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When
you are open to receive what God is able to do for you, you stop
doing. You learn how to “Be still and know!”
You know that your good is
on the way, according to God’s nature and willingness to give.
You also put
your faith in the fact that God is always on time.
-Iyanla Vanzant
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The
light of faith confers upon us undreamed-of enhancement
of our vision, an extension of our understanding, and enrichment
of our natural powers beyond the powers of words to convey.
-Rosalind
Murray
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Yes, I have doubted. I have wandered
off the
path. I have been lost. But I always returned. It is beyond
the logic I seek. It
is intuitive--an
intrinsic, built-in sense of direction. I seem to find my way home.
My faith has wavered but has saved me.
-Helen Hayes
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I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,
you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will
move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
-Jesus of Nazareth
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| Faith is so rare--and religion so
common--because no one wants to live
between first base
and second base. Faith is the in-between space
where you're
not sure you'll make it to second base. You've let go
of
one thing and haven't yet latched into another. Most of
us choose the security of first base.
-Richard Rohr |
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Prayer is
asking for rain
and faith is carrying the umbrella.
-Barbara
Johnson
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| Faith
is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to
live
by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in
a wisdom superior
to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in
the absence of fact. -Terry Tempest Williams |
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| A
very real barrier to faith is this feeling of self-sufficiency, this
unrealistic
idea that one can accomplish everything by his or her own self.
Some people
have the conviction they must do it all alone.
They have no faith in others. . .
they are convinced that there is no one able to do the job as well as
themselves.
They refuse to admit that they may need the help of friends,
doctor, minister, or even God. -Norman Vincent
Peale |
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All faith is
experiment, and you cannot have the result
of an experiment unless you make the experiment.
-William Temple
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It's
a sweet thing, faith. With it, you can handle any circumstance,
any crisis, because you know God always has your back. And when
God is for you, who can be against you? Nobody. As my
Aunt Hattie says, "One and God are a majority."
-Patti
LaBelle
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| Sometimes
we want things we were not meant to have.
Because
he
loves us, the Father says no.
Faith trusts
that no. Faith is
willing not to have what God is not willing
to give. Furthermore,
faith does not insist upon an explanation.
It is enough
to know His
promises to give what is good--he knows
so much more about us than we
do. -Elisabeth Elliot |
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| Faith
strips the mask from the world and reveals God in everything. It makes nothing impossible and renders meaningless such words
as anxiety, danger, and fear, so that the believer goes through life
calmly and peacefully, like a child, hand in hand with his or her
mother. -Charles de Foucauld |
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| If it can be verified, we don't need faith.
. . . Faith is for that
which lies on the other side of
reason. Faith is what makes life bearable,
with all its
tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.
-Madeleine L'Engle |
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It need
not discourage us if we are full
of doubts. Healthy questions
keep faith
dynamic. In fact,
unless we start with
doubts we cannot have
a deep-rooted faith.
One who believes
lightly and unthinkingly has not
much
of a belief.
One who has a faith
which is not to be shaken has won
it
through
blood and tears--has
worked his or her way from doubt
to truth as one
who reaches
a clearing
through a thicket
of brambles and thorns.
-Helen
Keller |
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| Life is not a level, smooth path, but rather a
series of hills and valleys. There are times spent on the mountain top, when everything seems clear
and perfect. Then there
are those times when we feel like we’re wandering
around in a dark cavern, feeling our way along and trusting God for
every step
of faith. Runners get a
“second wind” after forcing themselves to go on when
they feel they can’t. We
feel the joy of God’s Spirit lift us up and carry us on
when we choose to continue in faith, no matter how we feel or what’s
going on
around us. Take a moment
and set your heart to be persistent in faith—faith in
God to lead you, pick you up when you have fallen, give you strength
to go on,
and ultimately bring you to victory.
-Unattributed |
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Faith
is a process of leaping into the
abyss not on
the basis
of any certainty
about where we shall land,
but
rather
on the belief that we shall land.
Carter Heyward |
Faith
given back to us after a night of
doubt is a stronger
thing, and far
more valuable to us
than faith
that has
never been tested.
Elizabeth Goudge |
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Faith is to
believe
what you do
not yet see;
the reward for
this faith is to see
what you believe. -St. Augustine |
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Faith
is kept alive in us, and gathers
strength,
more from practice
than from speculations.
