Process Of God Quotes & Sayings

Technically, anything that a ministry does for the family could be called family ministry but that's actually part of the problem. There is a difference between doing something FOR the family and doing something WITH the family. Family ministry should not be another program you add to your list of programs. It should develop the process that drives how both the church and the home combine their effort to influence the next generation in their faith and character. If you really believe that nothing is more important than someone's relationship with God, it makes sense to combine the influences of the home and church. — Reggie Joiner

Life is not out to get you, even though it feels that way sometimes. You are totally safe every step of the way (at least you have the option of seeing life that way if you want to). Life is about learning to walk the tightrope, find your balance, and trust God, life and yourself in the process. And you can do this, because there is really nothing to fear. When you get this concept it is going to change everything. — Kimberly Giles

In so far as the church nurtures the schizophrenic Christian, the church herself contributes to the very process of dismemberment which it is her specific business to check and counter. For the church's function is properly to reconstitute the concept and the reality of the fill man, faculties, and forces blended and united in the service of God. The church's mission as the continuing vehicle of divine incarnation is precisely that- to build and rebuild the unified Body made and remade in the image of the Father. The mind of man must be won for God. — Harry Blamires

We live under the New Testament principles of grace and mercy toward our enemies, but when it comes to sin, God wants us to be ruthless. The moment we believe in Jesus as our Savior, God initiates the process of making us holy through his Spirit. He expects us to participate in the lifelong process by battling any tendencies to follow our old nature when it fights against our desire to please God. Since there's no such thing as a harmless sin, any compromise is dangerous. God's battle plan is clear: wipe out any sinful desires, attitudes, and habits before they lead us into disaster. — Dianne Neal Matthews

Art imitates nature not in its effects as such, but in its causes, in its 'manner,' in its process, which are nothing but a participation in and a derivation of actual objects, of the Art of God himself. — Paul Claudel

I am sustained by a sense of the worthwhileness of what I am doing; a trust in the good faith of the process which created and sustains me. That process I call God. — Upton Sinclair

Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution - paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. — Stephen Jay Gould

We are in the process of instituting a reign of terror on earth, and there's only one word that justifies that as far as these savages are concerned: the word of this or that god. In name of a divine entity we can do whatever the hell we like and most of those fools down there will swallow it like a bitter pill. — Salman Rushdie

Rights are either God-given or evolve out of the democratic process. Most rights are based on the ability of people to agree on a social contract, the ability to make and keep agreements. — Rush Limbaugh

If by fate anyone means the will or power of God, let him keep his meaning but mend his language; for fate commonly means a necessary process which will have its way apart from the will of God and men. — Saint Augustine

it's a good thing I'm used to this;
the process of shutting things out
as they fall apart,
the pretence of cool
in a dry, hot season,
the taste of redemption
in a t.v. screen


if God had a voice
what would it say? — Hima Raza

The Church's note must be a supernatural note which distinguishes incarnation from immanence, redemption from evolution, the Kingdom of God from mere spiritual process. — Arthur Middleton

Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for promises you didn't keep. — Dean Koontz

The words and lives of Christian men must be in continual process of reformation by the written Word of their God. This means that ecclesiastical traditions and private theological speculations may never be identified with the word which God speaks, but are to be classed among the words of men which the Word of God must reform. — J.I. Packer

Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The church grew because Jesus had just given His life as the penalty for our sins. The gospel was the answer, the method, and the model. Churches today have incorporated so many models and methods and programs that our dependence upon the execution of those things often overshadows our dependence on God to show up and do something supernatural. We have bought into the lie of the enemy that we must have something for everyone in order to grow. Unfortunately, we forsake the gospel in the process of trying to appease everyone, and in this process, we end up dying in our pursuit of growing. — Nathan Lorick

The Western 'God-image' is a representation of the collective unconscious, an archetype of the psyche that undergoes a continual process of transformation ... The God image evolves through its relationship to humanity. Whoever knows God has an effect on 'him'. For the individual, knowing God, is the process of recognizing and assimilating the pressured and paradoxical contents of the self, which come to consciousness- seek incarnation- within the ego. — Carl Jung

Biblically, waiting is not just something we have to do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be. — John Ortberg

The process of driving a wedge between sacred and secular history is called secularization...the eventual result of this process is that belief in God is relegated to nothing more than a "personal belief" that has no standing in public discourse. — Stephen Leston

Truth demands progress and change, and is always for the benefit of all souls - even if you must travel through a difficult learning process or make a shift as a result of facing the truth. — Molly Friedenfeld

