Being A Child Of God Quotes & Sayings

The way I see Jesus has not changed much at all since I was a child, but my imprisonment and all that followed made me love Him even more. His being the Son of God makes sense to me, because I believe God to be loving, just, forgiving, and merciful. I also believe that He respects free will. After all, He has given it to us so that we can choose to love or hate Him, do good or evil. But is it fair for a loving God to sit on His throne in Heaven and let us struggle and suffer on our own? Would any good father abandon His children this way? It makes perfect sense to me that God decided to come among us, live like us, and die a horribly painful death after being tortured. This is a God I can love with all my heart. A God who sets an example. A God who has bled and whose heart has been broken. This is who Jesus is to me. I don't pretend that I understand the Holy Trinity. But I understand love and sacrifice. I understand faithfulness. — Marina Nemat

Henry liked to put to himself when he was a schoolboy: what are the chances of this particular fish, from that shoal, off that continental shelf ending up in the pages of this copy of the Daily Mirror? Something just short of infinity to one. Similarly, the grains of sand on a beach, arranged just so. The random ordering of the world, the unimaginable odds against any particular condition, still please him. Even as a child, and especially after Aberfan, he never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom from the scheming of a gloomy god. — Ian McEwan

Henry revealed the strategies Entz Media used to break marriages apart. Entz programming pushed the idea of marriage being stale and uneventful and then glamorized a freer and more exciting life outside of marriage. Institutions that upheld chastity before marriage and fidelity within marriage were ridiculed. Storylines relating to religion centered on religious conspiracies and how people gained enlightenment apart from God, not from Him. The idea of commitment -- to a wife, a child, a religion -- was ridiculed. Selfishness was championed. — Patrick Ord

Don't run, child! You'll never escape the two most important presences in the life of any human being: God and death. God accompanies your every step and will be annoyed because he can see that you're not paying attention to the miracle of life. Or indeed death. You just ran past a corpse and didn't even notice. — Paulo Coelho

Since presumably the world exists for God's enjoyment, not in any simple sense, of course, but as you enjoy the being of a child even when he is in every way a thorn in your heart. — Marilynne Robinson

I can't think of one great human being in the arts, or in history generally, who conformed, who succeeded, as educational experts tell us children must succeed, with his peer group ... If a child in their classrooms does not succeed with his peer group, then it would seem to many that both child and teacher have failed. Have they? If we ever, God forbid, manage to make each child succeed with his peer group, we will produce a race of bland and faceless nonentities, and all poetry and mystery will vanish from the face of the earth. — Madeleine L'Engle

His sculpture would have joy in it, try to capture the sense of fertility of Dionysus, the nature god, the power of the intoxicating drink that enabled a man to laugh and sing and forget for a while the sorrow of his earthly miseries. And then, perhaps, at the same time he could portray the decay that came with too much forgetfulness, that he saw all around him, when man surrendered his moral and spiritual values for the pleasures of the
flesh. The Bacchus would be the central figure of his theme, a human being rather than a demigod; then there would be a child of about seven, sweet-
faced, lovable, nibbling from a bunch of grapes. His composition would have death in it too; the tiger, who liked wine and was loved by Bacchus, with the deadest, dead skin and head conceivable — Irving Stone

What do I lose when I have a praying life? Control. Independence. What do I gain? Friendship with God. A quiet heart. The living work of God in the hearts of those I love. The ability to roll back the tide of evil. Essentially, I lose my kingdom and get his. I move from being an independent player to a dependent lover. I move from being an orphan to a child of God. — Paul E. Miller

The young man being embraced by the Father is no longer just one repentant sinner, but the whole of humanity returning to God. The broken body of the prodigal becomes the broken body of humanity, and the baby-like face of the returning child becomes the face of all suffering people longing to reenter the lost paradise. Thus Rembrandt's painting becomes more than the mere portrayal of a moving parable. It becomes the summary of the history of our salvation. The light surrounding both Father and Son now speaks of the glory that awaits the children of God. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God -- a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bam-boozle myself into belief, but I am a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers. — Graham Greene

The biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other people more; show respect for any human being merely because he is a child of God and therefore a thing of value. — Maxwell Maltz

Cry to god. If you do that just for a couple minutes with your whole being, just like a child who so badly wants a cookie. You will break through the barrier of the mind. — Frederick Lenz

