Understand That God Quotes & Sayings

Finally he said that if men drink the blood of God yet they do not understand the seriousness of what they do. He said that men wish to be serious but they do not understand how to be so. Between their acts and their ceremonies lies the world and in this world the storms blow and the trees twist in the wind and all the animals that God has made go to and fro yet this world men do not see. They see the acts of their own hands or they see that which they name and call out to one another but the world between is invisible to them — Cormac McCarthy

I have found, however, that I sense more power in prayer when I speak them out loud. Please understand, the difference rests in me rather than God. He hears and receives petitions of any kind that are prayed in Jesus' name. But I tend to be a lot gutsier in my vocalized prayers because hearing them with my own ears ignites my heart and mind all the more. — Beth Moore

The destiny of your soul is not predicated upon acceptance of a specific dogma that happens to be "correct." A loving God does not dole out eternal condemnation because one has selected the wrong doctrine or misinterpreted scripture. On the contrary, your endeavor to understand God and the nature of the universe is a testament to your devotion. — Mark Ireland

I just ... I understand you might want to start dating more seriously, and that means dating someone from town. But if you're going to do that ... " This time he took a long drink of coffee, and the mug was still at his lips when he said, "I like Daniel. He takes care of you."
I blinked. "Oh my God. Did you really just say that? He takes care of me?"
Dad flushed. "I didn't mean it like-"
"Takes care of me? Did I go to sleep and wake up in the nineteenth century?" I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt. "Ack! I can't go to school like this. Where's my corset? My bonnet? — Kelley Armstrong

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like'. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity. — Richard J. Foster

Rarely do I truly understand the disease which ails me. Therefore, rarely do I truly understand the fix that would cure me. And so maybe I should truly contemplate how rarely I recognize that God understands both. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Children need to see that they are part of a history and that the story of their family is a living thing. God tells it, a new story in each generation, and each must hold hands across the sea of time, joining together the ones who went before and the ones who come after. It is given from above. Little do we understand this in the beginning, but time teaches us many things we did not expect to learn. That is life. It is the same everywhere. — Michael D. O'Brien

Let Christians all understand that conscience is between themselves and God alone. They are not at liberty to impose even their freedom of conscience upon another; but by the laws of the kingdom of Christ, they are obliged even to refrain at times from exercising their own freedom, out of consideration for others. — Ellet J. Waggoner

People don't understand that all presidents, the minute they become president, get a knock at the door. And there's a man there saying, 'Let's talk about your funeral.' At the time I thought, God, that's a terrible thing. Later on, I thought it was pretty wise. — Nancy Reagan

It's the fact that your body and your personality are not God. God is you. But you can't say you are God just as the ocean is all the waves, but you can't say one wave is the ocean. And so you manifest God in a way that you don't understand. Man himself is the image of God, but he doesn't see that image in himself. And you need to meditate, and there will come your answer, not looking in the mirror. — Goswami Kriyananda

When you understand the values of God's kingdom, you will best understand His agenda.4 However, it is my conviction that the message of the kingdom, and the values therein, are sorely lacking in understanding today. — Tony Evans

Basketball talent is basketball talent, no matter if it comes from the suburbs or the city. Take the time to know and understand me before you judge me. Only God can do that. Roses do grow from concrete! — Chris Webber

They were quiet for a time, alone with their thoughts, but then John sat up straight, struck by a thought. "There's a passage in Exodus - God tells Moses, 'No one can see My face, but I will protect you with My hand until I have passed by you, and then I will remove My hand and you will see My back.' Remember that?"
Emilio nodded, listening.
Well I always thought that was a physical metaphor," John said, "but, you know - I wonder now if it isn't really about time? Maybe that was God's way of telling us that we can never know His intentions, but as time goes on ... we'll understand. We'll see where He was: we'll see His back. — Mary Doria Russell

The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. — Paulo Coelho

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don't know its name or realize that it's what we're starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it. — Frederick Buechner

For when God is said by these things to try men and prove them, to see what is in their hearts and whether they will keep His commandments or no, we are not to understand, that it is for His own information, or that He may obtain evidence Himself of their sincerity (for he needs no trials for His information); but chiefly for their conviction, and to exhibit evidence to their consciences ...
So when God tempted or tried Abraham with that difficult command of offering up his son, it was not for His satisfaction, whether he feared God or no, but for Abraham's own greater satisfaction and comfort, and the more clear manifestation of the favour of God to him. — Jonathan Edwards

[A]bove all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe, as an expression of Allah's will and creation, that has inspired in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah.'"

