Growing Faith Quotes & Sayings

For a person to be truly discipled and growing in their faith, they need more than one person discipling them. — Francis Chan

Our faith becomes stronger as we express it; a growing faith is a sharing faith — Billy Graham

Growing up in the church in West Virginia, faith is always there. It's part of the fabric of the culture. — DeVon Franklin

Why wait? So precious is this life - this gift - this temporary blindness. Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy. For in the end, in the light of truth when the flesh is cast off, there is nothing but this. — Jennifer DeLucy

Christ subjected himself to the law of the seed in the earth, to the law of rest and growth. He was "one of the children of the year," growing through rest, secret in his mothers womb, receiving the warmth of the sun through her, living the life of dependence, helplessness, littleness, darkness, and silence which, by a mystery of the Eternal Law, is the life of natural growth. — Caryll Houselander

I can think of so many tough guys that by definition it's their job to be tough and they're all in chapel. That's such a misconception and it's kind of gone out the window. Guys feel more comfortable going to chapel. I remember when I first started, guys were nervous about it and it was kind of a secret. There was still that stigma that came with it, but it's definitely been removed and (the faith movement) is definitely growing. — Matt Cullen

growing in faith and love for Christ, revealed as He is in Scripture, will be the greatest of all preservatives against being led astray. The person who is saturated in the teaching and spirit of the Gospels will have his or her senses "trained ... to distinguish good from evil" (Heb. 5:14, NIV) and to know what is truly Christ-like and Christ-honoring. — Sinclair B. Ferguson

As you give to fund God's needs, are you forced to trust Him to provide for yours? That's what a growing faith is about. And over the long haul, it's not enough just to commit to a percentage. Growth means reviewing your giving goals and occasionally increasing the percentage you give. — Andy Stanley

I was taught growing up not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, to withdraw myself from the sinful 'others'. But we are all others. We are all sinners in someone's eyes. — Anna White

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they're not all growing in their faith, they're not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior. — Joel Osteen

I'm not [a Buddhist]. The whole point of anything that is really, truly valuable to your soul, and your own growth, is not to attach to a teacher, but rather to find out what the real deal is in the world itself. You become your own guide. The teachings can help you, but really, we're all here with the opportunity the reality of hereness. We all have that. I trust that ... I'm just not interested in labels. I find all of them constrictive. They're hard to wear. And they're hard to wear because we're always - hopefully - growing. — Alice Walker

You can't rest on yesterday's growth. You must be dedicated to growing today ... and every day. — Jim George

Give someone who has faith in you a placebo and call it a hair growing pill, anti-nausea pill or whatever, and you will be amazed at how many respond to your therapy. — Bernie Siegel

When I speak of a man growing in grace, I mean simply this - that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual mindedness more marked. — J.C. Ryle

An ever-growing, ever-constant relationship with God makes us certain of what we believe and enables us to run with endurance. — Katy Kauffman

Like most people, my views about ghosts and haunted places were traditional while growing up. I believed ghosts were human spirits. Not that I talked to many people about the subject or my experiences. I assumed people would think I was weird. — Kristine McGuire

I know it's hard to see," he said, "but God shows me his work in you every time we meet. I see your faith growing inside you like a beautiful spring bud, just ready to blossom. Whatever you think you're facing, the obstacles you's struggling to overcome, they's like rain feeding that bud inside you. Don't fear the storm. He's in the storm, just like he's in the gentle breeze. He gots you right where he wants you." I hugged — Jennifer H. Westall

From the Garden"

Come, my beloved,
consider the lilies.
We are of little faith.
We talk too much.
Put your mouthful of words away
and come with me to watch
the lilies open in such a field,
growing there like yachts,
slowly steering their petals
without nurses or clocks.
Let us consider the view:
a house where white clouds
decorate the muddy halls.
Oh, put away your good words
and your bad words. Spit out
your words like stones!
Come here! Come here!
Come eat my pleasant fruits. — Anne Sexton

God waits patiently for me to wake up, grow up, come to the awareness that great works take time, that nothing truly worthwhile can be rushed ... How difficult it is not to interfere, to try to take over, to go it alone. But God cannot succeed without me. God needs my whole-hearted cooperation in this work. — Jean Royer

