER. AS SOON AS THEY NO LONGER BELIEVE YOU CAN DELIVER, THEY WILL STOP LISTENING.

CHARACTER COMMUNICATES.
WHENEVER YOU LEAD PEOPLE, IT’S AS IF THEY CONSENT TO TAKE A JOURNEY WITH YOU. THE WAY THAT TRIP IS GOING TO TURN OUT IS PREDICTED BY YOUR CHARACTER. WITH GOOD CHARACTER, THE LONGER THE TRIP IS, THE BETTER IT GETS. BUT IF YOUR CHARACTER IS FLAWED, THE LONGER THE TRIP IS, THE  WORSE IT WILL SEEM TO THEM. WHY? BECAUSE NO ONE ENJOYS SPENDING TIME WITH SOMEONE HE DOESN’T TRUST.

TRUST IS THE FOUNDATION OF LEADERSHIP.
Every leader has a certain amount of change in his pocket when he starts in a new leadership position. From then on, he either builds up his change or pays it out. If he makes one bad decision after another, he keeps paying out change. Then one day, after making one last bad decision, he is going to reach into his pocket and realize he is out of change. It doesn’t even matter if the blunder was big or small. When you’re out of change, you’re out as the leader. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf points to the significance of character:, “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character.


But if you must be without one, be without strategy.” Character and leadership credibility always go hand in hand. Anthony Harrigan, president of the U.S. Business and Industrial Council, said, The role of character always has been the key factor in the rise and fall of nations. And one can be sure that America is no exception to this rule of history. We won’t survive as a country because we are smarter or more sophisticated but because we are—we hope—stronger inwardly. In short, character is the only effective bulwark against internal and external forces that lead to a country’s disintegration or collapse. Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible. That is the Law of Solid Ground.

CHARACTER COMMUNICATES CONSISTENCY.

LEADERS WITHOUT INNER STRENGTH CAN’T BE COUNTED ON DAY AFTER DAY BECAUSE THEIR ABILITY TO PERFORM CHANGES CONSTANTLY.

NBA GREAT JERRY WEST COMMENTED, “YOU CAN’T GET TOO MUCH DONE IN LIFE IF YOU ONLY WORK ON THE DAYS WHEN YOU FEEL GOOD.”

IF YOUR PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOU AS A LEADER, AT SOME POINT THEY WON’T LOOK TO YOU FOR LEADERSHIP.

CHARACTER COMMUNICATES POTENTIAL.
JOHN MORLEY OBSERVED, “NO MAN CAN CLIMB OUT BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.” THAT’S ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN IT COMES TO LEADERSHIP. TAKE, FOR INSTANCE, THE CASE OF NHL COACH MIKE KEENAN. AS OF MID-1997, HE HAD A NOTEWORTHY RECORD OF PROFESSIONAL HOCKEY VICTORIES: THE FIFTH GREATEST NUMBER OF REGULAR-SEASON WINS, THE THIRD GREATEST NUMBER OF PLAY-OFF VICTORIES, SIX DIVISION TITLES, FOUR NHL FINALS APPEARANCES, AND ONE STANLEY CUP.
Yet despite those commendable credentials, Keenan was unable to stay with a single team for any length of time.


In eleven and a half seasons, he coached four different teams. And after his stint with the fourth team—the St. Louis Blues—he was unable to land a job for a long time. Why? Sportswriter E. M. Swift said of Keenan, “The reluctance to hire Keenan is easily explicable. Everywhere he has been, he has alienated players and management.” Evidently, his players didn’t trust him. Neither did the owners, who were benefiting from seeing their teams win. It seems he kept violating the Law of Solid Ground. Craig Weatherup explains, “You don’t build trust by talking about it. You build it by achieving results, always with integrity and in a manner that shows real personal regard for the people with whom you work.” When a leader’s character is strong, people trust him, and they trust in his ability to release their potential. That not only gives followers hope for the future, but it also promotes a strong belief in themselves and their organization.

