Faith Quotes

“I should have a better CV, and that's knocked me into believing that I have to grab these opportunities while I can.”

“I sought Him where my logic led. “This friend is always sure and right; His lantern is sufficient light.I need no Star,” I said.I sought Him in the city square. Logic and I went up and down The marketplace of many a town,But He was never there.I tracked Him to the mind’s far rim. The valiant intellect went forth To east and west and south and north,But found no trace of Him.We walked the world from sun to sun, Logic and I, with Little Faith, But never came to Nazareth,Nor met the Holy One.We sought in vain. And finally, Back to the heart’s small house I crept, And fell upon my knees, and wept;And Lo! He came to me!”

“When in darkness....strike a match”

“If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.”

“Fearlessness is not what you do to win, but what you don't do. When you love yourself as much as your God, you won't see other people as the source of your pain. Rather, you will see who you have become because you honestly believed that your chains would be broken through hatred, instead of kindness.”

“Let the radiance of light be your guide.”

“There are so many people that don't believe in themselves and don't have faith.”

“Spiritual leaders, priests and prophets are lamps burning in the dark, seeking meaning for humanity.”

“If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.”

“How about when you feel as if you are at a treacherous crossing, facing an area of life that hasn’t even been on the map until recently. Suddenly there it is, right in front of you.And so the time and space in between while you first get over the shock of it, and you have to figure out WHAT must be done feels excruciating. It’s a nightmare you can’t awaken from. You might remember this time as a kind of personal D-day, as in damage, devastation, destruction, damnation, desolation – maybe a difficult divorce, or even diagnosis of some formidable disease. These are the days of our lives that whole, beautiful chapters of life go up in flames. And all you can do is watch them burn. Until you feel as though you are left only with the ashes of it all. It is at this moment you long for the rescue and relief that only time can provide. It is in this place, you must remember that in just 365 days – you're at least partially healed self will be vastly changed, likely for the better. Perhaps not too unlike a caterpillar’s unimaginable metamorphosis.Better. Stronger. Wiser. Tougher. Kinder. More fragile, more firm, all at the same time as more free. You will have gotten through the worst of it – somehow. And then it will all be different. Life will be different. You will be different. It might or might not ever make sense, but it will be more bearable than it seems when you are first thrown, with no warning, into the kilns of life with the heat stoked up – or when you get wrapped up, inexplicably, through no choice of your own, in a dark, painfully constricting space. Go ahead, remind yourself as someone did earlier, who was trying miserably to console you. It will eventually make you a better, stronger person. How’d they say it? More beautiful on the inside…It really will, though. That’s the kicker. Even if, in the hours of your agony, you would have preferred to be less beautiful, wise, strong, or experienced than apparently life, fate, your merciless ex, or a ruthless, biological, or natural enemy that has attacked silently, and invisibly - has in mind for you. As will that which your God feels you are capable of enduring, while you, in your pitiful anguish, are yet dubious of your own ability to even endure, not alone overcome.I assure you now, you will have joy and beauty, where there was once only ashes. In time. Perhaps even more than before. It’s so hard to imagine and believe it when it’s still fresh, and so, so painful. When it hurts too much to even stand, or think, or feel anything. When you are in the grip of fear, and you remember the old familiar foe, or finally understand, firsthand, in your bones, what that actually means.”

“I prayed to a mystery.Sometimes I was simply aware of the mystery. I saw a flash of it during a trip to New York that David and I took before we were married. We were walking on a busy sidewalk in Manhattan. I don't remember if it was day or night. A man with a wound on his forehead came toward us. His damp, ragged hair might have been clotted with blood, or maybe it was only dirt. He wore deeply dirty clothes. His red, swollen hands, cupped in half-fists, swung loosely at his sides. His eyes were focused somewhere past my right shoulder. He staggered while he walked. The sidewalk traffic flowed around him and with him. He was strange and frightening, and at the same time he belonged on the Manhattan sidewalk as much as any of us. It was that paradox -- that he could be both alien and resident, both brutalized and human, that he could stand out in the moving mass of people like a sea monster in a school of tuna and at the same time be as much at home as any of us -- that stayed with me. I never saw him again, but I remember him often, and when I do, I am aware of the mystery.Years later, I was out on our property on the Olympic Peninsula, cutting a path through the woods. This was before our house was built. After chopping through dense salal and hacking off ironwood bushes for an hour or so, I stopped, exhausted. I found myself standing motionless, intensely aware of all of the life around me, the breathing moss, the chattering birds, the living earth. I was as much a part of the woods as any millipede or cedar tree. At that moment, too, I was aware of the mystery.Sometimes I wanted to speak to this mystery directly. Out of habit, I began with "Dear God" and ended with "Amen". But I thought to myself, I'm not praying to that old man in the sky. Rather, I'm praying to this thing I can't define. It was sort of like talking into a foggy valley.Praying into a bank of fog requires alot of effort. I wanted an image to focus on when I prayed. I wanted something to pray *to*. but I couldn't go back to that old man. He was too closely associated with all I'd left behind.”

“This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found--I have letters that even the blind will be able to see. . . . I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,--I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race...”

“Little girls have large maternal instincts, and they take the Feast of Hungry Ghosts very seriously, and they were making their rounds with small lanterns made from candles inside rolled lotus and sage leaves. I could feel ghosts all around us, moving toward the warmth of the sweet singing voices: You are not alone, the girls sang, you are not forgotten, we care and understand, our own lives are but a candle flame from yours.”

“Faith does not grow in a house of certainty.”

“Resurrection does not come without crucifixion, and you cannot celebrate Easter without living Good Friday.”

“I think I've lost my faith and I can't stop writingbecause I don't know howmuch longer I can hold on.”

“May the glorious light brighten your path.”

“I would really like to hear somebody who is really articulate about the elements of their faith conversion. I'm not.”

“I grew up in a Ukrainian Catholic-turned-Christian household, and that is my family's faith.”

“A man protects his fish from rats by keeping it under a cat's watch. How wise!Another buys a gun for security reasons, but decides to kill a ghost with it. How smart!One prays to God for safety, as he climbs a palm tree with sewing thread. How intelligent!Man does not want the truth, and God does not want lies, yet there is no third option.One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing. That's pride. Another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth. Humility!Not all that glitters is gold, and not all gold glitters. Watch, with the eyes, and also with the heart.Just because all things are lawful, don't make them expedient. And because a thing is right doesn't mean it edifies.With Faith, Wisdom comes highly recommended!”