Quotes & Sayings About Relationships With God

Our prayer life and rule of prayer will be shaped by the different stages of our spiritual journey as well. Many people who have just come to know Christ find that their words flow easily. Prayer is a joy for them. But, as with romantic relationships, there is a natural movement beyond this honeymoon phase. When feelings of intense connection with God ebb, we have a new opportunity to engage God - not based on cool spiritual vibes but as an expression of our genuine love for God. Times of spiritual dryness are normal for almost everyone, even if we haven't sinned and to the best of our knowledge haven't done anything to wall off our relationship with God. God may allow this dryness so that we can mature in our relationship with him and learn to seek him not for an ecstatic spiritual experience but out of a deeper love and commitment. — Ken Shigematsu

Whenever you want to know what's wrong or missing in your inner relationship with the Divine, stop, breathe deeply, and observe how is your relationship with the opposite sex. — Nityananda Das

Central to knowing the Father is understanding the revealed pattern of family. The family is the most important unit in time and in eternity and is ordained of God. Living in loving family relationships not only brings us great happiness, but it also helps us learn correct principles and prepares us for eternal life. In addition, family relationships help us know, love, and understand the Father. This is one reason Latter-day Saints have always emphasized the importance of marriage and family both in the Church and in society. God's plan provides a way for family relationships to extend beyond the grave. We can return to the presence of God, eternally united with our families. — Quentin L. Cook

I'm not very good at relationships, Claire. In fact, my track record is abysmal." Claire gently squeezed Annie's shoulder. "It takes a concerted effort to make any relationship work. Your walk with God is no different. It's a lifelong process that won't be perfected until you reach Heaven. And I must warn you, Annie, just because you're a believer now doesn't mean your life will become easier. In fact, it might become much harder. — Mark Romang

What makes me feel alive is community, connectedness. Certainly family, parenting, relationships, friendship. All the way into colleague relationships and relationship with spirit, relationship with one's own self and inner child, and animals, earth, planet. Fostering and nurturing and really focusing on connection - connection in relationship with other and my own self and God. When I don't feel connected in all those three areas, life is not very good. — Alanis Morissette

In the beginning - not now, thank God - Patty was always sharing the important books of her life with him, like Black Elk Speaks, The Golden Bough, and Hero with a Thousand Faces. — Richard Price

No matter how much you talk to yourself, read, study, or practice, you can't develop or set boundaries apart from supportive relationships with God and others. Don't even try to start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abiding attachments with people who will love you no matter what. — Henry Cloud

O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all! — Franz Kafka

Yeah, well. If you're staying here in hopes of making out with Alaska, I sure wish you wouldn't. If you unmoor her from the rock that is Jake, God have mercy on us all. That would be some drama, indeed. And as a rule, I like to avoid drama."
"It's not because I want to make out with her."
"Hold on." He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he'd just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me. "I just did some calculations, and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit." And he was right. — John Green

In relationships, when a person gets angry, it is really just hurt in disguise. So men, consider this the next time the woman you are with gets angry with you. She is most likely just hurt and needs you to hold her and reassure her. — Lisa Bedrick

In Wicca, rituals are ceremonies which celebrate and strengthen our relationships with the Goddess, the God and the Earth. — Scott Cunningham

There are four types of husbands.
The husband who always wants to stay in in the evening, has no vices and works for a salary. Totally undesirable!
The atavistic master whose mistress one is, to wait on his pleasure. This sort always considers every pretty woman "shallow," a sort of peacock with arrested development.
Next comes the worshiper, the idolaters of his wife and all that is his, to the utter oblivion of everything else. This sort demands an emotional actress for a wife. God! It must be an exertion to be thought righteous!
And Anthony - a temporarily passionate lover with wisdom enough to realize when it has flown and that it must fly. And I want to get married to Anthony. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Generally, I've observed, we seek changes that fall into the "Essential Seven." People - including me - most want to foster the habits that will allow them to: 1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships - with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services) — Gretchen Rubin

We can be content with simplicity because the deepest most satisfying delights God gives us through creation are free gifts from nature and from loving relationships with people. After your basic needs are met, accumulated money begins to diminish your capacity for these pleasures rather than increase them. Buying things contributes absolutely nothing to the heart's capacity for joy. — John Piper