His Highness the Aga Khan's 2003 Address to the International Colloquium 'Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur'an and its Creative Expressions' organised by The Institute of Ismaili Studies (London, United Kingdom) — Aga Khan

God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him; He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him ... When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God. — Oswald J. Smith

Trull watched Cotillion walk through the archway, and the Tiste Edur's gaze fell once more on the body of Ahlrada Ahn. As Shadowthrone approached Quick Ben, Trull climbed to his feet and made his way to where his friend was lying. Ahlrada Ahn. I do not understand you - I have never understood you - but I thank you nonetheless. I thank you ...
He stepped to the entranceway, looked out, and saw Cotillion, the Patron of Assassins, the god, sitting on a shelf of stone that had slipped down from one wall, sitting, alone, with his head in his hands. — Steven Erikson

Now as always - humility and terror. Fear that the working of my pen cannot capture the grinding of my brain. It is so easy to understand why the ancients prayed for the help of a Muse. And the Muse came and stood beside them, and we, heaven help us, do not believe in Muses. We have nothing to fall back on but our craftsmanship and it, as modern literature attests, is inadequate. May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters. If invocation is required, let this be my invocation - may I be strong and yet gentle, tender and yet wise, wise and yet tolerant. May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God. — John Steinbeck

I want you to understand something. That man? He's not some boyfriend in a line of them. He is my alpha and omega. He is the sky over me. Without him, I'm lost. There's no one else, no one whose soul balances mine the way his does. I've waited my life for him, and when he came, I didn't recognize him. Not until recently. If I lose him, I swear, as God is my witness, I will be alone. No man can match him. — C.D. Reiss

The attempt to understand reality apart from that action of God in and upon reality means living in anabstraction; it means failing to live in reality and vacillating between the extremes of a servile attitude toward the status quo and a protest in principle against it. Only God's becoming human makes possible an action that is genuinely in accord with reality. The world remains world. But it only does so because God has taken care of it and declared it to be under God's rule. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Companies understand that if their employees are sick, it's really expensive. So despite the rhetoric I hear, thank God employers are still in the health-care system. — Michael Porter

After my wife was killed in that pogrom in Russia, I came to England with only my tools, and when I saw the white cliffs of Dover, alone without my wife, I said, "God, today I don't believe in you anymore."

"What did God say?" Dodger had asked.

Solomon had sighed theatrically, as if he had been put upon by the question, and then smiled and said, "Mmm, God said to me, 'I understand, Solomon; let me know when you change your mind. — Terry Pratchett

We can know God, we can understand God to the extent that we as humans are able, and we can experience God in our own theology and faith development; this is absolute truth. — Sanejo I. Leonard

You can hardly call Deor old.' Arisa wrapped her arms around herself; the breeze was brisk despite the sunlight. 'He didn't live long enough to get old. Why would he do that? I know kings are supposed to care for the realm above all else, and so on, and so on, but that's rot. They're men, just like anyone else. Do you think he really, deliberately, laid down his life?'
'Yes,' said Weasel. 'At least, I think it's possible.'
It was the last answer she'd expected from Weasel-the-cynic.
'But why?' Arisa asked.
'Not having been there, I can't say for sure.' Weasel stuck his hands in his pockets. 'But I'd guess it was for the future.'
Arisa frowned. 'I don't understand.'
'The One God willing,' said Weasel softly, 'you never will. — Hilari Bell

I don't understand the sizes anymore. There's a size zero, which I didn't even know that they had. It must stand for: 'Ohhh my God, you're thin.' — Ellen DeGeneres

From my youth onwards I have found in Jesus my great brother. That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Savior has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which, for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand ... I am more than ever certain that a great place belongs to him in Israel's history of faith and that this place cannot be described by any of the usual categories. — Martin Buber