Just being a woman is God's gift. The origin of a child is a mother, a woman. She shows a man what sharing, caring, and loving is all about. That is the essence of a woman. — Sushmita Sen

How silly of us to think we can hide from God. How insane of us to think our thoughts are private, don't you know that nothing is hidden? And what is it that you are hiding from anyway, your light, the love that you are? Are you afraid of remembering that you are a Child of God? That you are whole and holy, what a beautiful golden being of Light you are my child. There is nothing you see in this world that is as beautiful and brilliant as you, the most beautiful sunset, or sunrise is nothing in comparison to you. I have one thought and that is for you to remember who you are, where you are and how much you are LOVED. -God — Sharon Kay Casey

I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star. When the universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for the wood and the fish for the pool. When the first galaxies fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling toward consciousness. The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush. If there is a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen. If God's voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll prick up my ears. If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit back on a dark hillside and wait and watch. A hint here and a trait there. Listening and watching. Waiting, always waiting, for the tingle in the spine. — Chet Raymo

This idea of all education springing from and resting upon our relation to Almighty God-we do not merely give a religious education because that would seem to imply the possibility of some other education, a secular education, for example. But we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education (which may at the same time be reached by a little child) is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection. — Charlotte M. Mason

You are an incredible child of God having a dream that you are a human being on a tiny planet in the middle of nowhere. — Drunvalo Melchizedek

When the angel spoke, God awoke in the heart of this girl of Nazareth and moved within her like a giant. He stirred and opened His eyes and her soul and saw that in containing Him she contained the world besides. The Annunciation was not so much a vision as an earthquake in which God moved the universe and unsettled the spheres, and the beginning and end of all things came before her in her deepest heart. And far beneath the movement of this silent cataclysm she slept in the infinite tranquility of God, and God was a child curled up who slept in her and her veins were flooded with His wisdom which is night, which is starlight, which is silence. And her whole being was embraced in Him whom she embraced and they became tremendous silence." -Thomas Merton — Thomas Merton

See, this favorite child of mine changes by the day. No, by the minute, actually. Who is this favorite child of mine? It's the particular one who is pissing me off least at any given moment in time. They have all had their fair share of being the favorite and they have all inspired the "Oh my God, did I really give birth to you" moments as well. It's one of the best things about having more than one child: there's always another one to go to when one of the others is driving you up a fucking wall. — Jill Smokler

Those years of anger weren't just directed inward and towards others, I was also angry with God. As a kid, when I sang songs in the children's choir and memorized verses in bible study, I was told there was a God who loved and protected us. He was a jealous God and could be angered, yes, but He always showed grace and mercy towards His people. I must not have been one of His people. He never protected me. As a matter of fact, I remember crying and pleading to God to make it stop when I was in DC being raped at five years old. I thought he heard my prayers when I moved to New Jersey. But when the abuse became worse and more frequent, it was easy for me to conclude God's protection didn't apply to me. — Elona Washington

Children are often called our greatest resource, as if they were deposits of tin. But a child is not (just as an adult is not) a lever in an economic machine, a vehicle for commerce, a revenue source for the all-powerful state. He is a human being, made in the image and likeness of God - made, that is, for goodness and truth and beauty. — Anthony Esolen

Meditation expands our inner being. The inner being is like a small, individual river flowering towards the Ocean.
In meditation, I feel how my inner being expands into an inner ocean, which is part of everything, which is one with Existence.
Through the inner being, we come in contact with the inner ocean, the undefined and boundless within ourselves, where we are one with life. We realize that God is part of life. We realize that God is not a person, but the consciousness that is part of everything. We find God in a flower, in a tree, in the eyes of a child or in a playful dog.
Through discovering our inner being, we discover that we are also part of the flower, the child or the dog. We realize that God is everywhere. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will-
The right thing happens to the happy man.
The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.
God bless the roots! -Body and soul are one
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.
Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,
And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man. — Theodore Roethke

If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and violence of all kinds, pornography ... , the routine torture of political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion, and the random violence which surrounds us. — Francis A. Schaeffer

Some of my earliest and fondest memories of my mother are of her kneeling at the side of per bed every night and praying. As a child, I would always get very close to her as she prayed. I would put my ear as close as I could to her mouth and try my best to hear what she was saying to God, but I never could make out the words. Today, being married to an addict myself, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what she was praying. — Barbara Bice

