Quotes About God

Although I wouldn't have known how to talk about it then, slowly but surely the Scriptures were becoming a place of human striving and intellectual hard work. Somehow, I had fallen into a pattern of using the Scriptures as a tool to accomplish utilitarian purposes rather experiencing them primarily as a place of intimacy with God for my own soul's sake.

What shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies - and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the world. The habits and disciplines we use to shape our desire form the basis for a spirituality.

El permitirnos desear con desesperación algo que no estamos seguros que podamos obtener, nos atemoriza; especialmente cuando se trata de algo esencial, como la presencia de Dios en nuestras vidas.

Discernment, in a most general sense, is the capacity to recognize and respond to the presence and the activity of God—both in the ordinary moments and in the larger decisions of our lives.

Amamos a Dios porque Dios nos amó primero.

Cuando incorporamos el descanso al tiempo que pasamos a solas con Dios, llegamos a experimentar un tipo de renovación muy profunda.

qué sucedería si eligiéramos permanecer en la presencia de Dios y hablar con él con respecto a nuestro cansancio, reconociéndolo de la manera en que lo haría un niño frente a su padre que se preocupa y puede ayudarlo?

El aprender a descansar en Dios en los tiempos de soledad comienza con el cuerpo, como la imagen del niño amamantado lo sugiere. Esta imagen me lleva a los momentos llenos de suavidad y ternura de mis primeros tiempos como madre.

Puede ser que creamos que la travesía espiritual tiene lugar en una esfera completamente separada del cuerpo. Pero la verdad es que el recorrido espiritual se realiza dentro de un cuerpo físico, y que hay una conexión muy real entre el cuidado de nuestro cuerpo y el profundizar nuestra relación con Dios.

Uno de los dones de Dios para nosotros es el ejercicio físico que libera endorfinas y tranquiliza las emociones, calma los sufrimientos y mejora nuestro estado de ánimo.

La práctica de analizar mi día con Dios se arraiga en las antiguas prácticas cristianas del examen de estado de conciencia (revisar el día pasado para percibir la presencia de Dios) y del examen de conciencia (notar mi respuesta, o falta de ella, a esa presencia).

Aprender a escuchar al cuerpo, a darle descanso y a respetarlo como un lugar en el que Dios nos hace conocer su presencia, se convierte entonces en una importante disciplina para el peregrino espiritual.

I cannot transform myself, or anyone else for that matter. What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place, by developing and maintaining a rhythm of spiritual practices that keep me open and available to God.

Practicing rhythms of silence and words, stillness and action, helps us learn to wait on God--which doesn't come easily for those of us accustomed to busily trying to make things happen.

The grass is not greener "over there": one must work out one's problems with this person because if one doesn't, one will have to work it out with that person. This is precisely what is so freeing about the vow of stability . . . to have to work it out is to demand growth, as painful as it is, and that is freeing. Faithfulness is a limit that forces us to stop running and encounter God, self, and other right now, right here.[2] Lord

God works miracles of transformation in the world through miraculously transformed people.

Christians are assimilating a culture of busyness, hurry and overload, which leads to 2) God becoming more marginalized in Christians' lives, which leads to 3) a deteriorating relationship with God, which leads to 4) Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to 5) more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload. And then the cycle begins again.

when applied to Scripture, this approach does not serve the deeper longing of our heart—the longing to hear a word from God that is personal and intimate and takes us deeper into the love that our soul craves.

Discernment is first of all a habit, a way of seeing that eventually permeates our whole life. It is the journey from spiritual blindness (not seeing God anywhere or seeing him only where we expect to see him) to spiritual sight (finding God everywhere, especially where we least expect it).

We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer silence that is the presence of God himself.

Sabbath keeping is the primary discipline that helps us live within the limits of our humanity and to honor God as our Creator. It is the key to a life lived in sync with the rhythms that God himself built into our world.

Worship helps us to get rid of a lot of life's spiritual and natural frustrations. Through worship God brings to us a wholeness of body, mind and spirit. God is refining our understanding of true worship. True worship comes from the heart, in love and adoration unto the Lord.

I studied every page of this book, and I didn't find enough love to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the Bible; God is vengeance, from Alpha to Omega.

Over time, however, doubts about spermism arose. According to Leeuwenhoek, a million human spermatozoa could fit in a grain of sand. That meant that if each sperm held a tiny person, God was horrendously wasteful of creatures made in his own