For a God whose heart is supposed to be as cold as his realm, you are so warm and kind. You make it hard to resist, she murmured. Why should you resist? You know how much you are enjoying yourself. Much as I hate to admit it, she sighed
The music, the prayers, the bowing and rising, the incense--all of it was breaking down my defenses. That's what good liturgy does. It breaks your heart open and turns you toward God.
When we start to realize how amazing God's story is, a question naturally arises: "Who am I that I should get to be a part of the greatest story ever told?
What do you have to fear? Nothing. Whom do you have to fear? No one. Why? Because whoever has joined forces with God obtains three great privileges: omnipotence without power, intoxication without wine, and life without death.
What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.
The demon got up. The demon said Fool. To think you can eat their food and not talk to them. To think you can take their money and not be afraid of them. To think you can depend on their company and not suffer from them.
The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart.
It is by doctrine (through the power of the Spirit) that believers are nourished and edified, and where doctrine is neglected, growth in grace and effective witnessing for Christ necessarily cease. How sad then that doctrine is now decried as "unprac...
In order to resist fear and discouragement, it is necessary that through prayer - through a personal experience of God re-encountered, recognized and loved in prayer - we taste and see how good the Lord is (Psalm 34).
I know exactly what Einstein meant when he said, "Dancers are the athletes of God." You three look like angels. I can't wait to see you dancing in the Christmas concert.
I tried desperately to put my thoughts into the forms of prayers, but I didn't know how. If God was real, I figured He was powerful enough to know what I wanted without me actually saying the right words.
That God is in truth the sort of bloodthirsty paranoid Who would rend to bits forty-two children for the crime of sassing one of his priests. Don't ask me about the Front Office's policies; I just work here.
Too often we assume that God has increased our income to increase our standard of living, when his stated purpose is to increase our standard of giving. (Look again at 2 Corinthians 8:14 and 9:11).
And I advise ye to think well, he told her It's better to be a stray dog in this world than a man without money. I've tried it both ways, and I know. A poor man stinks, and God hates him.
There is a third quality to friendship, and it is not as easy to put into a single word. The right word, literally, is "sympathy" - sym-pathos, common passion. This means that friendships are discovered more than they are created at will.
I don't believe in God. And I certainly don't feel chosen." "I think you may be." I smiled dubiously. "Thank you." "It is not meant as a compliment. Hazard makes you elect. You cannot elect yourself.
Our culture says that feelings of love are the basis for actions of love. And of course that can be true. But it is truer to say that actions of love can lead consistently to feelings of love.
Last month she’d read that a man’s connective tissue aligned horizontally with the skin, whereas a female’s went perpendicular—which was why women got lumpy cellulite and men didn’t. And doesn’t that totally prove that God is male?
JACKIE. I swear to God: Being in love with Veronica - it's like feeding your love to Godzilla every morning, and every morning you go "Yo, 'Zilla, these shits are very delicate so please chew softly", - and every morning - the motherfucker just goes ...
Among the lessons I learned on Hajj was that I needed to be mindful and keep the inner connection with God at all times and that self-improvement is definitely a never-ending struggle.
With each opportunity before me, God presented me with a choice. I could accept His offerings, His wisdom, His grace. Or I could choose to hold onto the pain, the anger and the resentment a little longer.
