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God Thoughts

god-creates-man-sistine-chapel

Sometimes my mind simply stops to dwell on, or ruminate upon the reality of God. There are times when God seems obvious and there are times when God seems manufactured. I imagine a world with God and wonder why He doesn’t move differently, or to be more precise, why He doesn’t seem to do things the way I think He should do them. Then, I imagine a world without the grace of God, and I can only imagine what kind of existence we would have if God’s common grace were not suppressing the darkness that it is. Since we don’t truly know how much intervention is already going on, we can’t really imagine what chaos wound ensue if that sovereign hand were removed completely…hmmm, things to ponder.

So tonight I began to look back through some of my collected thoughts and quotes about God. Maybe I was looking through these words to remind myself that God is still moving. Maybe I simply needed a good grid-shift in the midst of some trying circumstances. Whatever the subconscious reason, I invite you to ruminate with me, and just maybe, we all will experience a greater capacity to trust, love and live in a God-reality.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you. ~C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light.  ~Mary Gardiner Brainard

Some people always sigh in thanking God.  ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Surely your longings and feelings arise from the God who created you. They were created in order to be filled, not crushed. Surely we shall find peace not by eliminating desire, but by finding its fulfillment and satisfaction in the One who created it. ~Sundar Singh

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.  ~Voltaire

You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. ~Anne Lamott

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. ~Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message. ~Malcolm Muggeridge

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”  ~C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1943

God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things done.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

A man with God is always in the majority.  ~John Knox

Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you. ~ J.I. Packer, Knowing God

Any fool can count the seeds in an apple.  Only God can count all the apples in one seed.  ~Robert H. Schuller

The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.  ~ C.S. Lewis

God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars. ~Elbert Hubbard

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. ~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: “Go down again – I dwell among the people. ~John Henry Newman

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves. ~Joni Eareckson Tada, The God I Love

The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
~Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. ~Augustine of Hippo

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? ~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

God made the world for the delight of human beings– if we could see His goodness everywhere, His concern for us, His awareness of our needs: the phone call we’ve waited for, the ride we are offered, the letter in the mail, just the little things He does for us throughout the day. As we remember and notice His love for us, we just begin to fall in love with Him because He is so busy with us — you just can’t resist Him. I believe there’s no such thing as luck in life, it’s God’s love, it’s His. ~Mother Teresa, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa

The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. ~Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. ~A.W. Tozer

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own. ~Madeleine L’Engle

There is a deep and natural craving in the human heart that can be satisfied nowhere except in God. Our being in this world is a test, a preparation for the deepest state of spiritual communion. But most of us, suppressing our deepest longings and disdaining God, seek satisfaction from this world. Such a path can lead only to despair. ~Sundar Singh

God moves in a mysterious wayHis wonders to perform;He plants his footsteps in the sea,And rides upon the storm. ~William Cowper, Olney Hymns

We are but a point, a single comma, and God is the literature of eternity. ~Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,And daub their natural faces unaware. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be. ~Anne Frank

God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless He has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty. ~Peter Marshall

God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with. ~Billy Graham
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Change- SNQ 8/15/12

Change is inevitable. Change is necessary. Change is hard. As life speeds along at an ever increase rate, we are faced with the reality of change. How we handle change will greatly affect the level of enjoyment we have in life. Fighting the inevitable is always a losing battle, so why do we do it?

When you are facing a change or a transition, it is really important to consider the following:

1. Acknowledge the Change: Denial isn’t helpful when it comes to change, it actually creates a high level of conscious, as well as subconscious stress. When we acknowledge the change, we are freeing ourselves from the hostage situation that denial creates. Another form of denial is minimizing change. When we minimize the potential effects of change we are not really acknowledging that we will be facing life differently. When we finally acknowledge change, we bring it to the light where it can’t go underground and affect our subconscious behavioral patterns.

2. Celebrate What Came Before. Too often, since we don’t like change, we choose to simply “power through it” and jump into the next great thing. This leaves a sense of unsettled-ness within. When we celebrate the transition, we give honor to the good things as well as grieve the hard things that preceded the change. This creates a sense of closure concerning the change, whether it was good or bad, which in turn helps us move forward without the baggage that, denial, minimizing or too fast a transition create. Closure is crucial for a healthy transition.

3. Remind Yourself That Change Helps You Grow. If we never experienced change, we would never grow. Remind yourself that change creates growth opportunities and will reveal the health of your emotional soul. You’ll need to remind yourself often…so in those moments when the stress from change is reaching the tipping point, remind yourself that God is larger than your circumstances and that the change He is allowing can be used to enlarge your faith.

Here are some great quotes about change:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
~Reinhold Niebuhr

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.  ~Arnold Bennett

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.  ~Ellen Glasgow

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.  ~Carl Jung

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.  ~Maya Angelou

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.  ~John A. Simone, Sr.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.  ~Confucius

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.  ~Confucius

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.  ~Frank Herbert

Change is the only constant. Hanging on is the only sin.  ~Denise McCluggage

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.  ~Andre Gide

In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.  ~Warren Buffett

Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you… yet, someone survived… You can do anything you choose to do.
~Maya Angelo

By changing nothing, nothing changes.  ~Tony Robbins

Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.  ~Walter Anderson

Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.  ~Jim Rohn

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.  ~George Bernard Shaw

You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.  ~A.A. Milne

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.  ~Mark Twain

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Sunday Night Quotes 5/20/12-Faith

Faith is powerful…we all have faith in something, whether it is faith that the brakes on our car will actually work when we depress the brake pedal, or faith that we don’t need to purchase our next breath…faith is the state of assured trust that something will happen.

Faith puts a smile on God’s face and causes the Divine to respond. Faith lifts us out of the ordinary into the extraordinary! Tonight’s quotes center on faith…read, be inspired and make God smile 🙂

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Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.  ~Khalil Gibran

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
~Thomas Aquinas

Faith is a passionate intuition.  ~William Wordsworth

Faith is spiritualized imagination.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.  ~Rabindranath Tagore

Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future. It’s simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step.  ~Joni Erickson Tada 

Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.  ~ Corrie Ten Boom

Worry is spiritual short sight. Its cure is intelligent faith.  ~Paul Brunton

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.  ~Ralph Hodgson

Faith sees what isn’t as if it were…. 🙂

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St. Patrick’s Day Thoughts…

Aye, another St. Patrick’s day is approaching. Time to don the green, and practice a wee bit-o-the-irish accent. In honor of the day, I thought I would post a few of the prayers and thoughts attributed to him, as well as a great celtic song, done beautifully to round off this devotional. So get comfortable…take a deep breath in and out and slowly read and listen.

Monty

St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer (The Lorica)

I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.

I bind this day to me forever,
by power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation;
his baptism in the Jordan river;
his death on cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spiced tomb;
his riding up he heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom:
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of cherubim;
the sweet “Well done” in judgement hour;
the service of the seraphim;
confessors’ faith, apostles’ word,
the patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to hearken to my need;
the wisdom of my God to teach,
his hand to guide, his shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
his heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
the vice that gives temptation force,
the natural lusts that war within,
the hostile men that mar my course;
of few or many, far or nigh,
in every place, and in all hours
against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
against false words of heresy,
against the knowledge that defiles
against the heart’s idolatry,
against the wizard’s evil craft,
against the death-wound and the burning
the choking wave and poisoned shaft,
protect me, Christ, till thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Of whom all nature hath creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.


The Confession of St. Patrick

1 I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

2 And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

3 Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven.

4 For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.