I had a very marginal understanding of what faith in God was growing up because, although I went to a Catholic school, without having parents who really were actively involved in faith there was no reinforcement of it. So, as a result of that I guess I just kind of thought that God was somebody that you put in a box and you put Him on a shelf and you called on him when you had crises. — Patricia Mauceri

A church without a confession of faith may as well advertise that it is prepared to be a harbour for every kind of damning heresy and to be the soil for any who are given to growing the crop of novelty. A church without a confession of faith has the theological and ecclesiastical equivalent of AIDS, with no immunity against the infectious winds of false doctrine. — Samuel E. Waldron

Faith is not simply a private matter, or something we practice once a week at church. Rather, it should have a contagious effect on the broader world. Jesus used these images to illustrate His kingdom.: a sprinkle of yeast causing the whole loaf to rise, a pinch of salt preserving a slab of meat, the smallest seed in the garden growing into a great tree in which birds of the air come to nest. — Philip Yancey

I prefer a world with many beliefs and religions.
It stimulates my faith to keep growing day by day. — Toba Beta

Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, with its born-again regression, its pink-and-gold concept of heaven, its literal-mindedness, its rambunctious good cheer ... its anti-intellectualism ... its puerile hymns ... and its faith-healing ... are made to order for King Kid America. — Florence King

As the days of spring arouse all nature to a green and growing vitality, so when hope enters the soul it makes all things new. It insures the progress which it predicts. Rooted in faith, growing up into love; these make the three immortal graces of the Gospel, whose intertwined arms and concurrent voices shed joy and peace over our human life. — James Freeman Clarke

But the more you make the choice to live above your feelings, to trust God instead of what you may feel like doing, the stronger your faith becomes. It's not about being perfect. We will always been on a journey of growing closer to God. — Tim Tebow

The infinite reservoir of future grace is flowing back through the present into the ever-growing pool of past grace. The inexhaustible reservoir is invisible except through the promises. But the ever-enlarging pool of past grace is visible; and God means for the certainty and beauty and depth to strengthen our faith in future grace. — John Piper

Remember that your ultimate goal is for your children to grow up secure in your love, strong in their faith, and with sound character. — Gary Chapman

As guides for the children in our life, we need to find ways to connect their growing understanding of God's Word and His truth to an authentic faith lived life-on-life with others. We need to keep pointing them back to Scripture as the truth in their lives. At the same time, we need to recognize that God has also given us a gift through them - an opportunity to see how powerful a childlike faith can be. — Brian Schulenburg

Sometimes in storm weather the shore had fluttered with disabled swallows. They crouched lower for his approach, without strength to escape. In his hands they pulsed with that same pulse. He had taken a bird and warmed it between his hands or inside his jacket, brought the life back until it was able to fly. Sometimes, released from his hands, they circled once around him before flying away; in gratitude, or so the child had believed
and the belief had survived all the man's science. — Barry Unsworth

Women are like trees, growing slowly over time. So many rings creating layers of maturity as their branches spread and reach out to the sky. Motherhood prunes those branches. Sometimes it prunes them back hard and painfully. But if you let go and trust in the good of what it means to be a mother, if you can trust in the knowledge learned from the hard lessons, then faith and belief will carry you through. And in the end, you will grow fuller and more beautiful from the, sometimes harsh, pruning of motherhood. — P.R. Newton

When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations. — Bruce Feiler

Balanced atop the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple, gleaming in the Utah sun, a statue of the angel Moroni stands watch over downtown Salt Lake City with his golden trumpet raised. This massive granite edifice is the spiritual and temporal nexus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which presents itself as the world's only true religion. Temple Square is to Mormons what the Vatican is to Catholics, or the Kaaba in Mecca is to Muslims. At last count there were more than eleven million Saints the world over, and Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the Western Hemisphere. At present in the United States there are more Mormons than Presbyterians or Episcopalians. On the planet as a whole, there are now more Mormons than Jews. Mormonism is considered in some sober academic circles to be well on its way to becoming a major world religion
the first such faith to emerge since Islam. — Jon Krakauer

Is this what growing up "without" means - that I can (almost) afford a fancy coat, but can't enjoy it? What about the American Dream, the theory that with hard work and perseverance people can transcend the class into which they are born? I want to believe in it, but I don't. Class is about more than money; it's about safety and security, knowing that what you have today, you will have tomorrow. It's about having faith and feeling safe in the knowledge that when my coat gets worn out, there will be other coats. — Terri Griffith