The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan. — Henry F. Schaefer, III

The progression of minor keys ... they're meant to represent imperfection ... "
I understand. But that is a philosophical conceit. All artists strive toward perfection or else lack fire."
Imperfections make the gods draw near. They crave to fix things. Same way some people leap in to finish other people's sentences. God loves nothing better than to break perfect things. — Carla Speed McNeil

Two years ago, I was saying as I planted seeds in the garden, "I must believe in these seeds, that they fall into the earth and grow into flowers and radishes and beans." It is a miracle to me because I do not understand it. The very fact that they use glib technical phrases does not make it any less a miracle, and a miracle we all accept. Then why not accept God's miracles? — Dorothy Day

It is vital, to understand, and never forget, who God is, because we have an enemy who will stop at nothing to try to convince us otherwise. An enemy who wants us to question God and His significance in this world. And we have a sinful flesh that finds it hard to submit everything we are to God. And we live in a society where humanism, which puts human beings in the place of highest importance in the universe, is a powerful influence. — Kristine McGuire

As he fell asleep he was still thinking of the subject which now occupied his mind all of the time - of life and death.

'Love? What is love?' he mused.

'Love Hinders death. Love is life. Anything at all that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is - everything exists - only because I love. All is bound up in love alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a tiny particle of love, shall return to the universal and eternal source.' These thoughts seemed comforting to him. But they were only thoughts. Something was wanting in them, there was something one-sided and personal, something intellectual. They were not self-evident. And he was prey to the same restlessness and uncertainty. He fell asleep. — Leo Tolstoy

I am an ardent supporter of capitalism - but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not. — Gary Hamel

What's wrong? Where's Gavin?" Mabellio grabbed my shoulders as I tried to barge through the door. "He's fine." He paused. "Now."
"Oh my God," I cried. "I want to see him."
Golar spoke in a calm, soothing tone. "You may, but understand he will need time to heal before he can journey anywhere. You both are welcome to stay, along with Oliver, of course, until he is able."
I nodded my head quickly. "Thank you." I started to walk through the doorway but turned back towards Golar and Mabellio. "Do you know how or why he is even here? I am utterly confused. This is my dream. My nightmare. How is he a part of that? — Brynn Myers

What insanity causes a king abandon the comforts of his kingdom and willfully discard the privileges of royalty in order to save an ornery and rebellious people who have spent a lifetime rejecting him? We have yet to understand that such an action is nothing of insanity. Rather, it is everything of love. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

It's the same as if I just handed you a knife and offered you my balls, for God's sake. And I don't even give a fuck. Because I have no pride when it comes to you. There is nothing I wouldn't do or say to make you understand that I love you. I fucking love you. There, I said it. Do you believe me now? He sounded so pissed off and angry that the admission had been torn from him that she had to battle the smile forming on her lips. — Maya Banks

Are you familiar with the word inspiration? The meaning of it? Where it comes from?...In the Dark Ages no understood the things that made some people special. Every soul in that dark, difficult time faced the same limitations, every soul except a precious few who saw things differently, the poets, inventors, artists, stone masons. Regular folks didn't understand how a person could wake up one day and see the world differently. They thought it was a gift from God. Thus the word "inspiration." It means breathed upon...breathed upon by God himself. — John Hart

Mind your mind, mind your time and mind your life! Life is just once and the real certainty or uncertainty that can make you lose it is always uncertain; until you understand this well, you shall never neither understand how well to live your life each moment of time and leave indelible footprints, big or small, that shall please God nor shall you ever know how well to live and leave noble and indelible footprints worth not just talking about, but emulating. Mind your mind, mind your time and mind your life! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he
slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream ... God is dead. — Jean-Paul Sartre

When God issues a call to us, it is always a holy call. The vocation of dying is a sacred vocation. To understand that is one of the most important lessons a Christian can ever learn. When the summons comes, we can respond in many ways. We can become angry, bitter or terrified. But if we see it as a call from God and not a threat from Satan, we are far more prepared to cope with its difficulties. — R.C. Sproul