I would encourage my children to protect themselves if there's any sort of physical abuse against them. I would definitely go speak to the perpetrator, and if the perpetrator was a child, I'd speak to their parents. But I ... Oh my God, I don't know what I'd do if I was privy to watching my kids being bullied! I would do what any parent would, I'd be like a grizzly bear protecting his cubs. — Rib Hillis

Only a woman can carry in her body an eternal being which bears the very image of God. Only she is the recipient of the miracle of life. Only a woman can conceive and nurture this life using her own flesh and blood, and then deliver a living soul into the world. God has bestowed upon her alone a genuine miracle - the creation of life, and the fusing of an eternal soul with mortal flesh. This fact alone establishes the glory of motherhood.
Despite the most creative plans of humanist scientists and lawmakers to redefine the sexes, no man will ever conceive and give birth to a child. The fruitful womb is a holy gift given by God to women alone. This is one reason why the office of wife and mother is the highest calling to which a woman can aspire.
This is the reason why nations that fear the Lord esteem and protect mothers. They glory in the distinctions between men and women, and attempt to build cultures in which motherhood is honored and protected. — Douglas W. Phillips

As a mortal being you are limited, but as a child of God you are unlimited ... Focus your attention on God, and you shall have all the power you want, to use in any direction. — Paramahansa Yogananda

I don't care what your excuse is, I don't care what you think God told you to do, if you are in the business of closing children's minds and obliterating their capacity to imagine, and depriving them of a capacity to laugh, then you are a criminal. Maybe not under the law, but under any decent system of morality.
Shame on anyone who brainwashes a child and attacks their individual liberty and deprives them of the freedom that is the very definition of a human being. Shame. — Michael Grant

I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. A.E. — Anonymous

Child, you do not know me. You have created a mythical being in my likeness whom you have set up as a god. It is not I. Many times, infant, I have told you that I am no hero, but I think you have not believed me. I tell you now that I am no fit mate for you...My reputation is damaged beyond repair, child. I come from vicious stock, and I have brought no honor to the name I bear. To no women have I been faithful; behind me lies scandal upon sordid scandal...You have seen perhaps the best of me; you have not seen the worst'

'Ah, Monseigneur, you need not have told me this! I know--I have always known, and still I love you. I do not want a boy. I only want Monseigneur. — Georgette Heyer

When they were all up playing in the nursery George caught something again and had monia on account of getting cold on his chest and Yourfather was very solemn and said not to grieve if God called little brother away. But God brought little George back to them only he was delicate after that and had to wear glasses, and when Dearmother let Eveline help bathe him because Miss Mathilda was having the measles too Eveline noticed he had something funny there where she didn't have anything. She asked Dearmother if it was a mump, but Dearmother scolded her and said she was a vulgar little girl to have looked. Hush, child, don't ask questions. Evaline got red all over and cried and Adelaide and Margaret wouldn't speak to her for days on account of her being a vulgar little girl. — John Dos Passos

They are inherently good
the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil
but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency
you may say goodness
of the human being — Norman Vincent Peale

Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a mask of God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society. To speak of God being hidden is a way of describing His presence, as when a child hiding in the room is there, just not seen. To realize that the mundane activities that take up most of our lives - going to work, taking the kids to soccer practice, picking up a few things at the store, going to church - are hiding-places for God can be a revelation in itself. Most people seek God in mystical experiences, spectacular miracles, and extraordinary acts they have to do. To find Him in vocation brings Him, literally, down to earth, makes us see how close He really is to us, and transfigures everyday life. — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

A providence is shaping our ends; a plan is developing in our lives; a supremely wise and loving Being is making all things work together for good. In the sequel of our life's story, we shall see that there was a meaning and necessity in all the previous incidents, except those that were the result of our own folly and sin, and that even these have been made to contribute to the final result. Trust Him, child of God: He is leading you by a right way to the celestial city of habitation; and as from the terrace of eternity you review the path by which you came from the morning-land of childhood, you will confess that He has done all things well. — F.B. Meyer