It is my opinion that education is a key component to peace and progress. Despite their arrogant claims to have all the answers, world religions cannot account for recent insights and discoveries about the natural world and human history. In this, the most tantalizing argument against religious faith comes forth in the way of science and reason. An ever-growing scientific consensus has resulted in the ever-shrinking populous of religious relevance. — Tommy Rodriguez

Baking bread is a lot like growing your faith in the Lord, Carrie Louise. You mix together the best ingredients you can find and wait for the mixture to mature, but it's the heat of the oven that makes it something of worth and substance. The same way the tribulations of this world mature a persons faith. — Dorothy Love

The limits of science have always been the source of bitter disappointment when people expected something from science that it was not able to provide. Take the following examples: a man without faith seeking to find in science a substitute for his faith on which to build his life; a man unsatisfied by philosophy seeking an all-embracing universal truth in science; a spiritually shallow person growing aware of his own futility in the course of engaging in the endless reflections imposed by science. In every one of these cases, science begins as an object of blind idolatry and ends up as an object of hatred and
contempt. Disenchantment inevitably follows upon these and similar misconceptions. One question remains: What value can science possibly have when its limitations have become so painfully clear? — Karl Jaspers

I knew that Jessie and I were going to be okay; I knew we were all going to be okay. And I had faith that wherever our individual paths led us would be exactly where we were always meant to be. For a girl that had never believed in anything, this realization meant everything. — Rose Fall

Since the rise of Islam, Jews had lived as a tolerated minority, or dhimmi, a status granted to Jews and Christians because they were monotheists. Despite a growing tendency in our own times to paint the premodern Islamic world as an Eden of religious tolerance in which Jews flourished, they always lived by the whims of fickle rulers and the mood of a hostile majority. In the eyes of that majority they were effete, lacking in honor, and powerless by definition, but as long as they accepted the supremacy of Muslims they were usually allowed to live and observe their faith and occasionally to prosper. — Matti Friedman

The spiritual ambiguity growing up made me really latch onto a faith - Protestantism - that was somewhat conventional. Everyone else was rebelling against traditions and institutions, whereas I was rebelling against the upheaval and uncertainty in my family. — Sufjan Stevens

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain ... This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines - they are a way of sowing to the Spirit ... By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. — Richard J. Foster

Don't ever get to the point where you can't be taught because life is a classroom and everyone owns a pen. — Shannon L. Alder

If Feyre can't be bothered to listen to orders, then I can't be held accountable for the consequences."
"Accountable?" I sputtered, placing my hands flat on the table. "You cornered me in the hall like a wolf with a rabbit!"
Lucien propped an arm on the table and covered his mouth with has hand, his russet eye bright.
"While I might have been not myself, Lucien and I both told you to stay in your room," Tamlin said, so calmly that I wanted to rip out my hair.
I couldn't help it. Didn't even try to fight the red-hot temper that razed my senses. "Faerie pig!" I yelled, and Lucien howled, almost tipping back in his chair. At the sight of Tamlin's growing smile, I left. — Sarah J. Maas

There has to be something wrong when spurning reproduction doesn't make Gabriella and me the "mavericks" we'd both have prided ourselves as in our younger days but standard issue for our era. Surely the contemporary absorption with our own lives as the be-all and end-all ultimately hails from an insidious misanthropy - a lack of faith in the whole human enterprise. In its darkest form, the growing cohort of childless couples determined to throw all their money at Being Here Now - to take that step aerobics class, visit Tanzania, put an addition on the house while making no effort to ensure there's someone around to inherit the place when the party is over - has the quality of the mad, slightly hysterical scenes of gleeful abandon that fiction — Lionel Shriver

The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people - faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but will also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment - faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor, and ultimately recognize right. — John F. Kennedy

What I learned growing up on the farm was a way of life that was centered on hard work, and on faith and on thrift. Those values have stuck with me my whole life. — Rick Perry

I am an Episcopalian who takes the faith of my fathers seriously, and I would, I think, be disheartened if my own young children were to turn away from the church when they grow up. I am also a critic of Christianity, if by critic one means an observer who brings historical and literary judgment to bear on the texts and traditions of the church. — Jon Meacham