More importantly, I didn't know then that one day I would genuinely be free. That freedom came out of a thousand small steps of obedience, most of which I took during the waiting or limbo time. The more I learned to lean into Him on a daily basis and simply live out my faith in the everyday elements, the more I was prepared for the bigger steps when they arrived. Not only that, I was given the gift of living my life fully in the present, rather than being fixated and frustrated over some distant time or hope. In the crossroads called limbo, you do arrive at mile markers. You become more mature. More healed. Less surprised by or resistant to or unprepared for the good things God is giving you in the ordinary. Your challenge is to begin to embrace the waiting times as part of the overall journey. Limbo is a key part of the healing process! As you are faithful daily, He is working in you powerfully, and it all counts. Every single moment! — Suzanne Eller

Through my own experiences, I have learned that the waiting room is so powerful and so important that the answer to your prayer, your miracle, or your divine intervention depends on how you respond during the wait. Some things are God's will but are not God's timing, and if we do not realize this, we lose our miracles and answers to so many prayers because we lose our faith within the process of time. — Kim Haney

Part of our skittishness about Christian perfection is linguistic confusion. The English word "perfect" has absorbed the Greek notion of "teleos". When the Greeks looked at a building's blueprint, they pictured the building whole and complete. They envisioned the blueprint finished down to the bathroom tile and announced, "Ah, this is perfect." The problem is that "teleos" suggests that perfection is something we can build or achieve. The Hebrews looked at the same blueprint more practically. They envisioned the process of building from hard hats to hammers, from scaffolding to skylights. "Ah," the Hebrews said. "This is perfect." The Hebrews and the early Christians understood perfection as a process, not a product. Our identity as Christians depends upon life lived in relationship with God, not upon the quality of our achievements. — Kenda Creasy Dean

Thinking is creating with God, as thinking is writing with the ready writer; and worlds are only leaves turned over in the process of composition, about his throne. — Henry Ward Beecher

The more genuinely creative [the writer] is, the more he will want his work to develop in accordance with its own nature, and to stand independent of himself — Dorothy L. Sayers

... With the 'death' of God worldly values proliferate, separate out and are drawn into endless conflict with one another. This process leads to the formation of a world torn by an infinite number of value-conflicts, for 'rational' (scientific) knowledge, which, for Weber, is limited to questions of fact rather than value, is unable to resolve the crisis of values that it itself inaugurated. — Nicholas Gane

Think outside the box? Indeed. But to add balance to that, one should not in the process forget what the inside of the box looks like as well. Those who are best at thinking outside the box do it not to puff themselves up, but to see how small they really are. As a contented fish in its fish tank appears to have a small, boring existence to us, imagine a larger, more perceptive kingdom (even by scientific taxonomy) to whom our contented existences may appear to be small and boring. This is where true creativity and massive perceptive abilities spawn a sense of intellectual humility; the kind which God adores. — Criss Jami

For God's sake, Stiff," he says. "You don't have to follow me," I say staring at the maze of bars above me. I shove my foot onto the place where two bars cross and push myself up, grabbing another bar in the process. I sway for a second, my heart beating so hard I can't feel anything else. Every thought I have condenses into that heartbeat, moving at the same rhythm. "Yes, I do," he says. — Veronica Roth

You don't sound too excited about this," Tucker comments twenty minutes later. He holds the door to the community center open for me.

"And you are?" A yellow sign decorated with balloons greets us. "This process is so hard that I have to learn how to breathe? That's not normal."

"You watch any of those YouTube videos?"

"God no. I didn't want to psych myself out. Did you?"

"A few."

"And?"

He gives me a thumbs-down. "I don't recommend them. I'm wondering why we use brass balls to describe someone who's really strong, because after the second video, my balls tried to climb inside my body. Plus, my YouTube history is officially fucked."