-Joseph
Addison
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Faith
is not an easy virtue; but, in the broad world
of a person's total voyage through
time to eternity,
faith is not only a gracious companion,
but an essential guide. -Theodore
M. Hesburgh
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The wise
person in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger, but for
deliverance from fear. It is the storm within
which endangers us, not the storm without.
-Ralph Waldo
Emerson
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God
is the hardest taskmaster I have known on this earth, and
he tries you
through and through. And when you find that
your faith is failing or your
body is failing you, and
you are sinking, he comes to your assistance
somehow or
other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith
and
that he is always at your beck and call, but on his
terms, not on your terms. So I have found. I cannot
really recall a single instance when,
at the eleventh
hour, he has forsaken me. -Mohandas
Gandhi |
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Faith is not only daring to believe, it is
also daring to act. When I
believe in myself
as a son of God, I attribute to all people the same quality. This goes for
people
of every class, creed
and color. The proof that I believe this way will be
measured
by the way I act towards others. . . .To me God
is all the goodness in the universe,
available to me here
and now, and it is up to me to help convert that goodness
into action. "God is love," but He is
infinitely more than that. God is love, hope, courage,
good will, peace--He is all the eternal, everlasting,
indestructible values
of ongoing creative life. With
God underneath my life I have
the faith to build toward
the stars. -Wilferd A. Peterson
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Pippa's
Song
The year's
at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world.
Robert
Browning |
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The
most important element in human life is faith; if God were to take away all
his
blessings--health, physical
fitness, wealth, intelligence--and leave me with but one
gift I would ask him for faith. For with faith in him and his goodness, mercy and love for me, and belief in
everlasting life,
I believe I could suffer the loss of
all my other gifts and still be happy.
-Rose
Kennedy |
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The
best definition of faith that I know is that it is reason
grown courageous. Moreover,
that is all that Christ ever
asked us for, and the reason that he asked us for that
was
because he wants to use us. He needs our help. It is
almost impossible to believe it,
but God Almighty wants
our help, so Christ tells us. Theoretically or
mathematically
this is unintelligible, that God should
want human help. But this is the bottom of all
Christ's teaching. The faith he asks for is not to
understand him but to follow him. By that and that alone
can people convert the tragedy of human life, full of
disappointments,
disillusionments, and with so-called
death ever looming ahead, into the most glorious field
of
honor, worthy of the dignity of a son of God. What Christ
asks is that we shall try it out. He actually dares
us to follow him. In that way, he says, you shall win
that prize in life,
for which any man can with perfect
reason afford to give everything else.
-Wilfred
T. Grenfell |
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You
call for faith: I show you doubt,
to prove that faith exists. The more
of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt. -Robert Browning
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Our creator would
never have made such lovely days,
and have given us the deep
hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought,
unless we were meant to be immortal.
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne
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What keeps our faith
cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness
and
humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign
that faith rules through ordinary things: through
cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love,
fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers,
through sports, music, and books, raising kids--all the
places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time
of elephantine vanity and greed, one never
has to look far to see
the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life,
it would be good
enough to live for their sake. -Garrison
Keillor |
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Faith marches at the head of the
army of progress.
--It is found beside the most refined life,
the freest
government, the profoundest philosophy,
the noblest poetry, the purest humanity.
-Theodore T. Munger |
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| I have done much
reporting in what might be termed the religious field.
I have interviewed dozens of people--maybe hundreds--asking questions
about their beliefs. Some impressed me more than others, but it is
impossible
to avoid the conclusion that the gift of faith (and I think it is
a gift) is the most
valuable one of all. People who have it are stronger--and kinder--and
more unselfish--and happier. It's as simple (and as
mysterious) as that. -Arthur Gordon |
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| My
reason nourishes my faith
and my faith my reason.
-Norman
Cousins |
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| Faith is a friend by our side. When we allow it
in, faith acts as a floor
beneath our
feet. When we make choices rooted in faith, we trust
that there is a power, an unseen
force, guiding us. When we have
faith, we know that we are being taken care of.
Faith gives us
the
ability to look beyond our immediate circumstances and imagine
brave
new choices for the future. Faith means trusting in something
beyond
what we know. Having faith that we are part of a bigger whole
allows us
to melt away our separateness. Faith gives us strength and
reassurance
and leaves us bathed in the wisdom that we are never alone.
