Quotes About God

True pain coming out of a man belongs primarily to God, it seems to me. I try and take it humbly to my heart, just as it is. And I endeavour to make it mine, to love it. I can understand all the hidden meaning of the expression which has become hackneyed now: to commune with, Because I really "commune" with his pain.

Man would have known he was the son of God; and therein lies your miracle. And not just a notion picked up in books. Because we'd have made that idea the basis of everything: habits, customs, relaxation, pleasure, down to the simplest needs. That wouldn't have stopped the labourer ploughing, or the scientist swotting at his algorithms... what we would have torn from the very heart of Adam is the sense of his own loneliness.

What is the use of working out chances? There are no chances against God.

For those who have the habit of prayer, thought is too often a mere alibi, a sly way of deciding to do what one wants to do. Reason will always obscure what we wish to keep in the shadows. A worldling can think out the pros and cons and sum up his chances. No doubt. But what are our chances worth? We who have admitted once and for all into each moment of our puny lives the terrifying presence of God?...What is the use of working out chances? There are no chances against God.

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

If no one remembers becomes the equivalent of If there is no God. If there is no God, Dostoyevsky said, then everything is permitted.

the Piedra Lumbre is the best thing I've ever known in New Mexico---the closest thing to God, I guess.

3 If you are seeking God's

The wealth we have is not ours forever. It is in our custody while we have breath and hands to do the Lord's work. And we must honor God by honoring our custodial responsibilities.

We ask for help and help is given. Often we do not recognize that other people's alcoholism, sexual betrayals, chronic illnesses, and alienating behavior are actually cries for help. But unquestionably God recognizes every plea no matter what form it takes, and God finds some way to give us as much help as we are willing to receive at that time.

I believe that the purpose of God's guidance is to show us how to release our minds from fear so we may know peace and be truly kind and sensitive to others, which we cannot do when we are fear-dominated. Both

The glory of God is a human being fully alive. —Ireneaus1

Hope can sometimes be an elusive thing, and occasionally it must come to us with pain. But it is there, irrevocably. Like freedom, hope is a child of grace, and grace cannot be stopped. I refer once more to Saint Paul, a man who, I am convinced, understood addiction: "Hope will not be denied, because God's love has been poured into our hearts.

For God has comforted Zion, and will take pity on all her waste places; Turning her wilderness into an Eden, her desert into the garden of God. Joy and gladness will be found in her, and thanksgiving, and the sounds of singing."12

Thus God calls us, invites us, and even commands us, but God does not control our response. We alone bear responsibility for the choices we make.

The bare edge of freedom is insured and preserved inside us by God, and no matter what forces oppress us from without or within, it is indestructible.19

Before, one needed God as the agent of recovery, the divine dispenser of grace. Now this need is developing into a love for God as God's self. This is a beautiful happening, but it brings with it a new relinquishment that can feel deeply threatening. Along with the sweetness of emerging love comes a certain shakiness about recovery. Recovery is no longer the single most important thing in life. Something else has taken its place, and the fear of relapse grows.

In the great spiritual traditions of the world, attachments are seen as any concerns that usurp our desire for love, anything that becomes more important to us than God. Paul Tillich said that whatever we are ultimately concerned with is God for us. At any given moment, that with which we are most concerned is most likely to be something other than the true God. No matter how religious we may think we are, our addictions are always capable of usurping our concern for God.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that we do the same with our deepest longings for God. God does not always come to us in the pleasant ways we might expect, and so we repress our desire for God. When

It was the recommendation of John of the Cross (in a manner similar to that of Gamaliel) that one should not pay particular attention to any phenomena or experiences. If an experience were truly and directly of God, he felt, its truth would become evident naturally in one's life. If it were of something "else," it would certainly not be worthy of attention. Therefore, no special attention was necessary.

Heaven is to be in God at last made free. —Evelyn Underhill1

Whatever God is He's in them. Not everyone. But in some people. He sort of doles Himself out a little, and He shows up in people where you'd never expect it. Huguette and Father Latour and Kruis and Mr. Munk. God gave a little piece of Himself to make 'em.

Permission to acknowledge our anger before God, however, is not license to act on our anger against others. Rather, as these psalms suggest, we should leave action against our enemies in the hands of God.

These Jesus-rejecting Jews "are beloved" of God, he said. Not "were beloved" but "are beloved." Not past but present tense. Even though they chose not to believe the gospel, they are still beloved of God. God still loves them. And not in the way that God loves all people, but with a special kind of love.