I have heard stories from the depths of human lives where men and women were wrestling with the elemental problems of misery and sin--stories that put upon a man's heart a burden of vicarious sorrow, even though he does but listen to them. Here was real human need crying out after the living God revealed in Christ. Consider all the multitudes of men who so need God, and then think of Christian churches making of themselves a cockpit of controversy when there is not a single thing at stake in the business. So much of it does not matter! And there is one thing that does matter--more than anything else in all the world--that men in their personal lives and in their social relationships should know Jesus Christ. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

I have a theory about soul mates
that God wants to be our sweetheart. And once we fall in love with life and have an intimate relationship with Spirit, that's when we meet our soul mate. It's as if God says, 'You're not meant to be alone on this earth. I just wanted you to love me first. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

I focused on where she was from of course, her voice and her history, her relationship with God - her religion. This was probably the strongest relationship she has had, really. She never seemed to maintain close relationships with husbands. — Gretchen Mol

As we turn to our Heavenly Father and seek His wisdom regarding the things that matter most, we learn over and over again the importance of four key relationships: with our God, with our families, with our fellowman, and with ourselves. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Trick." I say a little louder.
"Shhh, sleep baby." He mumbles. I laugh and smack his arm.
"Wake up. I can feel your morning wood." This gets his attention and he sits up, taking me with him. The arms wrapped around my middle graze my breasts as he shifts up and a tingle shoots straight between my legs.
"God, Caroline, I'm so ... " He stops, probably realizing that he doesn't have morning wood, "I don't have ... " He's actually pretty cute all sleepy. He laughs.
"I know but I couldn't figure out how else to get your attention." I shrug. — K. Larsen

I realized that if I was going to understand the uniqueness and depth of God's love for me, I had to mentally separate my relationships with people from my relationship with the Lord. God's love should never be distorted or diminished by comparing it with the friendship or love of any human who has let me down, rejected me, betrayed me, or lied about me. — Robin Jones Gunn

Every two or three generations the world gets vastly different, and the context in which you have to learn how to be a human being, or to have good relationships, or decide whether or not there is a God, or decide whether there's such a thing as love, and whether it's redemptive, become vastly different. And the structures with which you can communicate those dilemmas, or have characters struggle with them, seem to become appropriate and then inappropriate again and so on. — David Foster Wallace

The answer goes back to why God created us.He created us to be His loved ones,His family with whom He can share a relationship of mutual enjoyment. This shows the kind of God He is-a personal God who values loving relationships more than anything else in all the universe. — Ruth Myers

The liberating encounter with God/ess is always an encounter with our authentic selves resurrected from underneath the alienated self. It is not experienced against, but in and through relationships, healing our broken relations with our bodies, with other people, with nature. — Rosemary Radford Ruether

About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be ... the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are. — Stephen King

Baby, God ain't gonna bless you with another woman's husband, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. — Tracy L. Darity

It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. — Fulton J. Sheen

The only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. — Andrew Murray

The pain of losing Deborah still brings tears. And I cannot mask my profound disappointment that God did not answer yes to our prayers for healing. I think He's okay with that. One of the phrases we evangelicals like to throw around is that Christianity is 'not a religion; it's a relationship.' I believe that, which is why I know that when my faith was shattered and raged against Him, He still accepted me. And even though I have penciled a black mark in His column, I can be honest about it. That's what a relationship is all about. — Ron Hall

If the narrative we've adopted says that our lives have to get better in order for our relationships with God to be legitimate, we twist the gospel into a moral improvement scheme. — Tullian Tchividjian

From Genesis to Revelation, holy text is all about relationships and the limitless flavors of those relationships. It is the duty of mankind to tap into our women's unique talents
their genius for 'relationships.'
pg vii — Michael Ben Zehabe

I look at him with the nostalgic affection men are said to feel for their wars, their fellow veterans. I think, I once threw things at this man. I threw a glass ashtray, a fairly cheap one which didn't break. I threw a shoe (his) and a handbag (mine), not even snapping the handbag shut first, so that he was showered with a metal rain of keys and small change. The worst thing I threw was a small portable television set, standing on the bed and heaving it at him with the aid of the bouncy springs, although the instant I let fly I thought, Oh God, let him duck! I once thought I was capable of murdering him. Today I feel only a mild regret that we were not more civilized with each other at the time. Still, it was amazing, all those explosions, that recklessness, that Technicolor wreckage. Amazing and agonizing and almost lethal. — Margaret Atwood