In this fallen world, and in their fallen lives, those who are alienated from God are a part of this age, which is now passing. It has no future and there are intimations of that in the depths of human consciousness where a tangle of contradictions lie, for we are made for meaning but find only emptiness, made as moral beings but are estranged from what is holy, made to understand but are thwarted in so many of our quests to know. These are the sure signs of a reality out of joint with itself. This is what, in fact, points to something else. These contradictions are unresolved in the absence of that age to come which is rooted in the triune God of whom Scripture speaks. He it is who not only sustains all of life, directing it all to its appointed end, but who also is the measure of what is enduringly true and right, and the fountain of all meaning, purpose, and hope. — John Piper

It was during the Renaissance that creativity was first seen, not as a matter of divine inspiration, but as a gift of a great learned man to imitate God's ability to create. As Prometheus stole the fire of the Gods and brought it to the mankind, humanity needed to steal the secret of 'creation' from Gods and understand its essence. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

I knew you could be naive, but I never thought you were stupid. He's an Eye, Sophie. They kill our kind. What part of that don't you understand?"

All I could do was blink at him.

"And this one is worse than any of the others," he continued, "because he's technically one of us. He's a traitor to his own race, and you just keep letting him in and pushing...everyone else away." He looked up at me, what I saw in his eyes made me flunch. Cal was so good at hiding his emotions that I'd never realized...God, how could I have been such an idiot? — Rachel Hawkins

[ ... ] at this point the God-understanding stuff kind of makes him want to puke, from fear. Something you can't see or hear or touch or smell: OK. All right. But something you can't even feel? Because that's what he feels when he tries to understand something to really sincerely pray to. Nothingness. He says when he tries to pray he gets this like image in his mind's eye of the brainwaves or whatever of his prayers going out and out, with nothing to stop them, going, going, radiating out into like space and outliving him and still going and never hitting Anything out there, much less Something with an ear. Much much less Something with an ear that could possibly give a rat's ass. — David Foster Wallace

Hive Queen: So many of your people are becoming Christians. Believing in the god these humans brought with them.
Human: You don't believe in God?
Hive Queen: The question never came up. We have always remembered how we began.
Human: You evolved. We were created.
Hive Queen: By a virus.
Human: By a virus that God created in order to create us.
Hive Queen: So you, too, are a believer.
Human: I understand belief.
Hive Queen: No - you desire belief.
Human: I desire it enough to act as if I believed. Maybe that's what faith is.
Hive Queen: Or deliberate insanity. — Orson Scott Card

God made the world with a heart full of love,
Then He looked down from Heaven above,
And saw that we all need a helping hand,
Someone to share with, who'll understand.
He made special people to see us through
The glad times and the sad times, too;
A person on whom we can always depend,
Someone we can call a friend.
God made friends so we'll carry a part
Of His perfect love in all our hearts. — Khalil Gibran

So he has touched you, and yet there is much you do not yet understand. How are you to fathom all that is happening? What shall be the direction from inside for what you think? How you shall live? Where you will go? The answer, my new brother, is found within the sacred texts. Together we will begin to study them, you and I. You will learn to speak with God directly. And you will discover how to listen to him speak with you. — Janette Oke

Until we mature enough to understand that God uses everything for good in our lives, we harbor resentment toward God over our appearance, background, unanswered prayers, past hurts, and other things we would change if we were God. People often blame God for hurts caused by others. This creates what William Backus calls your hidden rift with God. — Rick Warren

I swear to fucking God, I won't save the next idiot to step past this protection because," I spat again, coughing, "that fucking tastes like shit. Understand me, people? — Scarlett Dawn

It may interest you that, a day or so ago, attempting to discuss your ideas with regard to sex and religion, my eccentric friend, fixing his eyes rather fiercely upon me, growled abruptly: "Semen is God."
Unwilling to excite him further, I replied: Sir, though I understand perfectly what you mean by Semen, I am unacquainted with the connotation which you attach to the term "God". — Aleister Crowley