"Ha. Exactly why I didn't watch any." I wag a warning finger at him. "Stay by my head during the birth or you'll never want to have sex with me again. — Elle Kennedy

The yardstick that we frequently use to determine if something can be restored is based on the handful of inches that we bring to the process, when God shows up with an infinite amount of miles. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Experiential sanctification is an ongoing process of daily rededication, reconsecration, mortification, and vivification of the whole person to God. It calls for believers to live out their baptism in time so as to allow new challenges and circumstances to draw them further on toward the fuller reception of grace and the deepening of purity of heart — Thomas C. Oden

I should be inclined, therefore, as I have hinted before, to consider the world and this life as the mighty process of God, not for the trial, but for the creation and formation of mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic matter into spirit, to sublimate the dust of the earth into soul, to elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay. And in this view of the subject, the various impressions and excitements which man receives through life may be considered as the forming hand of his Creator, acting by general laws, and awakening his sluggish existence, by the animating touches of the Divinity, into a capacity of superior enjoyment. The original sin of man is the torpor and corruption of the chaotic matter in which he may be said to be born. — Thomas Robert Malthus

The best thing that can happen to me when I'm writing fiction is to lose sight of the fact that I'm writing at all. It's as though I enter into a kind of trance. I know I'm writing, but I don't THINK about it. I just let my fingers type
it's as though the feeling comes out directly through them, bypassing the brain altogether. When that happens, I feel completely transported. There is nothing else like this feeling, very little else is more important to me. That intimacy I feel between myself and my work is what makes me feel at home on the earth. I am basically a shy person, basically a loner and an outsider; and I have been all my life. But when I achieve the kind of connection I can through writing, I feel I'm sitting in the lap of God. — Elizabeth Berg

At any moment of the day, some desire is in the process of coming true. Old seeds we planted (and perhaps forgot about) are bringing results, mixed in with the beginnings of larger results to come. The point is to make your children aware that the universe (or spirit or God) is always listening; none of us is alone. We are constantly being heeded. — Deepak Chopra

Accept suffering as a part of God's tenderizing process. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The core of the evolution controversy can thus be phrased in simple terms: Did mind create matter? Or did matter give rise to mind? According to a theistic worldview, mind is primary. It is the fundamental creative force in the universe (whether God created the world quickly by fiat or slowly by a gradual process). Darwin reversed things. According to his theory, matter is the primary creative force, and mind emerged only very late in evolutionary history.10 — Nancy Pearcey

Indeed, living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God's life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us. "All these other things," which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the Triune God. The Father chose a people, the Son died for them, the Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance, thereby causing them to willingly obey the gospel. The entire process (election, redemption, regeneration) is the work of God and is by grace alone. Thus God, not man, determines who will be the recipients of the gift of salvation. — Loraine Boettner

As Christians understand it, creation is a trinitarian process: God the Father creates through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. So all things are created 'by God', are formed 'through God' and exist 'in God'. — Jurgen Moltmann

What I learned was that the more you commit to the process and the more you trust God for increase in every area of your life, the more God allows the scales to tip in your favor until one day the momentum is so tremendous that there is no going back to the life you knew. You — John W. Gray III

If today shows no results, that doesn't mean the past wasn't working or the present isn't working. It just means we see only part of the picture. Faith believes God is working in every part of the process. — Deb Brammer

All too often we bemoan our imperfections rather than embrace them as part of the process in which we are brought to God. Cherished emptiness gives God space in which to work. We are pure capacity for God. Let us not, then, take our littleness lightly. It is a wonderful grace. It is a gift to receive. At the same time, let us not get trapped in the confines of our littleness, but keep pushing on to claim our greatness. Remind yourself often, "I am pure capacity for God; I can be more. — Macrina Wiederkehr

Justice is a process, and change takes time, but I believe we ought to dream big dreams and make big statements as we pursue those dreams. Amos didn't tell the people that God wants justice to trickle through their society. The New Living Translation uses the phrase "mighty flood of justice" (Amos 5:24) to describe what God wants to see. One thing we learned in Mendenhall is that once flood waters start rushing through a place, there's no turning them back with human strength. — John M. Perkins

The journey makes things valuable not the title. Learn to enjoy and value the process of what God is doing. — Bill Johnson

We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. His purpose is that I depend on HIM and in HIS power NOW. His end is the process. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God ... His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the 'afterwards' of obedience. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious. — Oswald Chambers

Men who scorn the idea of submission to the divine Will and are outraged by the notion of a God who requires submission are among the first to demand total submission to the process in which we are involved and seem to attach a kind of moral imperative to willing participation in it. Any other attitude, so they say, is reactionary or escapist or anti-social. Perhaps, after all, they have found a divinity to worship; and, if they have, the only charitable comment must be: God help them! — Charles Le Gai Eaton

Inspiration: The process by which God worked through the human authors of the Bible to communicate His revelation. The term derives from the Greek theopneustos, meaning "God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16), and refers to God as the ultimate source of the Scriptures. — Anonymous

The professor leaned forward. "But there's nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing." Her lovely face turned fierce. "Think about it Cath. That's what makes a god - or a mother. There's nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself. — Rainbow Rowell