Here are five rules of thumb, should all your fingers on one hand turn into thumbs and you decide to rule them.
1. There is no day too dull, no problem too great that cannot be fixed with a couple of plays of 'rush rush' by Paula Abdul.
2. The amount of time it takes for you to get over him is exactly the same amount of time it will take for him to start missing you.
3. Talking about exercise burns exactly the same amount of calories as doing exercise.
4. 'When someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!'
5. The office sucks.
Four of these are true. And one - is wrong! Damn wrong! — Hadley Freeman

We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

God is after the bigger picture of your life. He is writing your story. I'm about to say something that may seem antithetical to this book, but need you to hear this: your story has far more to do with finding God's unique calling and purpose for your life than it does with finding the love of your life. — Debra Fileta

Trust God with your love life, and buckle up for the ride! — Paula Hendricks

Most women do not have a relationship with God, as they are either unwilling to have one or unaware of how to have one, so they choose a human partner."
"It's not about gender or age, nor even social conditioning, religious belief or other external preferences. To surrender as Love - in a feminine way - is to become vulnerable, fragile, soft, sincere, open hearted, and "wound-able" as a choice to the alternative of living miserably inside walls and masks, hiding from pain and Joy. — Nityananda Das

God's love is a costly love. It never takes the easy path away from relationships. Instead, it plots how to move towards other people. It thinks creatively of ways to surprise them with love. — Edward T. Welch

Technological society has forgotten what scholars call the "dying role" and its importance to people as life approaches its end. People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. — Atul Gawande

But when we are locked in a toxic relationship or community, spiritual pollution can murder everything tender and Christlike in us; and a watching world doesn't always witness those private kill shots. Unhealthy relationships can destroy our hope, optimism, gentleness. We can lose our heart and lose our way while pouring endless energy into an abyss that has no bottom. There is a time to put redemption in the hands of God and walk away before destroying your spirit with futile diligence. Sometimes the bravest thing is to stop fighting for something that is never going to produce a winner. — Jen Hatmaker

With 'The Vampire Diaries,' it's not just a tease, especially with the relationships. You're not sitting there going, 'God, I wish they'd get it over with and kiss!' There's no teasing, they jump right into the action. — Candice Accola

The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions. Our human relationships are the actual conditions in which the ideal life of God is to be exhibited. — Oswald Chambers

More often than not, focusing on stress, pain and chaos in our lives creates even more stress, pain and chaos for us. Here's what I've experienced, and my guess is that it's happened to you as well: Whenever I am focused on how difficult my life is, I begin to feel overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, and worried. These emotions, in turn, influence my productivity, actions and choices. They may even change my sleeping patterns and compromise my immune system. Sooner or later they begin to interfere with my relationships with family and friends. They even hinder the way I worship or approach God. As these emotions continue to influence how I live, cope, function, and relate to those around me, they can even impact my finances and long-term security. — Gaylyn Williams

These conversations went on and on with person after person. I stood literally amazed by the grace of God, not just upon one Christian passionate about sharing the gospel, but upon an entire community passionate about sharing the gospel. As I looked around, I observed a contagious culture of evangelism across the church. It is a culture of evangelism that is not ultimately dependent on events, projects, programs, and ministry professionals. Instead, it is a culture of evangelism that is built on people filled with the power of God's Spirit proclaiming the gospel of God's grace in the context of their everyday lives and relationships. — J. Mack Stiles

Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as "Abba, I belong to you." ... Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often. — Brennan Manning

The vast desire and capacity a woman has for intimate relationships tells us of God's vast desire and capacity for intimate relationships. In fact, this may be The most important thing we ever learn about God
the He yearns for relationship with us. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God" (John 17:3). The whole story of the Bible is a love story between God and His people. He yearns for us. He cares. He has a tender heart. — Stasi Eldredge

More than just someone to lay down with, is a spirit to pray up with. — T.F. Hodge

The fact was, as a story - even leaving out the supernatural, especially leaving out the supernatural, taking it all as metaphor, I mean - the Bible made perfect sense to me from the very beginning. I saw a God whose nature was creative love. He made man in his own image for the purpose of forming new and free relationships with him. But in his freedom, man turned away from that relationship to consult his own wisdom and desires. The knowledge of good and evil was not some top-secret catalogue of nice and naughty acts that popped into Eve's mind when a talking snake got her to eat the magic fruit. The knowledge was built into the action of disobedience itself: it's what she learned when she overruled the moral law God had placed within her. There was no going back from that. The original sin poisoned all history. History's murders, rapes, wars, oppressions, and injustices are now the inescapable plot of the story we're in. The — Andrew Klavan