My mother is very religious. She's one of those old ladies that spends her life in the church. She just prays and prays, day and night. We have a very different idea of what religion is. She doesn't understand what my work is about, why I want to make changes in the way we live. She thinks we should be thankful for the little we have and leave well enough alone. I suppose she thinks that if she prays enough, God will come down from the sky with a plate of beans for her to eat.
But I don't think that God say, 'Go to church and pray all day and everything will be fine.' No. For me God says, 'Go out and make the changes that need to be made, and I'll be there to help you.' [p. 30] — Elvia Alvarado

My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me. That means that everything I think and feel is by nature a response, and the one to whom I respond is God. I never speak the first word. I never make the first move. — Eugene H. Peterson

Do dogs understand death? Do they have souls? Do they go to heaven? I have alway believed so, but this [event] confirmed that all of God's creatures , humans and animals, have a soul and that we will all be reunited in heaven. My pastor once told me, "If there are no dogs in heaven, I don't want to go." I agree. — Glenwood McNabb

We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. that is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

One of the core ideas of the Bible is that meaning can be found in history. The sheer act of telling and retelling stories helps us to understand God's role in the world as well as our own position in a long line of ancestors who have wrestled with similar issues to the ones we wrestle with every day. — Bruce Feiler

The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of sovereign joy is that their hunger and thirst for God is so small. — John Piper

You know your father, God rest his soul... Your father had a philosophy the he held to pretty strongly. And it's one that served him very, very well... He believed that if there were things in this world that you had to offer, things that you did well - better than anyone else... things that you could do that helped people feel better about themselves... well, he believed that it wasn't just a good idea to do those things... he believed it was your responsibility to do those things. Don't try to be something else. Don't try to be less. Great things are going to happen to you and your life Peter. Great things. And with that will come great responsibility. Do you understand? Great responsibility. — Brian Michael Bendis

Friendship is a priceless gift, that cannot be bought or sold, but it's value is far greater than a mountain made of gold. For gold is cold and lifeless, it can neither see nor hear. And in time of trouble it is powerless to cheer. It has no ears to listen, no heart to understand, it cannot bring you comfort or reach out a helping hand. So when you ask God for a gift, be thankful if he sends, not diamonds, pearls, or riches, but the love of real true friends. Thank you my friends for being in my life! — Natalie

The Bolsheviks killed their own most loyal supporters at Kronstadt in 1921, because they failed to understand that the revolution no longer required revolutionaries, but obedient servants. — Peter Hitchens

He thought about science, about faith, about man. He thought about how every culture, in every country, in every time, had always shared one thing. We all had the Creator. We used different names, different faces, and different prayers, but God was the universal constant for man. God was the symbol we all shared ... the symbol of all the mysteries of life that we could not understand. The ancients had praised God as a symbol of our limitless human potential, — Dan Brown

Only when we try to love God will we see our utter inability to do so. And only when we understand that inability, will we begin to be in awe of His great love toward us. — Mike Donehey

The mathematical likelihood that God exists is astronomical. But the idea that our limited human mentality can understand the true nature of God borders on the ridiculous. For this reason the religionist and the ahteist are equally naive. — Keith David Henry

If we can understand that death is not the end but is really a transition into the next life, the great part of life, that frees us up into receiving God's courage and his help. — Max Lucado

Understand this: The Bible presents Christ. You have an inner sense of an indwelling Lord. You either have that or you do not. The man God needs will live in a vital, living relationship with Jesus Christ. — Gene Edwards

I have come to understand that it is far preferable to know that we are living our own destiny, a destiny which was authored by God, our Father. — Robert Bernecker

The only appropriate war rhetoric is more rhetoric that calls our enemies spirits and people with flesh the victims of this war. Satan wants us to fight with one another, and I understand that some evil must be restrained, but our war, the war of the ones who believe in Jesus, is a war unseen. If we could muster a portion of the patriotism we feel toward our earthly nations into patriotism and bravery in concert with the kingdom of God, the enemy would take fewer casualties. — Donald Miller