CHARACTER COMMUNICATES RESPECT.
WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE STRENGTH WITHIN, YOU CAN’T EARN RESPECT WITHOUT. AND RESPECT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR LASTING LEADERSHIP. HOW DO LEADERS EARN RESPECT? BY MAKING SOUND DECISIONS, ADMITTING THEIR MISTAKES WHEN THEY MAKE THEM, AND PUTTING WHAT’S BEST FOR THEIR FOLLOWERS AND THE ORGANIZATION AHEAD OF THEIR PERSONAL AGENDAS.
J. R. Miller once observed, “The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. This is true. What a man is survives him. It can never be buried.”
BY THEN, IT WAS TOO LATE.
MANY WOULD ARGUE THAT MCNAMARA’S ADMISSION CAME THIRTY YEARS AND FIFTY-EIGHT THOUSAND LIVES TOO LATE. THE COST OF VIETNAM WAS HIGH, AND NOT JUST IN HUMAN LIVES. AS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S TRUST IN THEIR LEADERS ERODED, SO DID THEIR WILLINGNESS TO FOLLOW THEM. PROTESTS LED TO OPEN REBELLION AND TO SOCIETYWIDE TURMOIL. THE ERA THAT HAD BEGUN WITH THE HOPE AND IDEALISM CHARACTERIZED BY JOHN F. KENNEDY ULTIMATELY ENDED WITH THE MISTRUST AND CYNICISM ASSOCIATED WITH RICHARD NIXON.
Whenever a leader breaks the Law of Solid Ground, he pays a price in his leadership.

McNamara and President Johnson lost the trust of the American people, and their ability to lead suffered as a result. Eventually, McNamara resigned as secretary of defense. Johnson, the consummate politician, recognized his weakened position, and he didn’t run for reelection. But the repercussions of broken trust didn’t end there. The American people’s distrust for politicians has continued to this day, and it is still growing.

No leader can break trust with his people and expect to keep influencing them. Trust is the foundation of leadership. Violate the Law of Solid Ground, and you’re through as a leader.

Educational book share: THE 21 IRREFUTABLE LAWS OF LEADERSHIP - JOHN C. MAXWELL

Grace and Serendipity. 
However hard we try, the reality is that we humans can never will miracles into being. 
This fact, this lack of control, is one of the reasons the secular generally turn a blind eye to the miraculous in life. They fail to see the grace - and hence the proof - of God and God's Love. Within nations  primary identity as a scientist, we want and like proof. Being as much a logical sort as a mysterious one, it expects statistical proof whenever possible to convince us of things. But throughout the ages as republic continued to mature, it became more and more impressed  by the frequency of statistically highly improbable events. In their very improbability 'We The People' have seen the fingerprints of God. 


There is a pattern to these highly improbable events: almost all seemed to have a beneficial outcome. A synonym for grace: serendipity. 
Webster's dictionary defines serendipity as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." This definitions has several intriguing features. One is that serendipity is termed a gift, which implies that some people possess it while others don't, that some people are lucky and others are not. it is a major thesis of many that grace, manifested in part by "valuable or agreeable things not sought for," is available to everyone. But while some take advantage of it, others do not. 


One of the reasons for the human tendency to resist grace is that we are not fully aware of its presence. We don't find valuable things not sought for because we fail to appreciate the value of the gift when it is given to us. In other words, serendipitous events occur to all of us, but frequently we fail to recognize their serendipitous nature; we consider such events unremarkable, and consequently we fail to take full advantage of them. 


The indications of grace and / or serendipity as described seem to have the following characteristics: 
* They serve to nurture - support, protect, and enhance - human life and spiritual Growth. 
* The mechanism of their action is either incompletely understandable (as in the case of dreams) or totally obscure (as in the case of the paranormal phenomenon) according to the principles of natural law as interpreted by current scientific thinking.     

*Their occurrence is frequent, routine, commonplace, and essentially universal among humanity. 
*Although they are potentially influenced by human consciousness, their origin is outside the conscious will and beyond the process of conscious decision making. 


In other words, have come to believe that their commonality indicates that these phenomena are part of or manifestations of a single phenomena; a powerful force that originates outside of human consciousness and nurtures the spiritual growth of human beings. 

Those who are properly skeptical and scientific-minded  may be inclined to dismiss this force since we can't touch it, and have no decent way to measure it. Yet it exists. It is real.  

Understanding of that is limited, again, by difficulty in dealing with paradox. Many want to identify things rationally. The paradox of grace is that, on the one hand it is earned. The bible has already mentioned a number of reasons why our becoming blessed by grace is a matter of choice. 

On the other hand, try as we might to obtain grace; grace comes to us. The paradox that we both choose grace and our chosen by grace is the essence of the phenomenon of serendipity, which was defined as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."


In the road less traveled, The path to holiness lies through questioning everything." Such questioning is necessary to move from a hand-me-down existence to the fully mature life. 
Revelation: believe that the radical healing influence of grace is manifested to us not only through such widely improbable circumstances but also through revelation. 
Whenever something happens that is beyond coincidence, the chances are great that the hand of God is at work. 


Educational Book Share: The Road Less Traveled and Beyond - Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. M.Scott Peck, M.D.