Before I can call upon Christ as my Savior, I have to understand that I need a savior. I have to understand that I am a sinner. I have to have some understanding of what sin is.I have to understand that God exists. I have to understand that I am estranged from that God, and that I am exposed to that God's judgment. I don't reach out for a savior unless I am first convinced that I need a savior. All of that is pre-evangelism. It is involved in the data or the information that a person has to process with his mind before he can either respond to it in faith or reject it in unbelief. — R.C. Sproul

Faith is a dynamic and ever-changing process, not some fixed body of truth that exists outside our world and our understanding. God's truth may be fixed and unchanging, but our comprehension of that truth will always be partial and flawed at best. — Gene Robinson

I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution. — Richard Dawkins

The Biblical account describing God as an eagle teaching his eaglets to fly is exactly the process readers go through as they work through the chapters of this book. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions." Deut. 32:11 — Beth Willis Miller

In light of religious teachings on sex, unrestricted people often feel they are fundamentally flawed. They are sinful and rebellious against god for having strong urges that go against the church's teachings. If the religious belief is deep enough, a person will not be able to look at his behavior rationally. The result can be a destructive cycle beginning with some religiously prohibited sexual behavior followed by repentance and prayer for a few weeks. Soon biological urges surface again, and he goes back to the behavior, followed by repentance once more. The process keeps him focused on guilt, not on rational ways to enjoy and express sexuality. Every time he goes through the cycle, it makes him feel less worthwhile. At the same time, the only way he can get relief is by going back to his religion. — Darrel Ray

If God is love, and nothing imperfect can exist in the presence of God; then healing is simply the process of bringing love to the places within us that are hurting. — Habib Sadeghi

Our Heavenly Father loves each one of us and understands that this process of climbing higher takes preparation, time, and commitment. He understands that we will make mistakes at times, that we will stumble, that we will become discouraged and perhaps even wish to give up and say to ourselves it is not worth the struggle. We know it is worth the effort, for the prize, which is eternal life, is "the greatest of all the gifts of God." And to qualify, we must take one step after another and keep going to gain the spiritual heights we aspire to reach. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

A foundation of healing is built on the promise that God will be your strength. He is in the midst of this healing process with you - right where you are. — Suzanne Eller

In the neurotic in whom one sees the collapse of the whole human ideology of God it has also become obvious what this signifies psychologically. This was not explained by Freud's psychoanalysis which only comprehended the destructive process in the patient from his personal history without considering the cultural development which bred this type. — Ernest Becker

For many of us, conversion is an ongoing process and not a onetime event that results from a powerful or dramatic experience. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. Conversion unto the Lord requires both persistence and patience. — David A. Bednar

The process of learning to be holy, like the process of learning to pray, may properly be thought of as a school - God's own school, in which the curriculum, the teaching staff, the rules, the discipline, the occasional prizes and the fellow pupils with whom one studies, plays, debates and fraternizes, are all there under God's sovereign providence. — J.I. Packer

So be encouraged. The agony you are experiencing is normal. The loneliness you feel is to be expected. The sleepless nights when you stare up at the ceiling and think, "What have I gotten myself into?" are part of the process. All of those experiences will ultimately lead you to the conclusion, "God, if you don't come through, I'm sunk!" And that is exactly where he wants you to be - and stay. For this reason, men and women of vision are men and women of faith. And through their faith, God is honored. — Andy Stanley

Well, we start with this outrageous idea that the ground of being, existence itself, is a person, and that this person is intimately concerned with each of our lives and desires us to turn our hearts toward him. Once you accept that level of insanity - or faith, as we prefer to call it - then it makes perfect sense to try to discern what God's purpose is for your life through a disciplined process of prayer and self-examination, discernment, as we say. — Michael Gruber

The idea of #God is just a path and a process;
To realize that you and Him are one. — Gian Kumar

That rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of the lapidary. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much
much that seemed costly to itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch's head with trumpet's joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it beams from that very diamond which was just now so sorely vexed by the lapidary. You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God's people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown shall be set upon the head of the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, one ray of glory shall stream from you. "They shall be mine," saith the Lord, "in the day when I make up my jewels." "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The knowledge of "Where am I going?" sometimes depends on the faithfulness in little things — Sunday Adelaja

I haven't really spoken to God since I was a boy and I've rediscovered god and prayer in the process and all of that has come together. — Joe Eszterhas