First of all, it's friendship with God that makes possible friendship with one another in a manner that is not that we just like one another, but that were are joined by common judgments, by God, for the good of God's church. Such friendship occurs not by trying to be each other's friend, but by discovering you were engaged in common good work that is so determinative, you cannot live without one another. Now, if the church is that, it will talk about friendship in a way that avoids the superficiality of the language of relationship. Because relationships are meant to be spontaneous and short. Friendship, if it is the friendship of God, is to be characterized by fidelity in which you are even willing to tell the friend the truth. Which may mean you will risk the friendship. You need to be in that kind of community to survive the loneliness that threatens all of our souls. — Stanley Hauerwas

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself. — Joyce Meyer

It's all about the relationships; forming them and sustaining them, growing and building a back and forth that will be useful to both parties. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the practice so often seen today: a person decides that a particular God or Goddess is suitable for a one off ritual or occasion, calls them up, expects them to grant boons and favours and help out in whatever situation is being worked for, and then is never heard from again. If a complete stranger walked into your house and asked for a favour, however politely - would you be inclined to help? Possibly you would, and sometimes the Powers do too, if there is sufficient offering or perhaps bribery involved. They are not above being bought off. However, most people would be far more inclined to help out when a friend asks a favour, and this follows through with the Gods, in my experience. A give and take relationship is the most effective and respectful way I have found of working with them. — Lora O'Brien

There are many that enter into friendships and relationships with unrealistic expectations. God has taught me how to stop having high expectations in people, and instead put expectations in Him. He gives humans choices. No matter how "good", strong, or well-meaning a person may be, it's unrealistic to think that he or she can fulfill our every expectation. We live in a world where humans want power; as you can see, everything requires power from the intangible things to the tangible things. Be careful of who you trust because who they truly are, may not be who you thought they were even if you've known them for years. Sometimes the greatest backstabbers are the ones you trusted after many years and then they eventually show their true colors. Such is life. — Krystal Volney

But in Heaven we will have total peace We will be completely changed when we get to Heaven - and so, too, will those we couldn't get along with while on earth. If God can make the lion and the lamb lie down together, we can trust Him to take care of our fractured relationships as we enter our heavenly home. — Billy Graham

Go into relationships with a positive expectation and looking for God's glory in others. — Kevin Paterson

God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trusted Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two assymetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions. — Richard Dawkins

Every shattered dream we give to Jesus is integrated into a higher and even more blessed purpose. In short, if we have faith to believe it, there are no wasted sorrows, no wasted aspirations or dreams. Even in this life, we see that God is continually reshaping whatever we give Him. Indeed, the Christian life is a series of new beginnings. God Himself rushes in to fill the vacuum left in the wake of our own disappointments. Dreams left unfulfilled in this life will most assuredly be fulfilled in the life to come. Jesus brought our dream of healthy bodies back with Him when He was raised from the dead. Take a long look at the person sitting next to you in church. Someday he or she will be like Jesus! "Because I live, you also will live" (John 14:19). To those who are brokenhearted, Jesus assures us that fulfilling family relationships will be ours. — Erwin W. Lutzer

You hid in my ink and guided my hand. You stained the pages with your silence as God wrote the words, "Be still." Yet, my heart's blindness could only write in loud hues of red, "I love you. — Shannon L. Alder

This is the key to understanding the difference between indigenous and civilized warfare: Even in warfare the indigenous maintain relationships with their honored enemy. This is the key to understanding the difference between indigenous and civilized ways of living. This is only one of many things those we enslave could tell us, if only we asked: They, too, are alive, and present another way of living, a way of living that is not - in contradistinction to our God and our Science and our Capitalism and everything else in our lives - jealous. It is an inclusive way of living. They could tell us that things don't have to be the way they are. — Derrick Jensen

We create false selves, hoping to control how other people treat us, all the while keeping our true selves hidden. To ensure we are not hurt again, we push relationships aside - including our relationship with God - or pretend to be someone who's stronger, more intelligent, more faithful, and more respectable. The end result is that our lives are based on lies and that real joy and peace will forever escape us. — Chad H. Young

What multiplies is only up to us. Whether it is kindness that multiplies; or unkindness. Whether it is goodwill that multiplies; or bad intentions. Whether it is love that multiplies; or fear. Whether it is truth that multiplies; or doubt. What multiplies in our own minds, in our relationships with other people, in our relationship with our perspectives about the rest of the world, in our relationship with God, in our outlooks and in our hearts - it's all up to us. The power of multiplication is in our own hands. What you magnify upon will in fact become your reality. — C. JoyBell C.