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Thursday, May 21, 2020

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.

knowing what the lie is would help us in our struggle to be Kingdom ready. In order to avoid the lie we must identify that lie. Lies poison us.
What is the lie refereed to?  “The lie” is self-deception, inability or unwillingness to tolerate the pain of self-reproach. The evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.
Scapegoaters, project onto others their own sins, while denying any wrongdoing, denying the working of conscience and failing to hate themselves when they should.

“The words ‘image,’ ‘appearance,’ and ‘outwardly’ are crucial to understanding the morality of those who are evil.

While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness’ is all on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie.

This is why they are the ‘people of the lie.’

Actually, the lie is designed not so much to deceive others as to deceive themselves.

”1 Psalm 119:29b corroborates this as God is implored to “Keep me from lying to myself.” A strange prayer to pray indeed if lying to one’s self was not only entirely plausible but undesirable as well. Proverbs 14:8b confirms that “fools deceive themselves.”

One characteristic of the people that best  describes is a failure to ever put themselves on trial.

“Unpleasant though it may be, the sense of personal sin is precisely that which keeps our sin from getting out of hand.

 It is a very great blessing because it is our one and only effective safeguard against our own proclivity for evil.”2



What then contrasts the group Jesus speaks of when he says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (or meek as we would understand this) with the Pharisees or the fat cats of Jesus’ day. Peck asks whether pride is the most basic sin — “because all sins are reparable except the sin of believing one is without sin.”3 This is, I think, in a nutshell, the thesis and contention of the book and of Peck’s thinking. He argues it convincingly.

I wonder if anyone is just a little bit surprised and reacts by thinking — “oh, that is just hypocrisy; it has been with us from the beginning, old hat stuff, nothing new there,” etc.
I think that if I had to name what I felt was the worse possible sin, it would be betrayal, but Peck notes that all sins betray — isolating us from both God and our fellow men. Certainly there is much to consider here. Again, Peck states that “Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.”4

He provides his readers with experiences which summarized are these: “to a greater or lesser degree, all mentally healthy individuals submit themselves to the demands of their own conscience. Not so the evil, however. In the conflict between their guilt and their will, it is the guilt that must go and the will that must win.”5

Peck portrays the scenario between Abel and Cain like this: “God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice implied a criticism of Cain: Cain was less than Abel in God’s eyes.
Since he refused to acknowledge his imperfection, it was inevitable that Cain, like Satan, should take the law into his own hands and commit murder.”6
Peck aligns himself with Scripture in acknowledging that “pride goes before a fall.”


He defines this pride as a feature which “unrealistically denies our inherent sinfulness and imperfection,”7 and he affirms how very dangerous this is. Peck emphasizes that to “People of the Lie” self-deception is an integral part of their behavior; so much so that they are willing to sacrifice and harm and even destroy others in order to preserve their own self-image. He names this trait malignant narcissism and finds it to be the root of all evil and utterly perverse. “Buber states it well when he wrote of ‘the uncanny game of hide and seek in the obscurity of the soul, in which it, the single human soul, evades itself, avoids itself, hides from itself.’”8

Adding to this very challenging thesis, Peck refers to his previous book9 , and says this: “It is often the most spiritually healthy and advanced among us who are called on to suffer in ways more agonizing than anything experienced by the more ordinary.
Great leaders, when wise and well, are likely to endure degrees of anguish unknown to the common man.
Conversely, it is the unwillingness to suffer emotional pain that usually lies at the very root of emotional illness.


Those who fully experience depression, doubt, confusion, and despair may be infinitely more healthy than those who are generally certain, complacent, and self-satisfied. The denial of suffering, is, in fact, a better definition of illness than its acceptance.”10

“Evil always has something to do with lies”11 states Peck, and again he points out the danger of the self love behind these lies.

He reminds his readers that Satan is the father of lies and that his greatest power is through human belief in his lies. One has only to remember the enormous emphasis in Psalms and Proverbs on lying to make a connection with what Peck is saying.


Our culture seems to have reduced lying to no more than being untidy or late (e.g. fibs and white lies). Scripture seems to view it quite differently, i.e. the difference between being a fool and not (Isa. 44:20). “The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes. He is trusting something that can give him no help at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, ‘Is this thing, this idol that I’m holding in my hand, a lie?’”

Parenthetically let me add that Peck did not begin his practice in psychology with a view of Satan as an active being, but became a believer in the power and personality of this being as a result of what he saw and experienced.

The following is what he has come to believe: “Pervading this personality [Satan] is an active presence of hate. Satan wants to destroy us.