Isn't the little child poor, gentle, and pure of heart? Isn't the little child weeping in response to every little pain? Isn't the little child the peacemaker hungry and thirsty for uprightness and the final victim of persecution? And what of Jesus himself, the Word of God who became flesh, dwelt for nine months in Mary's womb, and came into this world as a little child worshipped by shepherds from close by and by wise men from far away? The eternal Son became a child so that I might become a child again and so re-enter with him into the Kingdom of the Father. "In all truth I tell you," Jesus said to Nicodemus, "no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

If I am not master of my life, not sultan of my own being, then no man's logic and no man's ecstatic fits may force me to find less silly my impossibly silly position: that of God's slave; no, not his slave even, but just a match which is aimlessly struck and then blown out by some inquisitive child, the terror of his toys. — Vladimir Nabokov

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Ever since childhood Yurii Andreievich had been fond of woods seen at evening against the setting sun. At such moments he felt as if he too were being pierced by shafts of light. It was as though the gift of the living spirit were streaming into his breast, piercing his being and coming out at his shoulders like a pair of wings. The archetype that is formed in every child for life and seems for ever after to be his inward face, his personality, awoke in him in its full primordial strength, and compelled nature, the forest, the afterglow, and everything else visible to be transfigured into a similarly primordial and all-embracing likeness of a girl. Closing his eyes, "Lara," he whispered and thought, addressing the whole of his life, all God's earth, all the sunlit space spread out before him. — Boris Pasternak

The inner life is bruised by a running against the laws of the Kingdom. The bruises are guilt complexes, a sense of inferiority, of missing the mark, of being out of harmony with God and with oneself, a sense of wrongness. Divine forgiveness wipes out all that sense of inner hurt and condemnation. Brings a sense of at-homeness- at home with God and oneself and with life. The universe opens its arms and takes one in. You are accepted- by God, by yourself, and by life. All self-loathing, self-rejection, all inferiorities drop away. You are a child of God; born from above, you walk the earth, a conqueror, afraid of nothing. Healed at the heart, you can say to life: Come on, I'm ready for anything. — E. Stanley Jones

Jesus stands at the door knocking (Rev. 3:20). In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

To be a human being is to be a child of God — M. Bartolo-Abela

Prayer is a meeting which nourishes our hearts. It is presence and communion. The secret of our being is in this kiss of God by which we know we are loved and forgiven. In our deepest selves, below the levels of action and understanding, there is a vulnerable heart, a child who loves but is afraid to love. Silent prayer nourishes this deep place. — Jean Vanier

Learning to accept powerlessness has profound spiritual implications for your child. When we accept the reality of our human condition
that we are ultimately powerless to change our fallen state, yet totally responsible for being in it
we are driven to receive God's solution based on his Son's payment of a debt we can't pay. — Henry Cloud

Benefits of Being in God's Family The moment you were spiritually born into God's family, you were given some astounding birthday gifts: the family name, the family likeness, family privileges, family intimate access, and the family inheritance!7 The Bible says, "Since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you."8 The New Testament gives great emphasis to our rich "inheritance." It tells us, "My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."9 As children of God we get to share in the family fortune. Here on earth we are given "the riches ... of his grace ... kindness ... patience ... glory ... wisdom ... power ... and mercy."10 But in eternity we will inherit even more. Paul said, "I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people."11 — Rick Warren

The gospel of Christ is a glorious gospel of grace wherein the power of God is available to you in whatever area of your life you are willing to believe for. Now that's AMAZING GRACE! If you're only willing to believe for being saved from hell, then be it unto you according to your faith. But know this, the Lord wants you to experience so much more. Take a look at Psalm 103, where the psalmist enumerates some of the glorious benefits of the child of God. The psalmist advises us to " ... forget not all His benefits". — Brian Williams

Being born again happens in an instant. Learning to live as a child of God takes a lifetime. — Derwin L. Gray

Have you heard God's blessing in your inmost being? Are the words, "You are my beloved child, in whom I delight" an endless source of joy and strength? Have you sensed, through the Holy Spirit, God speaking to you? That blessing- the blessing through the Spirit that is ours through Christ- is what Jacob received, and it is the only remedy against idolatry. Only that blessing makes idols unnecessary. As with Jacob, we usually discover this only after a life of "looking for blessings in all the wrong places." It often takes an experience of crippling weakness for us to finally discover it. That is why so many of the most God-blessed people limp as they dance for joy. — Timothy Keller