I give thank for God for my roots in the Word of Faith teachings. It is truly on the shoulders of great men of God like Brother Kenneth E. Hagin that we are able to see further into the Word of God today. Growing up, I learned a lot about faith from Brother Hagin who truly had a special revelation of faith from the Lord. I deeply honor and respect him for all that he has taught me. — Joseph Prince

Forgiveness was sweeter than I'd ever imagined. Hope was turning into faith. In fact, they were so close they could almost be the very same thing. Or they could be, if I let the tiny seed keep growing inside me. I realized that faith could fix a broken heart. Faith was the glue that held it together. That was part of the miracle. — Kimberley Griffiths Little

It is a time of darkness, of faith. We shall not see Christ's radiance in our lives yet; it is still hidden in our darkness; nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives; we must believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this almost incredible reality. — Caryll Houselander

Love is the air that I breathe, like oxygen. When I lack it, I feel atrophied, asphyxiated. When I have it, I feel I am growing. And so this growth is linked to others, or to a collective other. If I realize that I do not love you, my faith diminishes, and I breathe less and less of the oxygen of life. When I feel linked to you, in communion with you, there is a current of love that passes between us, and the intensity can multiply. And the more this love grows, the more the faith becomes luminous, the more I feel linked to the collective other. I am speaking of God. — Jean-Bertrand Aristide

There are many tired gardeners but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up. — Allan Armitage

Being a Christian is about living an inviting example. — Ricky Maye

Thank goodness I had a great family growing up, a great foundation. But I will say my faith, my parents, my family, all that stuff is very, very important. And I'll say that until the day I die. — Donny Osmond

His creation was a sort of new religion; the churches, gradually deserted by a wavering faith, were replaced by this bazaar, in the minds of the idle women of Paris. Women now came and spent their leisure time in his establishment, the shivering and anxious hours they formerly passed in churches: a necessary consumption of nervous passion, a growing struggle of the god of dress against the husband, the incessantly renewed religion of the body with the divine future of beauty. — Emile Zola

Talking about religion becomes irrelevant when your partner is being raped or your child is dying from a disease you can cure. The old phrase applies that if we are to prove ourselves good then we must not do nothing. We must not let illness prosper when we can cure it. We must not allow abuse when we can stop it and we must not give in to a disease that may be mind numbing and leads to violence.
This is an advocacy not of reason alone but faith in each other, hope for our future, and love in accomplishing these goals without sacrificing self, but rather growing self and calling ourselves to self-giving, not self-sacrifice. — Leviak B. Kelly

In its essence the Gospel is a call to make the experiment of comradeship, the experiment of fellowship, the experiment of trusting the heart of things, throwing self-care to the winds, in the sure and certain faith that you will not be deserted, forsaken nor betrayed, and that your ultimate interests are perfectly secure in the hands of the Great Companion. This insight is the center, the kernel, the growing point of the Christian religion, which, when we have it, all else is secure, and when we have it not, all else is precarious. — L. P. Jacks

[T]he essence of belief is doubt, the essence of reality is questioning. The essence of Time is Flow, not Fix. The essence of faith is the knowledge that all flows and that everything must change. The growing man is Man Alive, and his "philosophy" must grow, must flow, with him ... the man too fixed today, unfixed tomorrow - and his body of beliefs is nothing but a series of fixations. — Thomas Wolfe

I love my garden, and I love working in it. To potter with green growing things, watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think. Just now my garden is like faith - the substance of things hoped for. — L.M. Montgomery

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free. — Francisco Jimenez

One of the best things about growing up in New Zealand is that if you are prepared to work hard and have faith in yourself, truly anything is possible. — Peter Jackson

Carrying my babies was a marvelous mystery, lives growing unseen except by the slow swelling of my belly. Death is an even greater mystery ... The God I cry out to in anguish or joy can neither be proved nor disapproved. The hope I have that death is not the end of all our questions can neither be proved nor disproved. — Madeleine L'Engle

Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience
a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth. — Lord Acton

God teaches those who come to him in another manner without interior speech or action. It takes place with such secrecy that the soul itself does not know it at the time, nor until it sees itself growing in discretion, and in knowledge of how to direct its own and other people's affairs prudently It also understands many things in Holy Scripture that it could not comprehend before, though it knows not whence this knowledge came. I think that God treats these people as we treat thrushes and birds that we teach; but they know they are learning. This way of learning is excellent if free from presumption and combined with faith and right reason. However, there is danger in great unrestraint, for it is hateful that a man should concern himself with what is beyond him. — Francisco De Osuna