It is important that we understand this…To think otherwise is to be misled. Indeed, as several have commented, perhaps Satan’s best deception is its general success in concealing its own reality from the human mind.”12

And now I come to the part of the book which I found most unsettling, not because I disagreed, but because the implications are serious and disturbing.

Peck speaks about the pretense of blamelessness in today’s culture; e.g. everyone is a victim, no one is really at fault, no one made the wrong choice, these things just happen.


(He is actually relating these thoughts to a war mentality but I honestly believe that they now characterize much of our thinking. It’s a “You’re OK, I’m OK, and that’s OK” kind of mentality.) Says Peck: “I denounce the position of ethical hopelessness, this abrogation of our capacity for moral judgment. I can think of nothing that would fill Satan with greater glee or better signify the ultimate success of its conquest of the human race than an attitude on the part of humans that it is impossible to identify evil.”13

I find it heartbreaking that this lie which Peck speaks of (the pretense of blamelessness, etc.) has become somewhat prominent in the counseling field where the “move on” approach seems to have done away with repentance, and remorse is unnecessary.

The sorrow and remorse which accompany guilt and recognition of wrongdoing are good emotions, not to be avoided or done away with. They are cleansing tools and an integral part of a healing process. The only way out is through, not avoidance.
The Shadow Knows.
The Danger of Knowing but Not Responding.
Make No Mistakes where the Focus of this Society is Inward, not Outward.

Let us not rewrite the story of the prodigal son to say that if the son sneered and swaggered into his father’s house and demanded certain things then the father would react in much the same way as he did, hugging his neck, having a feast prepared, etc. Do you think?!

 I get the impression, even from some Christian counselors, that there was nothing required of the son; moving on is all that matters. Repentance seems to have been done away with, considered unnecessary, replaced by group hugs. I very much fear that Peck is correct in identifying an abrogation of moral judgment; friends and I have seen this at work in the counseling arena, accompanied by an unwillingness or inability to recognize sin. And yet Proverbs 28:13b tells us that the confession of sin and the forsaking of it will gain us the mercy we all desire.

Dare we change the modus operandi as given to us in Scripture? In one sense, all of Scripture is a story of repentance and forgiveness.
It is God’s invitation to change direction and walk a new path. But it is also a conversation which we must have.
If one half of the agreement is removed (our part) in favor of a moving on approach, we have done it our way, and not God’s way. “For evil arises in the refusal to acknowledge our own sins.”14 Could we be at the point described in Psalm 12:8 where “evil is praised throughout the land”? Doing away with repentance is doing away with conscience and according to Dr. Peck’s thesis that would be a major disaster.

Peck does a wonderful job of revealing how devastating lies are, and too, how damaging it is to ignore or in other ways escape from one’s conscience.

I am reminded of lepers and the fact that they cannot feel the pain which acts as a signal to escape, i.e. burning one’s fingers by touching a hot stove.

The nerve endings which cause one to immediately retreat are, in fact, a blessing, saving one from further harm.

So too, an active and functional conscience is our friend, preventing disaster. And should we fail, God has allowed us to be blessed by guilt.

Peck’s intense concentration on lies causes me to consider truth and how dangerous it is to be without it.



We are all prey to the propaganda that truth is only subjective. The very idea of truth or a search for truth may sound foreign, and yet truth should be injected into every thought, every expectation, moral view, value system and philosophy that we operate from. One of the most important things we can do to have greater self-control is to identify lies. They then lose their power over us. We do this by countering the lie with the truth and denouncing the “lie in my right hand.”

Dr. Peck emphasizes that one of the most important reasons for identifying evil is the healing of its victims as his subtitle states: “The hope for healing human evil.” I am reminded of Proverbs 17:15 which warns us that “The Lord despises those who acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent.”

Very interesting as it appears that one is as bad as the other. We must not be guilty of either one. It is incumbent upon us to recognize the lie so as to disown it. It is further and absolutely required of us to walk in the truth.

 The sole point of concentrating on this evil side of our nature and on the Evil One who tempts us is not to badger/berate/condemn but to help/heal/equip all of us who are at risk. The People of the Lie are not correctible. That is their great sin.



Both the Psalms and the Proverbs are treatises on that correction which we all need: if you are this, then you must become that. What does it mean to be meek? Our hope lies there, as not only will these be recognized by our Father but rewarded with that promised land we have all heard of. I think a good synopsis might be this from 2 Chronicles 7:14: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” And the conclusion of the matter: “The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit, a broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17).

M. Scott Peck, M.D. Book review: (PDF) educational share.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3454/2c6dd1b79a91047f85535b7ff45723357bd6.pdf?_ga=2.170845536.1924283631.1590038988-216368614.1590038988





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