I'm right now standing inside Hamilton-Selway Fine Art as an artist, as a philanthropist, as a child of God, and more importantly as a human being. — Steven Jackson

I go to the window, I spot a fly under the curtain, I corner it in a muslin trap and move a murderous forefinger toward it. This moment is not in the program, it's something apart, timeless, incomparable, motionless, nothing will come of it this evening or later ... Mankind is asleep ... Alone and without a future in a stagnant moment, a child is asking murder for strong sensations. Since I'm refused a man's destiny, I'll be the destiny of a fly. I don't rush matters, I'm letting it have time enough to become aware of the giant bending over it. I move my finger forward, the fly bursts, I'm foiled! Good God, I shouldn't have killed it! It was the only being in all creation that feared me; I no longer mean anything to anyone. I, the insecticide, take the victim's place and become an insect myself. I'm a fly, I've always been one. This time I've touched bottom. — Jean-Paul Sartre

It is significant that whereas in the West Mary is primarily the Virgin, a being almost totally different from us in her absolute and celestial purity and freedom from all carnal pollution, in the East she is always referred to and glorified as Theotokos, the Mother of God, and virtually all icons depict her with the Child in her arms. — Alexander Schmemann

what is the love of child, or mother, or dog, but the love of God, shining through another being - which is a being just because he shines through it. — George MacDonald

In light of this evidence, Bryan suggests that we should embrace nouns more thoughtfully. "Don't Drink and Drive" could be rephrased as: "Don't Be a Drunk Driver." The same thinking can be applied to originality. When a child draws a picture, instead of calling the artwork creative, we can say "You are creative." After a teenager resists the temptation to follow the crowd, we can commend her for being a non-conformist. When we shift our emphasis from behavior to character, people evaluate choices differently. Instead of asking whether this behavior will achieve the results they want, they take action because it is the right thing to do. In the poignant words of one Holocaust rescuer, "It's like saving somebody who is drowning. You don't ask them what God they pray to. You just go and save them. — Adam M. Grant

Parental teaching is a natural duty
who so fit to look to the child's well being as those who are the authors of his actual being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish. Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the family itself, and for the church of God. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What always strikes me in the story of Cain and Abel is how often the word "brother" is used. Cain killed his "brother." God says it was "the blood of your brother." The killing was done to another human being, a child of God like you, breaking that sacred bond of common humanity. — Allan Boesak

I also very well remember that on another occasion the father dean said: 'In order that at responsible age a man may be a real man and not a parasite, his education must without fail be based on the following ten principles. 'From early childhood there should be instilled in the child: Belief in receiving punishment for disobedience. Hope of receiving reward only for merit. Love of God - but indiference to the saints. Remorse of conscience for the ill-treatment of animals. Fear of grieving parents and teachers. Fearlessness towards devils, snakes and mice. Joy in being content merely with what one has. Sorrow at the loss of the goodwill of others. Patient endurance of pain and hunger. The striving early to earn one's bread. — G.I. Gurdjieff

And now because you are His child, live as a child of God; be redeemed from the life of evil, which is false to your nature, into the life of goodness, which is the truth of your being. Scorn all that is mean; hate all that is false; struggle with all that is impure Live the simple, lofty life which befits an heir of immortality. — Frederick William Robertson

I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder ... But even as a child, one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, Please, God. Please don't take his life, too. I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. — Kerry Kennedy

It is the Holy Spirit who keeps us from this path and gives us confidence so we can enjoy intimacy with our Creator. Though I do not believe God gives us His Spirit solely for our personal benefit, it is undeniable that one of the greatest aspects of being in relationship with the Holy Spirit is the intimacy, security, and encouragement He brings us. It is then we can serve God as a beloved child rather than a stressed-out, guilt-ridden slave. — Francis Chan

The first priority will consist in restoring a sense of the acceptance of life as a gift from God. According to both Sacred Scripture and the wisest traditions of your continent, the arrival of a child is always a gift, a blessing from God. Today it is high time to place greater emphasis on this: every human being, every tiny human person, however weak, is created 'in the image and likeness of God' (Gen 1:27) — Pope Benedict XVI

O God, I confess I am not worthy to rock that little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of a child and its mother. How is it that I without any merit have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? Oh, how gladly will I do so. Though the duty should be even more insignificant and despised, neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor will distress me for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. — Elisabeth Elliot