-Debbie Ford |
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| Faith is a living
and unshakeable confidence,
a belief in the grace
of God so assured that
a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake.
-Martin Luther |
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| To have faith where
you cannot see; to be willing to work
on in
the dark; to
be conscious of the fact that,
so long as you strive
for
the best, there are
better things on the way, this in
itself is success. -Katherine
Logan |
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| Reason is an action of the mind;
knowledge
is a possession of the mind;
but faith
is an attitude of
the person. It means you are prepared to stake yourself
on something being so. -Michael Ramsey |
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| Here's
the thing about faith: It gives us the strength to go on when
we want
to give in. It gives us the courage to get up when we
want
to lie down. It gives
us the power to make a way out of no way
when
there ain't no way. Just as
love can't make you strong until
love has
made you weak, well, faith can't lift
you up until life has knocked
you down. With faith or without it, we can't stop
the
waves. But with it, we don't need to. Because with it we can ride the
surf. -Patti
LaBelle |
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| Don't try to hold God's
hand; let him hold yours.
Let him do the holding, and you
do the trusting. -Hammer William
Webb-Peploe |
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| Grant
us a common faith
that we shall
know bread
and peace--that
we shall
know justice and righteousness,
freedom and
security,
an equal
opportunity and an equal
chance to
do our best not only
in our own lands,
but
throughout the
world. And in
that faith let us
march toward
the
clean
world
our hands can make. -Stephen
Vincent Benet |
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| Faith is
the daring of the soul to go
farther than it can see. -William Newton Clarke |
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| Belief is a truth held
in the mind;
faith is a fire in the heart.
-Joseph Fort Newton |
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| When
all our efforts have come to nothing, we naturally tend
to doubt
not just ourselves, but also whether God is just.
At those moments,
our only hope is to seek every evidence
that God is just,
by communing with the people we know
who are strongest in faith. -Bill
Moyers |
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| Faith is the sense of
life, that sense by virtue of which humans
do not destroy themselves, but continue to live on.
It is the force
whereby we live. -Lev Tolstoy |
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| Faith can
have a profound impact on health. It is a very personal
experience
of thought and surrender, which can comfort in
every situation. Faith is free
and available to all
people at all times. It only requires that one fully
embrace
possibility, and the ultimate value is in the
depth of the embrace. -Patch
Adams |
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| It often seems easier
not to move on; even the muck and mire in which
we're
stuck seems less fearful and less challenging than the
unknown path ahead. Some people use faith as a
reason to remain stuck. They often say,
"I
have faith, so I'm waiting." But faith is not
complacent; faith is action.
You don't have faith
and wait. When you have faith, you move.
Complacency
actually shows lack of faith. When it's time to
move
in a new direction in order to progress, the right
people will come to us. -Betty Eadie |
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| Life without faith in something is
too narrow a space in which to live. -George Lancaster Spalding |
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| You
can do very little with faith,
but you can do nothing
without it. -Samuel
Butler |
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| I think it is
impossible to explain faith. It is like trying to
explain air,
which one cannot do by dividing it into its
component parts
and
labeling them scientifically. It
must be breathed to be understood.
-Patrick White |
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| All
the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice,
before a single word: faith. -Napoleon Bonaparte |
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| If we were logical, the future would be
bleak indeed. But we are more
than logical. We are human
beings,
and we have faith, and we have hope. -Jacques Cousteau |
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| Religious
faith is not a storm cellar to which men and women
can flee for refuge from the storms of life.
It is, instead,
an inner spiritual strength which enables them to face those
storms with hope and serenity.
Religious faith has
the miraculous power to lift ordinary human beings
to greatness in seasons of stress. -Sam J. Ervin, Jr. |
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I
never saw a moor;
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
Emily Dickinson |
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| The
road to glory is difficult with its rocks and boulders, its strain and
struggle.
Things aren’t always as easy as we would like.
Surprises and pitfalls wait for
us along the road of life.
We’re going to sweat and sway, we’re going to wonder
why things are the way they are.
But every road has an end; every mountain
has its peak.
If we can just hold on and keep climbing, knowing that God is
aware of how we’re straining, he will bring us up and over the
mountains. -Thelma Wells |
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| I've found that the
people I most admire in this world are people of great
religious faith--people who recognize not only the
existence of God, but also the goodness and the Love and
the caring of God. These people walk in peace, and I find
that their lives aren't at all troubled by the things
that go on around them--they deal with those things, and
they deal with them effectively, not spending time
worrying "Why is this happening to poor me?"