I just don't see how anyone can be so cold. (Kiara) And you should be grateful, little girl, to whatever god you worship, that you can say that. In the world we come from, I don't understand how anyone can be anything but cold. (Syn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Bisi, how could you, now? You know that when you pray, you are heard, if not by God, then by yourself. When you pray, you tell yourself what you truly want, what you really need. And once you know these things, you can do nothing but go after them. Sae you understand? — Helen Oyeyemi

There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God. The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our owns lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in so doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocably to their true purpose. The man who loses this sense of his own personal destiny, and who renounces all hope of having any kind of vocation in life has either lost all hope of happiness or else has entered upon some mysterious vocation that God alone can understand. — Thomas Merton

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers

Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"
Oh GOD. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to THEM and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-it-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks. — Helen Fielding

We cannot understand the meaning of many trials; God does not explain them. To explain a trial would be to destroy its object, which is that of calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience. If we knew why the Lord sent us this or that trial, it would thereby cease to be a trial either of faith or of patience. — Alfred Edersheim

I don't know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don't understand are at work. I cannot believe that God "sends" illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don't believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute, and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best. "What did I do to deserve this?" is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is "If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?" As we saw in the previous chapter, it becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don't hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world. — Harold S. Kushner

So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born. — Clive Barker

The Jews understand that the blessing of wealth was dependant upon obedience to the law and covenant. The laws in the Torah, if followed, would bring blessings.5 The Tanakh says, "How joyful are those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands ... they themselves will be wealthy." (NLT, Psalm 112:1, 3) "If they listen and obey God, they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives." (NLT, Job 36:11) — H.W. Charles

There is nothing small about our God, and when we understand God we will find out that there ought not to be anything small about us. We must have an enlargement of our conception of God, then we will know that we have come to a place where all things are possible, for our God is an omnipotent God for impossible positions. — Smith Wigglesworth

Giving is God's way. It is the way that I now understand is the truth of the Universe. Giving multiplies me and makes me feel complete and fulfilled. Giving makes me feel that I make a real and important difference. — Mark Victor Hansen

Don't ever say that after sex, do you understand? If you feel the urge to say it, go see the girl first thing in the morning, with her night breath and no makeup ... watch her on the toilet ... listen to her with her friends ... go meet her hairy mother and her shrill friends ... and if you still feel the need to say such a stupid thing, then God help you. — Jess Walter

I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground, unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, searching for a new way of knowing. You stand upon the ground, and consider the evidence inch by inch. Your way is more rational and more methodical, but I cannot change my way. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The gift of biblical wisdom, in other words, is not all about getting a privileged seat in God's traffic control tower of the world. We don't get to understand why things happen the way they do. We are mistaken if we think wisdom gives us that sort of insight. — Jeffrey Meyers

How do you irradiate the humbly trivial - the sneezes and waiting in bus-queues - with the lofty, and at the same time cherish above all in the lofty those things that nourish you here, today, in all your ordinariness? I cannot understand, in other words, what sort of God would bother to count every hair on my head. — Robert Dessaix

Like all poetical natures he loved ignorant people. He knew that in the soul of one who is ignorant there is always room for a great idea. But he could not stand stupid people, especially those who are made stupid by education: people who are full of opinions not one of which they even understand, a peculiarly modern type, summed up by Christ when he describes it as the type of one who has the key of knowledge, cannot use it himself, and does not allow other people to use it, though it may be made to open the gate of God's Kingdom. — Oscar Wilde

There's one thing you need to understand," Larry said. "We love because God first loved us, even in the face of all our unloveliness." He paused. He seemed to want to give John time to think about that. Then he said, "Go home and love your wife John."
I'm afraid I can't find the strength in myself to do that, Larry."
Pastor Larry leaned forward, smiling tenderly. "That's good, my friend," he said. "Now we're getting somewhere. — Ann Tatlock

I didn't sleep that night. I cried. I wasn't frightened for myself; I was indignant; it was the wickedness of it that broke me. The war came to an end and I went home. I'd always been keen on mechanics, and if there was nothing doing in aviation, I'd intended to get into an automobile factory. I'd been wounded and had to take it easy for a while. Then they wanted me to go to work. I couldn't do the sort of work they wanted me to do. It seemed futile. I'd had a lot of time to think. I kept on asking myself what life was for. After all it was only by luck that I was alive; I wanted to make something of my life, but I didn't know what. I'd never thought much about God. I began to think about Him now. I couldn't understand why there was evil in the world. I knew I was very ignorant; I didn't know anyone I could turn to and I wanted to learn, so I began to read at haphazard. — W. Somerset Maugham

