#row

The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#faith #fear #god #sin #sorrow

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

— Richard J. Foster

#faith #god #growing #jesus #faith

Sometimes… Sometimes doubt is the opposite of faith, but sometimes doubt can be a pathway to faith. Sometimes weakness is the opposite of strength, but sometimes weakness can be the pathway to strength. Sometimes addiction is the opposite of sobriety, but sometimes addiction can be the pathway to sobriety. Sometimes infidelity is the opposite of fidelity, but sometimes infidelity can be a pathway to fidelity. Sometimes failure is the opposite of success, but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success. ↗

— David W. Jones

#failure #failure-success #infidelity #journey-in-life #learning-from-mistakes

The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something your mind knows is a lie. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#common-sense #confusion #disbelief #evidence #faith

You may have misery,” she continued, ignoring my plea, “you may lose hope in the sorrow of an unplanned life but as long as you have faith and trust in adoration, in affection, in love, that sorrow will turn to happiness. And that is a constant, dear.” She breathed deeply and steadily for a moment, seemingly catching her breath. “No one can know sincere happiness, Sophie, without first having known sorrow. One can never appreciate the enormity and rareness of such a fiery bliss without seeing misery, however unfair that may be. “And you will know honest happiness. Of that I am certain. Certain because it’s why you are here and also because here is your inevitability. ↗

— Fisher Amelie

#love #sorrow #vain #faith

Addressing the concept of man made additions to the faith - “These additions- standards, practices, and allegiances supposedly created for our spiritual benefit- have had the opposite effect. ↗

— Ed Galisewski

#man-made-faith #spiritual-growth #spirituality #faith

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

— Toba Beta

#faith #grow #religion #stimulation #faith

The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#dependence-on-god #faith #insurance #material-goods #possessions

Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy. ↗

— John Piper

#growth #life #word #faith

There is not steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and a the last one pause: - through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom). and then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. ↗

— Herman Melville

#growth #life #faith