I
must admit that my faith is often of the shaky kind, but
as time goes on and I learn more from these role models,
I grow to learn that my faith is what I make it. If I
have faith that God will provide, then I'll find ways to
keep on, no matter what the circumstances. If I don't
have faith in God, then my faith must ultimately fall in
people, and I know from experience that that kind of
faith will fall short as people let us down time and time
again. People have let me down; God never has. I see this
fact far too often in retrospect, but I'm working at
seeing it all day, every day. I know that working at
developing my faith is work that will develop my life in
a way that will make it beautiful and fulfilling.
I've learned of a few things that faith is
NOT: faith is not dogma, believing that there is
only one way to do things, and that's MY way. Faith
is not memorizing the Bible or the Talmud or the Koran
and spouting off passages to impress others and to keep
from having to think for ourselves. Faith is not
going to church every week and ignoring the message the
other 6 and 23/24 days of the week.
Faith is a calm knowledge that things will
be okay, because we were created to be just who we are,
and no matter how bad things seem, they will work out--and
the faithful person knows that they may take a bit longer
to work out than we want them to. Faith is knowing that
we are loved, just as we are, and that we are worth
loving, just as we are. That's hard for me to
accept sometimes, but I know in my heart that it's true,
and God gave us hearts so that we could know such things.
Tom Walsh
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I
would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded
by mystery
than live in a world so small that my mind
could comprehend it. -Henry Emerson Fosdick |
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| You do build in
darkness if you have faith. When the light returns you
have made of yourself a fortress which is impregnable to
certain kinds of
trouble; you may even find yourself
needed and sought by others as
a beacon in their
dark. -Olga Rosmanith |
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| Faith
consists in believing when it is
beyond the power of
reason to believe.
It is not enough that a thing be possible
for it to be believed. -Voltaire |
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| You
know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to,
but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown.
But if,
on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go,
you will float.
And this is exactly the situation of faith.
-Alan Watts |
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| Doubts
are the messengers of the Living One to the honest.
They are the
first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be,
understood. . . . Doubts must precede every deeper assurance;
for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into
a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.
-George MacDonald |
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| Believing
is a daring adventure into the unseen, it is a radiant faith
in the unexplored, the undiscovered, the miracles of the future. . .
There is magic in the art of believing!
Believe!
Engrave these words
of the Master in your memory:
“All things are possible to those who believe.” Believe!
Believe in the limitless supply of God’s goodness.
The universe
is filled with more wonders than you can imagine.
-Wilferd A. Peterson |
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| When
we plant a seed, we don't keep digging
up the soil to see if it's growing.
-Susan
Santucci |
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| Faith
is the gift of God and God will give it to those who ask for it.
You cannot argue or coax or reason or intellectualize and
get faith.
It is not something you learn.
Your teacher is simply a spiritual farmer who prepares
the soil for the seed which God drops into the fertile soil.
Faith in God enlarges our perspective.
It gives us an awareness that there is more to life than
the basic material one.
There is an invisible but real life which infuses us with
an indescribable peace of mind.
One reason why more people do not receive this gift is
because of pride.
How can we know God if we think we already know
everything and are filled with ourselves?
-Esther Carls Dodgen |
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| Faith is nothing at all tangible. . . . It is
simply believing in God;
and like sight, it is nothing apart from its object.
You might as well
shut your eyes and look inside, to see whether you have sight,
as to look inside to discover whether you have faith.
-Hannah Whitall Smith |
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| Faith
is not something that is passive. Our faith requires a commitment
from us. If thoughts of lack come to mind, we counteract such
negativity
by counting our blessings and giving thanks for the abundance of
good things we have. The ability of our bodies to heal is enhanced
by our affirmations of life, which stimulate a positive response
from the life within our very cells.
-unattributed |
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| Why should we be willing to go by faith?
We do all things in this world
by faith in the word of others. By
faith only we know our position in the
world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our
parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality.
Why should Religion be an exception?
-John Henry Newman |
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| I prefer to think of
faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as
the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of
disbelief". . . a willingness to be open, to explore, to
investigate. -Sharon Salzberg |
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