I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably ... This truth should be taught to every human being
that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice
how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice. — Fidel Castro

The great prophetic work of the modern world is Goethe's Faust, so little appreciated among the Anglo-Saxons. Mephistopheles offers Faust unlimited knowledge and unlimited power in exchange for his soul. Modern man has accepted that bargain ...
I believe in what the Germans term Ehrfurcht: reverence for things one cannot understand. Faust's error was an aspiration to understand, and therefore master, things which, by God or by nature, are set beyond the human compass. He could only achieve this at the cost of making the achievement pointless. Once again, it is exactly what modern man has done. — Robert Aickman

The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, true to the ultimate environment - the infinite, personal God who is really there - then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth. — Francis A. Schaeffer

The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions. — Stephen Hawking

The problem with God is that we want him to reveal Himself, and He doesn't. We will never understand God. — Vincent Nichols

Recognizing that God has called you to function as his agent defines your task as a parent. Our culture has reduced parenting to providing care. Parents often see the task in these narrow terms. The child must have food, clothes, a bed, and some quality time.
In sharp contrast to such a weak view, God has called you to a more profound task than being only a care-provider. You shepherd your child in God's behalf. The task God has given you is not one that can be conveniently scheduled. It is a pervasive task. Training and shepherding are going on whenever you are with your children. Whether waking, walking, talking or resting, you must be involved in helping your child to understand life, himself, and his needs from a biblical perspective (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). — Tedd Tripp

Words can be honed to crafted perfection by the finest wordsmiths. Yet, if we trust solely in the expanse of them to explain this God of ours or articulate our experience of Him, we will have brutally destroyed the very things we are attempting to explain. And if I should do that, no words can describe how badly I wish I had no words. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

If there is anything I want you to understand at the end of this book, it's this: don't settle for a secondhand relationship with God. That's not the life of passion He is calling you to. Knowing God will keep you stable in hard times. It will make you secure and enable you to press past fear. It will cause you to know He is always with you whether you feel His Presence or not. You can know His forgiveness and mercy, His restoration and favor; truly knowing God will fuel your passion for life. When we see how beautiful and wonderful He really is, and realize all He has done for us in love, how can we not pursue Him and His will passionately? — Joyce Meyer

I was so unsuccessful for so long. I was used to the word no. I was used to you're not good enough or not quite there or you need to fix this about you. So I am honestly walking in faith every single day that I am going to be able to handle whatever God has for me. I am not used to being in a place where people appreciate my work and understand my work and want to be a part of my work and getting something out of my work because for so long it was so misunderstood. The success part for me is the hardest part and everyday I'm still battling. — Tamar Braxton

I understand once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things. — Paulo Coelho

The human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is or what love is. The well-heeled couple who decide they want to use genetics to have a child that is a gifted musician may end up with a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them. — Francis Collins

The chief difficulty is that God demands of us that we live by faith: faith in God, God's sovereignty over the future, God's sufficiency for the present; while, on the other hand, the various other gods whom we can serve appeal to us in terms of the things which we can see and the forces which we can calculate. The choice between the life of faith and the life of sight is a choice between a God whom only faith can apprehend and gods whom one has only to see to understand. — Daniel Thambyrajah Niles

Our shadow is on the outside. And we can see in the dark: we can see you, we see you turn away, but one day we finally understand that you turn away not from our faces but from your own fears. From those things inside you that you think mark you as someone unlovable to your family, and society, and even to God. — Anne Lamott

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths ... all faiths ... are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control. — Dan Brown

For once you rise to a level of God consciousness you will understand that you are not responsible for any other human soul, and that while it is commendable to wish every soul to live in comfort, each soul must choose-is choosing-its own destiny this instant. — Neale Donald Walsch