All of us, single or married, are eternally part of some family-someway, somewhere, somehow-and much of our joy in life comes as we correctly recognize and properly develop those family relationships. We come to this earth charged with a mission: to learn to love and serve one another. To best help us accomplish this, God has placed us in families, for he knows that is where we can best learn to overcome selfishness and pride and to sacrifice for others and to make happiness and helpfulness and humility and love the very essence of our character. — John H. Groberg

I hear the chipper voice of the Church magazines chirping in my brain: You're in a relationship with a boy who treats you as his emotional and spiritual equal. You feel a desire to express your affection through physical acts that will bring mutual pleasure. Do you (a) go for it! Sex is a natural gift from God, and a lot of fun so long as you do it safely!; (b) get him to propose! Sex is only fun if you do it in a Church of America-approved union! Plus, babies are so cute!; or (c) seek guidance from your local pastor for your sinful thoughts and ask for tips on expressing your love in a holy, nonphysical way? TRICK QUESTION! The answer is (d) the fact that you even momentarily considered having sex out of wedlock proves that you have no place in God's eternal kingdom, you reprehensible slut. — Katie Coyle

For thousands of years, human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. — Deepak Chopra

Spirituality on the other hand, is a chosen path of developing intimate relationships with God. It's chosen, it's nurtured, and it's optional. — Caroline Myss

Most unmarried people have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work; they grossly underestimate the price people have to pay to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships. And they fail to understand that the only people with the strength to pay that price are those who have plumbed the depths of their relationship with God, and have dealt with their own brokenness. — Bill Hybels

Aloneness can lead to loneliness. God's preventative for loneliness is intimacy - meaningful, open, sharing relationships with one another. In Christ we have the capacity for the fulfiling sense of belonging which comes from intimate fellowship with God and with other believers. — Neil T. Anderson

Love is a strange feeling indeed, a feeling that every person must experience at least once in his or her life. A feeling that makes us feel one with God! — Avijeet Das

Rejection Is God's Protection
When someone rejects or breaks up with you, it may be a blessing in disguise. The person was not right for you. Or maybe you would have eventually been miserable with them. Now the door is open for someone else much better to come into your life. — Pamela Cummins

Safe relationships are centered and grounded in forgiveness. When you have a friend with the ability to forgive you for hurting her or letting her down, something deeply spiritual occurs in the transaction between you two. You actually experience a glimpse of the deepest nature of God himself. People who forgive can - and should - also be people who confront. What is not confessed can't be forgiven. God himself confronts our sins and shows us how we wound him: "I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from me, and by their eyes, which played the harlot after their idols" (Ezek. 6:9 NASB). When we are made aware of how we hurt a loved one, then we can be reconciled. Therefore, you shouldn't discount someone who "has something against you," labeling him as unsafe. He might actually be attempting to come closer in love, in the way that the Bible tells us we are to do. — Henry Cloud

Life with God will overflow any attempts to compartmentalize or contain it. It is not just for those who are 'spiritually inclined.' We are made to live with God at the very center of our lives, transforming our thoughts, actions, decisions, relationships, vocations, communities, and social structures. — Richard J. Foster

The implications of the Triunity of God for prayer are many. It means, to begin with, that God has always had within himself a perfect friendship. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are adoring one another, giving glorifying love to one another, and delighting in one another. We know of no joy higher than being loved and loving in return, but a triune God would know that love and joy in unimaginable, infinite dimensions. God is, therefore, infinitely, profoundly happy, filled with perfect joy - not some abstract tranquility but the fierce happiness of dynamic loving relationships. Knowing this God is not to get beyond emotions or thoughts but to be filled with glorious love and joy. — Timothy Keller