There is a great deal we never think of calling religion that is still fruit unto God, and garnered by Him in the harvest. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, patience, goodness. I affirm that if these fruits are found in any form, whether you show your patience as a woman nursing a fretful child, or as a man attending to the vexing detail of a business, or as a physician following the dark mazes of sickness, or as a mechanic fitting the joints and valves of a locomotive; being honest true besides, you bring forth truth unto God. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

He swore by all that he ever had loved and reverenced that he would try, try with all his might in the short time that might remain to him ... he would forget himself, he would put his own pain and chagrin and disappointment, his own feeling of defeat and uselessness, his own craving for love and intellectual companionship in the background, and he would see if the more than six feet of bone and muscle that contained his being could do any small service that might come his way for God and his fellow man before he went. Maybe if he could accomplish some little thing, something that would ease the ache of even one heart that ached as his was aching at that minute, just maybe that knowledge would be the secret that he might carry in his breast that would set the stamp of an indelible smile on his face, so that even a child could discern the majesty of the impulse and he would not be ashamed when the end came. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I am sure that all people know deep down inside that the little child in the mother's womb is a human being from the moment of conception, created in the image of God to love and be loved. Let us pray that nobody will be afraid to protect that little child, to help that little child to be born. Jesus said: 'If you receive a little child in my name, you receive me.' — Mother Teresa

Being a mother is not about 'birthing a child into the world.' Rather, it is about repeatedly 'birthing into the child' a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

have never come across a coherent notion of bad or good, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable that did not depend upon some change in the experience of conscious creatures. It is not always easy to nail down what we mean by "good" and "bad" - and their definitions may remain perpetually open to revision - but such judgments seem to require, in every instance, that some difference register at the level of experience. Why would it be wrong to murder a billion human beings? Because so much pain and suffering would result. Why would it be wrong to painlessly kill every man, woman, and child in their sleep? Because of all the possibilities for future happiness that would be foreclosed. If you think such actions are wrong primarily because they would anger God or would lead to your punishment after death, you are still worried about perturbations of consciousness - albeit ones that stand a good chance of being wholly imaginary. — Sam Harris

You are angry at the God you were taught to believe in as a child. The God who is supposed to watch over you and protect you, who answers your prayers and forgives your sins. This God is just a story. Religions try to capture God, but God is beyond religion. The true God lies beyond our comprehension. We can't understand His will; He can't be explained in a book. He didn't abandon us and He will not save us. He has nothing to do with our being here. God does not change. He simply is. I don't pray to God for forgiveness or favors, I only pray to be closer to Him, and when I pray, I fill my heart with love. When I pray this way, I know that God is love. When I feel that love, I remember that we don't need angels or a heaven, because we are a part of God already. — Nando Parrado

Philosophy goes into the problem deeply, without changing being at all. Religion tells me that I have been created; that I am continuously receiving myself from divine hands, that I am free yet living from God's strength. Try to feel your way into this truth, and your whole attitude towards life will change. You will see yourself in an entirely new perspective. What once seemed self-understood becomes questionable. Where once you were indifferent, you become reverent; where self-confident, you learn to know "fear and trembling." But where formerly you felt abandoned, you will now feel secure, living as a child of the Creator-Father, and the knowledge that this is precisely what you are will alter the very tap-root of your being — Romano Guardini

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. — J.I. Packer

I was made for more than being stuck in a vicious cycle of defeat. I am not made to be a victim of my poor choices. I was made to be a victorious child of God. — Lysa TerKeurst

God's love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God's anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child's self-defeating behavior. — Dallin H. Oaks

War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. War is a boy being carried on a stretcher, looking up at God's blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorsa for the son she has given. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? — Sumangali Morhall

The child watched its disappearance--he was astounded but dreamy. His stupefaction was complicated by a sense of the dark reality of existence. It seemed as if there were experience in this dawning being. Did he, perchance, already exercise judgment? Experience coming too early constructs, sometimes, in the obscure depths of a child's mind, some dangerous balance--we know not what--in which the poor little soul weighs God.