The Peacemaker, Ken Sande suggests that a biblically based request for forgiveness will involve practicing the Seven A's:
(1) Addressing everyone involved;
(2) Avoiding all ifs, buts, and maybes;
(3) Admitting your own sin specifically;
(4) Acknowledging sorrow for the way your sin has offended God and hurt the other person;
(5) Accepting the fact there may be consequences because of your sin and being willing to accept what those consequences may be as part of the Romans 8:28 process;
(6) Altering your sinful behavior to godly behavior and thinking; and
(7) Asking specifically for forgiveness from everyone who has been hurt by your sin; — Ken Sande

As we live in the Spirit, we live in the process of God's mind — T. B. Joshua

Enduring to the end is a process filling every minute of our life, every hour, every day, from sunrise to sunrise. It is accomplished through personal discipline following the commandments of God. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

When God wants to make a mushroom, he does it overnight, but when He wants to make a giant oak, He takes a hundred years. Great souls are grown through struggles and storms and seasons of suffering. Be patient with the process. — Rick Warren

Emma knew what was going to happen if she didn't break away, and she used every shred of her willpower to turn from Steven and run through the daisies, her arms outspread. She'd gone only a few yards when she stumbled over something and went sprawling. She was laughing when she rolled over and started to sit up, and her plump breasts strained against her bodice. Before she could begin the arduous process of untangling herself from her skirts and struggling back to her feet, Steven was kneeling beside her on the ground. He reached out slowly to touch her braid. "God in heaven, but you're beautiful," he rasped, and it was as though he begrudged the words. "Who are you, Emma? Where did you come from?" She — Linda Lael Miller

The knowledge of God, the belief in God, is what I call an a-rational process. It's not rational - it doesn't proceed by scientific investigation - but it's not irrational because it doesn't contradict my reasoning process. It goes beyond it. — George Coyne

The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine- the imago dei, image of god ... And it too can be activated only through bombardment, in its case, love's bombardment. The process begins in infancy, where a mother's initially unilateral loving smile awakens love in her baby and as coordination develops, elicits its answering smile ... A loving human being is not produced by exhortations, rules and threats. Love can only take root in children when it comes to them- initially and most importantly from nurturing parents. Ontogenetically speaking, love is an answering phenomenon. It is literally a response. — Huston Smith

Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process. Enthusiasm - from the Greek, filled with God - is an ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life itself. — Julia Cameron

Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you think by the process of writing. — Robyn Davidson

God begins the process of perfecting us from the moment we are converted from unbelief to faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit regenerates us. He give us a new heart with a new set of holy desires (Ezek. 36:26). He transforms our stubborn wills. He opens our hearts to embrace the truth rather than reject it. He enables us to believe rather than doubt. He gives us a hunger for righteousness an a desire for Him. And thus the new birth transforms the inner person. From that point on, everything that occurs in our lives - good or bad - God uses to move us toward being like Christ (Rom. 8:28-30). — John MacArthur Jr.

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed. — Aristotle.

God's love is not a pampering love. God's love is a perfecting love. God does not get up every day trying to figure how He can plant a bigger smile on your face. God is in the process of growing us and changing us. His love is a transforming love. — James MacDonald

The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. — Gregory David Roberts

I have great hope and faith, but it's a humanistic faith based in facts; you have to believe that facts exist. We can all arrive at the same facts if we engage in the process of experimentation, observation, and verification, which can solve more of the world's major problems than a debate over whether God does or doesn't exist. — Greg Graffin

This is what the Church is all about. It is a redemptive fellowship of forgiven sinners who are in the slow, difficult process of being transformed into saints by the grace of God. — Stanley S. Harakas

As it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.

But of course I did not mention dread to Michael Laski, whose particular opiate is History. I did suggest "depression," did venture that it might have been "depressing" for him to see only a dozen or so faces at his last May Day demonstration, but he told me that depression was an impediment to the revolutionary process, a disease afflicting only those who do not have ideology to sustain them. — Joan Didion

The moral task of man is a process of spiritualization. All creatures are go-betweens, and we are placed in time that by diligence in spiritual business we may grow liker and nearer to God. The aim of man is beyond the temporal in the serene region of the everlasting Present. — Meister Eckhart

The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here. — Marcus J. Borg

The way you make use of your brain, heart, and body, any consequence out of it, has to be faced by you. God or creator never interferes with your action or its consequence. Everything happens out of the process. — Roshan Sharma

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you're waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there's nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass. — Joel Osteen

God isn't a noun but a process ... a continual, infinitely creative outpouring of love and light onto all living things. — Marianne Williamson