I am not a good example of an urban pastor. Because of the way I believe God calls me to use my time, I don't have significant relationships with most of my neighbors. — John Piper

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

All of us have areas of weakness. God wants these character flaws to show us how totally dependent we are upon Him. When we handle them properly, they drive us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord. But uncontrolled weakness wreaks havoc in a person's life. — Charles Stanley

To dwell in the place of God, as Evagrius puts it, is to live with a particular intense awareness of this reality, to know oneself not as a solitary, autonomous being but as one whose identity can only be conceived of as existing within an intricate web of encompassing relationships. The primary work of contemplative practice is to become more aware of this web of relationships, to learn to live within it fully and responsibly and to give expression to it in one's life. — Douglas E. Christie

You may be able
to fly to heaven with my love.
But for real, my love is only
a cheap wine.
Seriously,
Only God's love is the precious wine.
And She even
gives it to everyone.
For free! — Subhan Zein

Are you setting me up?"

"Dear God in heaven, no! She's sworn off relationships with men, so you're safe. Besides, I don't think anything permanent would work with you." She paused. "I was thinking more along the lines of a fling."

"Jesus Christ," Jake muttered, running a hand down his face. "You're pimping me out. — Ann Bruce

I believe the media pretty much dictates the way relationships are handled, even in the way we handle ourselves. Abuse, cheating, threesomes, it's inspired by music and television. Irresponsible artists and writers with a hidden agenda, just working against the moral fabric that God intended for us to have. — Tony Gaskins

Getting even with the person that broke your heart will never give you peace. The only thing that will heal your wounds is believing that God loves you enough to bring someone else into your life to respect you and love you in the way you deserve! — Shannon L. Alder

If we are co-eternal with God, then it is not God's creation of the human out of nothing that defines our essential relationship to him. It is His freely made choice to inaugurate and sustain loving relationships, and our choice to reciprocate, that are at the core of our relationship to the Divine. — Terryl L. Givens

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

If a supernatural being is to be exempt from natural law, it cannot possess specific, determinate
characteristics. These attributes would impose limits and these limits would restrict the capacities
of this supernatural being. In this case, a supernatural being would be subject to the causal
relationships that mark natural existence, which would disqualify it as a god. Therefore, we must
somehow conceive of a being without a specific nature, a being that is indeterminate - a being, in
other words, that is nothing in particular. But these characteristics (or, more precisely, lack of
characteristics) are incompatible with the notion of existence itself. — George H. Smith

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to keep promises to God, to self and to one's relationships that consistently express one's identity and values in spiritually and emotionally healthy ways. Relational congruence is about both constancy and care at the same time. It is about both character and affection, and self-knowledge and authentic self-expression. Relational congruence is the leader's ability to cultivate strong, healthy, caring relationships; maintaining healthy boundaries; and communicating clear expectations, all while staying focused on the mission. — Tod Bolsinger

Christians and Jews hold in common one theological basis for hospitality: Creation. Creation is the ultimate expression of God's hospitality to His creatures. In the words of on rabbi, everything God created is a "manifestation of His kindness. [The] world is one big hospitality inn." As Church historian Amy Oden has put it, "God offers hospitality to all humanity ... by establishing a home.. for all." To invite people into our homes is to respond with gratitude to the God who made a home for us.
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we find another resource for hospitality. The trinity shows God in relationships with Himself. our Three-in-one God has welcomed us into Himself and invited us to participate in divine life. And so the invitation that we as Christians extend to one another is not simply an invitation into our homes or to our tables; what we ask of other people it that hey enter into our lives. — Lauren F. Winner

Love is a way of seeing and a way of being that honors God in everyone we meet. And it changes us in the most fundamental way. All we need to do is welcome the challenge of our relationships, training our eyes to look beyond human behavior to the Presence within. When we seek to live love, we discover through our interactions with others the divinity within ourselves. — Susan L. Taylor

Locating friendship at the heart of mission involves certain assumptions
that reconciliation with God is something for which every human being is made and relationships are reciprocal. — Christopher Heuertz

Since I was both an atheist and an absurdist, I had decided that the most absurd thing I could do would be to develop an intimate relationship with the God I didn't believe in. — Paul Krassner

There's an old saying that the difference between abstract knowledge and real wisdom is that "wisdom is knowledge with the knower left in." It is taking the truth into all your relationships. It is to ask, "What does this mean for my relationship to God? to myself? to this or that person or group? to this or that behavior or habit? to my friends, to the culture? — Timothy Keller