Growing old is an unwinnable campaign. During this war we witness ugly scenes. Truths mutate to whims. Faith becomes cynical transactions between liars. Sacrifices turn out to be needless excesses. Heroes become old farts, and young farts become heroes. Ethics become logos on sports clothing. — David Mitchell

There's only one way to find peace with a painful past and that is through a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. He alone, through His Spirit, can place a healing balm on our deep wounds. The Bible says: "You can't heal a wound by saying it's not there!" (Jeremiah 6:14 TLB)
We (Beth and Sherrie) have found that in the places that hurt the most, God brings a promise from the Bible to our memory at just the right time. We have experienced comfort and growth through our growing relationship with Jesus and how we long for the same growth for you! — Beth Willis Miller

In our towns and cities they will continue to be born, in our communities they will go on to be nurtured & radicalised & from within our neighbourhoods they will terrorise & murder our citizens including women & children in their attempt to destroy the very fabric & order of our civilised society. They are influenced by our ignorance, our lack of knowledge is their power, martyrdom in the name of their God and prophet is their aspiration & so it is critical that we waste no time & learn more about them & this ideology they follow before we can even begin to eradicate this chilling & growing endemic Islamic faith based terrorism'. — Cal Sarwar

But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith,and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. — George MacDonald

It's in the difficult times that we're growing and you can't just rebuke everything hard. We've got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test. — Joel Osteen

The ability to discern truth comes from learning, growing, and understanding the Bible. — Elizabeth George

I would say that grace is startling," Jean told me as he began retelling the story of how he wound up as pastor of Lagniappe Presbyterian Church, a growing congregation that meets in a glorified metal hangar in Bay St. Louis. "It's just startling. It isn't supposed to work. This wasn't supposed to work. — Cathleen Falsani

But [religious faith]'s not extinct, Janet. It's become nearly universal in the fleet and is growing very quickly in the Alliance."

"Yes, and that's why I cannot now or I think ever will have a chosen faith. There should be no pressure for the path one takes. Oh, it's no secret that Islam has more of an appeal to me than the others, but Allah understands this as he understands all things. The notion of faith is, I believe, far more important than the choice of a particular one."

"And what of the unfaithful?" asked Justin. "What of them?"

"If they have faith, I believe they'll have greater understanding of things; if not, I can't order someone to believe. It would be stupid to try and evil to force someone to pretend. As if God wants frightened adherents bowing on trembling knees. The harm all those fanatics did before the Grand Collapse," she said with true rancor, "those idiots I'd shoot, if I had the ability. — Dani Kollin

What's positive is moving from a place of growing in faith to really feeling more grounded in faith, to understand that faith is hard, that I'll stumble, that I'll make mistakes, that I'll sin. But, that's part of being on a faith path; it's part of being a human being. — David Gregory

Perhaps this is an area where every generation starts from scratch. Although the crisis of the First World War inaugurated an especially strong period of disillusion with regard to the optimism of the previous age, the pattern has repeated itself in many ways in more recent times, e.g., the loss of faith in politics as a means of advancing human well-being. And perhaps this also has to do with basic elements in growing up. — George Pattison

Hinduism would not be eternal were it not constantly growing and spreading, and taking in new areas of experience. Precisely because it has this power of self addition and re-adaptation, in greater degree than any other religion that the world has even seen, we believe it to be the one immortal faith. — Sister Nivedita

The only way our faith will ever strengthen is for us to use it. We need to apply thought and prayer to our decisions and then trust God for the outcome. We need to set our sights on growing in faith, not shrinking back for fear of failure. — Lysa TerKeurst

You've been striking at her ghost, screaming, 'If you didn't want me to turn out like him, you should have stayed to stop me!'
As his throat worked convulsively, she covered his hands with hers. 'But she can't hear you. So all you're doing is trudging a path that isn't your own, growing more weary of it by the day, wanting more from your existence but believing you're cursed to having less. That is no sort of life for anyone ... '
'How can you have such faith in me?' he asked hoarsely. 'How can you believe in me when I've given you no reason?'
'You've given me plenty of reasons, but there's only one that matters. I love you, Oliver. I can't help myself. That is my reason. — Sabrina Jeffries