The Creator did not speak man into existence as He did all else which He made, but He began with previously made material. So in the restoration process He did not speak the restoration into reality by fiat. Rather He began the process through a series of connected acts and events. And certainly no act of the Eternal Creator would ever be without purpose or reason. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

Must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter people's perceptions of Muslims. Minds are not changed merely through acquiring data or information (if that were the case it would take no effort to convince Americans that Obama is, in fact, a Christian). Rather, it is solely through the slow and steady building of personal relationships that one discovers the fundamental truth that all people everywhere have the same dreams and aspirations, that all people struggle with the same fears and anxieties. Of course, such a process takes time. It may take another generation or so for this era of anti-Muslim frenzy to be looked back upon with the same shame and derision with which the current generation views the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish hysterics of the past. But that day will no doubt come. Perhaps then we will recognize the intimate connections that bind us all together beyond any cultural, ethnic, or religious affiliations. Inshallah. God willing. — Reza Aslan

An adept of Kriya Yoga conquers death by taking the soul beyond identification with the physical body, consciously and at will; and then returning to the consciousness of the mortal form again. By this process, he experiences the body as merely the material dwelling place of the soul. He can remain therein as long as he wants; and after that body has fulfilled its usefulness, he can quit it at will without suffering physical pain or mental pain due to attachment, and enter his omnipresent home in God. — Paramahansa Yogananda

To empty the heart does not mean to not love. On the contrary, true love, as God intented it, is purest when it is not based on a false attachment. The process of first emptying the heart can be found in the beginning half of the shahada (declaration of faith). — Yasmin Mogahed

Inner Awareness is often gained in incremental steps at first. The distraction of the perceived physical world dictates this. However, once one realizes this process, a new skill in "awareness recognition" emerges ... and like riding a bike for the first time, one peddles faster, gaining confidence in their new skill, a skill that will take them much farther than any distraction previously experienced — Gary Hopkins

I'd go to a party and promise Michael I wouldn't drink too much. He'd plead: "Just take it easy, okay? Watch yourself," and I'd swear: "I won't. I don't want to get too drunk." I'd mean that, of course, and I'd start out by measuring myself: one glass of wine the first half hour, one glass the second, and so on. But then something would snap, some uncontrollable process would kick in, and all of a sudden it would be two or three hours later and I'd be on my sixth or tenth or God knows what glass of wine, and I'd be plastered. I couldn't account for it, couldn't explain it, couldn't even rationalize it, although I struggled mightily to. I seemed to get drunk, blind drunk, against my will. — Caroline Knapp

Whenever God thinks of you, he has your best interests in mind; he has plans to take you further, deeper, and higher than you ever dreamed. This process begins when you seek God and spend time with him. Look for every opportunity to know God. Consider your daily schedule. What does it include? A workout at the gym? A trip to the post office? A lunch hour? A commute? Look for ways to include God in your activities. Invite God to accompany you by talking together. Look for moments- even if it's only ten or twenty seconds- to steal away with him. God will reward your efforts as you reshape your inner life to be focused around him. As you seek God, you will find yourself abiding in him. -Hungry for God — Margaret Feinberg

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his. — Ernest Hemingway,

When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine. A modern Christian philosopher may think of a process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet of an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. But both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing - the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality. GOD IN THE DOCK "Dogma and the Universe — C.S. Lewis

No one can say with finality that God is only 'this' and nothing else. He is formless, and again He has forms. For the bhakta He assumes forms. But He is formless for the jnani, that is, for him who looks on the world as a mere dream. The bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another. Therefore God, reveals Himself to him as a Person. But the jnani - the Vedantist, for instance - always reasons, applying the process of 'Not this, not this'. Through this discrimination he realizes, by his inner perception, that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream. Then the jnani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness. He cannot describe what Brahman is. — Ramakrishna

If God refuses to mass-produce but insists on an intimate process that in the end forms each of us into the image of Christ, why would we choose a lesser path for our own lives? The work of the artist begins with the care of his or her own soul. — Erwin Raphael McManus

In a scientific age, the challenge for the believer is to recognize God's divine upholding of the overall visible process. — Malcolm Jeeves

We need a quickening of faith; faith in the power of the God of Pentecost to convict and convert three thousand in a day. Faith, not in a process of culture by which we hope to train children into a state of salvation, but faith in the mighty God who can quicken a dead soul into life in a moment; faith in moral and spiritual revolution rather than evolution. — A.C. Dixon

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. — Elif Shafak