Always remember, there's no such thing as luck, nothing happens by chance, and all is by divine intervention. You're like a magnet, wherever you go, the people you have relationships with and those that are connected with them will be drawn to you. You're needed, and soon, the little ones will look to you as well. If you let God be your guide, you'll have the adventure of a lifetime. Jo, take what God gives you and run with it. — Diana Anderson

From the Bible we can surmise that God will ask us two crucial questions: First, "What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?" God won't ask about your religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is, did you accept what Jesus did for you and did you learn to love and trust him? Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."17 Second, "What did you do with what I gave you?" What did you do with your life - all the gifts, talents, opportunities, energy, relationships, and resources God gave you? Did you spend them on yourself, or did you use them for the purposes God made you for? — Rick Warren

Each member of the body is immersed in Christ and carries God's presence. So I can experience the expression of the invisible God in the lives of my brothers. I can be comforted by God through a brother, and I can serve God by serving a brother. As Christ's life flows through the members of His Body, we are linked to each other not only to receive grace directly from the lord but also through the lives of other brothers with whom we cultivate relationships in Christ. — Ricardo De Paula Meneghelli

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.
Let me explain what I mean by this. If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots.
Let's take this a step further. Robots do not love. God created us with the capacity to love. Love is based upon one's right to choose to love. We cannot force others to love us. We can make them serve us or obey us. But true love is founded upon one's freedom to choose to respond. — Billy Graham

We love someone, so we care. That love can morph into feeling responsible for them, then into we're accountable, then into we're to blame for their self-inflicted pain; then it's our fault if they crash and burn; then the fear causes us to hold on even tighter. Walk this in reverse until you get back to, "we love, we care". Now, love with wisdom. Step one in placing someone's life into His hands. — Lee Goff

Human beings, who were created to live in harmony with each other, the earth, and God, now find themselves distanced from or at odds with their fellow humans, their physical surroundings, and their Lord. Redemption, then, consists in healing these breaches and restoring right relationships among all of these parties.
The things we eat play a part in this. The contemporary American diet is too often a case study in alienation, consisting as it does of foods that come from all over the world and are available all of the time ... just as global communication technologies erode the time people spend talking in person to people they actually know, so the constant availability of foods from all over the world erodes the connection people have to their own local environment and the foods associated with it. — Margaret Kim Peterson

The fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself.
Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him ... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God. — Paul David Tripp

What brings a real and lasting joy is our relationships with God, and our love for His other children He has put in our lives. It's people; friends and family that fulfil us. All else, fame, popularity, beauty, is so fleeting. — Lindsey Stirling

Expectations kill relationships - especially with God. — Ann Voskamp

Peacemaking contains all the elements of the Christian faith. Peacemaking is the result of not only taking the beatitudes seriously, but living them. It involves right relationships. Right relationships with God, right relationships with God's people and right relationships with God's creation. It involves love. Proper love of self, love of God and creation, and love of all people - even our enemies. It is not passive, it is active; it is peacemaking not peacekeeping. Above all, it is following the way of Jesus, which was the way of the cross, where his power was 'made perfect in weakness' (2 Cor. 12:9). — Donald R. Clymer

Syn was new to relationships Furi had no doubt he could keep him spellbound indefinitely. He would show the gorgeous specimen stretched out beneath him how beautiful it is to be a gay man in a committed relationship. He'd hoped the scene tonight at God and Day's didn't dissuade him. Furi didn't need any more cocks in bed with them. While it could be fun, not all gay men played with other couples. One man was enough for Furi. Syn was man enough for Furi. He'd show him every day if he'd let him. Syn would be able to trust him with his heart and his body, knowing there was no way he'd hurt him. And he secretly hoped Syn felt the same way. "Furi, — A.E. Via

The measure of life is revealed in the quality of our relationships: with God, our families, our fellow men. - A Perfect Day by Richard Paul Evans — Richard Paul Evans

Comparison is a trap. It will kill our joy. It will rob us of our peace. It makes us act foolish and stupid. It causes dissension and division in the body of Christ. It creates terrible tension in our relationships with others. So here's what you need to focus on: Let God use you the way he sees fit to do so. Embrace what he is doing in and through your life. — Kurt W. Bubna