A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these "experts" have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully. — Wolfgang Smith

The military infrastructure grew me. My faith in God is important, my belief in my country is important, my relationship to my family is important, the things that Mom and Dad tell you growing up are important. — Tommy Franks

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised. — Lance Armstrong

oo-la: noun. That state of awesomeness. It is when your life is balanced and growing in the seven key areas of life; the 7 F's of Oola (fitness, finance, family, field, faith, friends, and fun). — Dave Braun

By walking in his spiritual life, the Christian will experience growing in his faith, becoming a holy person, understanding more the Word of God, being able to love one's neighbour more, to do acts of mercy and experience more the light of God. — George Calleja

Credulity as a character trait is encouraged in every child who grows up with religious training, which invariably insists on the virtue of blind faith and the sinfulness of doubting and questioning. — Barbara G. Walker

We must always remember that it is the things of the spirit that in the end prevail. That caring counts. That where there is no vision, people perish. That hope and faith count, and that without charity there can be nothing good. That by daring to live dangerously, we are learning to live generously. And that by believing in the inherent goodness of man, we may ... 'stride forward into the unknown with growing confidence. — John Gilbert Winant

We are constantly learning and growing and changing. We are really an experiment. We are endeavoring to discover if a community of faith can exist purely for the good of others. — Erwin McManus

He imagined the future I could have before I even wanted it for myself, and he was the one to push me toward it. That's faith. Growing up, I thought faith was about believing Jesus died for us, and that if I held on to that, I'd get to meet him when I died too. But faith doesn't mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don't, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that. I miss that. — Jessica Knoll

For years I was deathly afraid of my own weaknesses, but when I closed my eyes and let myself be vulnerable to them it allowed miracles to take place. Miracles that were only alive when I accessed my BLIND faith. — Bethany Brookbank

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world's last 'New Frontier:' a kind of 'it-continent.' — Mo Ibrahim

Our faith institutions have the best product that God can offer; but we have the worst customer service imaginable. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. — Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

I prayed for Faith, and thought that some day Faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But Faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans, 'Now Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God'. I had closed my Bible, and prayed for Faith. I now opened my Bible, and began to study, and Faith has been growing ever since. — Dwight L. Moody

Memory, faith, and the natural world as both witness to the cycle of human life and healer to a questioning heart are at the core of this lovely and lyrical collection of poems. The weather changes, people come and go from cities and towns, babies are born, grow up and depart from their parents' arms, but still, the countryside and its rituals sustain the people and creatures who know how to read the signs of the seasons. In these pages, Laura Grace Weldon shares those signs with us; her poems are the fruit of a wonderful harvest. — Eleanor Lerman

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed! — Joyce Meyer

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, I grew up around a lot of Jews. I grew up culturally Jewish, ethnically Jewish, but without real belief and without a strong faith. — David Gregory

I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up - and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out. — Elaine Pagels

My faith in truth and nonviolence is ever growing, and as I am ever trying to follow them in my life, I too am growing every moment. — Mahatma Gandhi

America has begun a spiritual reawakening. Faith and hope are being restored. Americans are turning back to God. Church attendance is up. Audiences for religious books and broadcasts are growing. And I do believe that he has begun to heal our blessed land. — Ronald Reagan

The integrity of one's own mind is of infinitely more value than adherence to any creed or system. We must choose between a dead faith belonging to the past and a living, growing ever-advancing science belonging to the future. — Luther Burbank

I know I always had a lot of energy growing up and I had to put it somewhere. Theater allowed me to really feel things, to laugh, to cry, to explode outward. I could do anything and it was totally accepted and appreciated. If I hadn't gone into the theater, I probably would have been a psychotic killer. — Faith Prince

Losing this part of my life, this time of being a mother to growing children, is indeed an ending. For months, I've carried that quiet sorrow, getting used to its heaviness, the way one learns to live with the chronic soreness of a joint, a tenderness in wrist or knee. What I long to do now is to let the sadness go as well, to have faith that even as my sons graduate from high school and leave home, and this phase of our family life draws to a close, there will be new beginnings not just for them, but for all of us. — Katrina Kenison