Feeling himself innocent, he yielded. There was no complaint-THE IRREPROACHABLE DOES NOT REPROACH.
(The Man Who Laughs) — Victor Hugo

She wanted to take his hand. Her hardest task now as she grew older in the Ministry was to deal with her longing to be touched - hugged, stroked by anyone, any human being - a friend, a lover, a child or even (and here she scented danger) a servant. Of either sex. She prayed about it, asking that God's encircling arms would bring comfort. They did not — Jane Gardam

God has given the great power to parents and teachers.They have a great power of creating and spoiling to a human being.They can make a child or they can spoil a child. Isn't right? — Kusum Manjeshri

One of the most remarkable of these hymns is that addressed to the Unknown God. The poet says: "In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. As soon as he was born he alone was the lord of all that is. He established the earth and this heaven." The hymn consists of ten stanzas, in which the Deity is celebrated as the maker of the snowy mountains, the sea and the distant river, who made fast the awful heaven, He who alone is God above all gods, before whom heaven and earth stand trembling in their mind. Each stanza concludes with the refrain, "Who is the God to whom we shall offer sacrifice?" We have in this hymn a most sublime conception of the Supreme Being, and while there are many Vedic hymns whose tone is pantheistic and seems to imply that the wild forces of nature are Gods who rule the world, this hymn to the Unknown God is as purely monotheistic as a psalm of David, and shows a spirit of religious awe as profound as any we find in the Hebrew Scriptures. — Epiphanius Wilson

Let us think of the human race as if it were a single human being," Ibn Rushd proposed. "A child understands nothing, and clings to faith because it lacks knowledge. The battle between reason and superstition may be seen as mankind's long adolescence, and the triumph of reason will be its coming of age. It is not that God does not exist but that like any proud parent he awaits the day when his child can stand on its own two feet, make its own way in the world, and be free of its dependence upon him. — Salman Rushdie

Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father." Ultimately, patience means being "firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord" every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so. In the words of John the Revelator, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and ... faith [in] Jesus. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I think of myself as a fairly decent human being and it gives me great pain to be considered for all the mean S.O.B.s that come along. I've played bird decapitators, puppy stranglers, woman beaters, wife poisoners, child molesters - every goddamn thing you can think of. It was quite scene there for a while. But I think the image is changing ... I hope to God the old image is fading from people's minds. — George C. Scott

Umar, despite his strong character and impressive personality, had lost control of himself for a short while, his emotions seizing him so strongly that it brought out a heretofore unsuspected fragility, causing him to react like a child refusing the ruling of God, of reality, of life. By contrast, Abu Bakr, who was normally so sensitive, who wept so abundantly and so intensely when he read the Quran, had received the news of the Prophet's death with deep sorrow but also with extraordinary calm and unsuspected inner strength. At that particular moment, the two men's roles were inverted, thus showing that through his departure the Prophet offered us a final teaching: in the bright depths of spirituality, sensitivity can produce a degree of strength of being that nothing can disturb. Conversely, the strongest personality, if it forgets itself for a moment, can become vulnerable and fragile. The — Tariq Ramadan

You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. 'Father' is the Christian name for God. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. — J.I. Packer

Being a child of God means confidence, but it never means complacency. — Kevin DeYoung

If no one had ever challenged religious authority, there'd be no democracy, no public schools, women's rights, improvements to science and medicine, evolution of slavery and no laws against child abuse or spousal abuse. I was afraid to challenge my religious beliefs because that was the basis of creation - mine anyway. I was afraid to question the Bible or anything in it, and when I did, that's when I became involved with PFLAG and realized that my son was a perfectly normal human being and there was nothing for God to heal because Bobby was perfect just the way he was. — Mary Griffith

I found myself immediately attracted to Pope John Paul II when, upon his election to the Papacy, his published speeches invariably called attention to the need for recognizing the dignity of the human being as a child of God. — Robert H. Schuller

HERE'S THE THING about motherhood. It exhausts you and thrills you. It kicks you in the butt, and the very next second makes you feel like a superstar. Most of all, it teaches you to be selfless. Let me rephrase that. It doesn't really teach you this. It creates a new selflessness within you, which grabs hold of your heart when you first take your child into your arms. In that profound moment of extraordinary love and discovery, your own needs and desires become secondary. Nothing is as important as the well-being of your beautiful child. You would sacrifice anything for her. Even your own life. You would do it in a heartbeat. God wouldn't need to ask twice. — Julianne MacLean

I do not stop being a child of God because I am a problem child. — Bryan Chapell