quotations and passages on God

We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within
us. It's not just in some
of us, it's in everyone.

Nelson Mandela

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity,
but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance,
renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

Dag Hammarskjold

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark,
but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world.

Helen Keller

Emmet Fox

God is bigger than any problem.
God in you is greater than any difficulty you have to meet.
God cares for you more than it is possible for any human being to realize.
God can help you in proportion to the degree in which you worship him.
You worship God by really putting your trust in him instead of in outer conditions,
or in fear, or in depression, or in seeming dangers, and so forth.
You worship God by recognizing his presence everywhere,
in all people and conditions that you meet; and by praying regularly.
You pray well when you pray with joy.

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will lend thee,
All through the night;
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping,
Love alone his watch is keeping--
All through the night.

Old Welsh Air

God made sun and moon to distinguish the seasons,
and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of the earth
but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees
to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise
the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven
it is always autumn. His mercies are ever in their maturity.

John
Donne

Marianne Williamson

For many people, God is a frightening idea. Asking God for help doesn't seem
very comforting if we think of Him as something outside ourselves, or capricious,
or judgmental. But God is love and He dwells within us. We are created in His image,
or mind, which means that we are extensions of His love, or Sons and Daughters of God. . . .
Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that He created, we have
arrogantly thought that we could create ourselves, and then create God.
We have made up a God in our image. Because we are angry and judgmental,
we have projected those characteristics onto Him. But God remains who He is
and always will be: He is the energy, the thought of unconditional love.
He cannot think with anger or judgment. He is mercy and compassion and total acceptance.

If someone were to ask me whether I believed in God, or saw God,
or had a particular relationship with God, I would reply that
I don't separate God from my world in my thinking.
I feel that God is everywhere. That's why I never feel separated
from God or feel I must seek God, any more than a fish in the ocean
feels it must seek water. In a sense, God is the "ocean" in which we live.

Robert Fulghum

In our first, most immature relationship with God,
we perceive God as the big parent in the sky,
the omnipresent, omnipotent flock of angels that supports us.
Based on this relationship, we grow and come to know ourselves
and our abilities. We begin to use the support we have received
in our life to serve. And as we serve our children, as we serve society,
as we serve the world, as we serve our soul,
we gradually discover ourselves to be pure instruments in the service of God.

John Gray

God doesn't dwell on some distant cloud. God doesn't live in the church or in the temple or within the crystals, crosses and statues that we imbue with attributes of the divine. And God doesn't need our pleas or even our praise. To prostrate ourselves and plead for the things we want doesn't draw them nearer to us. Beseeching a faraway God only engenders feelings of separation and alienation. It is practicing the absence, not the presence, of God.
God is right here, wherever you are. God is within you and everywhere around you. God is omnipresent and omniscient. You never have to beg or bargain with God for anything. The Holy Spirit knows your needs even before you do. And it is God's very nature to fulfill your needs, at the time and in the manner that is best for you. There are many lessons we must learn in our lifetime, but none is more essential to our happiness than this one.
We never have to entreat God to be more kind and benevolent. God is kindness and benevolence. The very substance of God is love--the love that created you and me and all living things. It is the love within the little acorn that becomes the great oak tree, the love that protects the lilies of the field. God is the love that is breathing for you, the love that is beating your heart.

Susan L. Taylor

Norman Vincent Peale

One of the most powerful concepts, one which is a sure cure for lack of confidence, is the thought that God is with you and helping you. This is one of the simplest teachings in religion, namely, that Almighty God will be your companion, will stand by you, help you, and see you through. No other idea is so powerful in developing self-confidence as this simple belief when practiced. To practice it simply affirm "God is with me; God is helping me; God is guiding me." Spend several minutes each day visualizing his presence. Then practice believing that affirmation.

I believe that life is given us so we may grow in love,
and I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour
and fragrance of a flower--the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

Helen Keller

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The highest condition of the religious sentiment is when. . .
the worshiper not only sees God everywhere,
but sees nothing which is not full of God.

Harriet Martineau

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best way to know God
is to love many things.

Vincent van Gogh

God will of necessity always be a hidden God.
His loudest cry is silence. If he does not manifest himself to us,
we will say that he hides himself. And if he manifests himself,
we will accuse him of veiling himself.
Ah! it is not easy for God to make himself known to us!

Louis Evely

I once heard a man say he knew there was a God, he just didn’t think he needed Him.
It is nice to take care of yourself and be independent, but it is also nice
to know that you have a resource to rely on in times of need.
If you are used to fending entirely for yourself, then when a catastrophe occurs
you will expend a lot of energy looking for help at a time
when you need your energy looking for help at a time
when you need your energy for creative work.

Bernie Siegel

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that He has a sense of humor.

Dean Inge

The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not
express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face
of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child,
many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly
watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall.
That “eye,” placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there
to represent God, filled my heart with chilling fear. . . . Heaven overflows
with good will toward us! Our God not only wishes good, he wills it!

John Henry Jowett

A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God
is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively
unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a
hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. . . . The truth is that the will of God
for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and
brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others—life more abundant.

Emmet Fox

People substitute tradition for the living experience
of the love of God. They talk and think as though
walking with God was attained by walking in the
footsteps of people who walked with God.

Francis Howgill

There's an old saying that God made us in His image,
and we've been trying to return the favor ever since.
People often view God in a human image. This God
changes His mind, gets upset, answers some prayers
but not others, loves some people but not others.
But even with that limited image, if we pray sincerely,
we'll eventually realize that God is changeless. He's the
same all the time because He's not in time--time is in Him.

Michael Beckwith

God, you see, loves us in a way the world does not: unconditionally.
Without an agenda. With no fine print that says He loves us now,
but it’s only an introductory-rate offer that will change after six months,
based on prime interest rates. With no campaign promise that He’ll love us,
but only if we vote for Him or give to His campaign fund. With no
prenuptial agreement that says He’ll love us, but just in case,
let’s put together a contract.
Grace promises that eternal life awaits not those who live
a perfect life, say so many Hail Marys, never miss church,
or donate so much money. It awaits those who
believe with a childlike faith.

Bob Welch

A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God
of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you
are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who
never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.

Anne Lamott

It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends
upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper
must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped.
If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God,
the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish,
and unjust, also. If it is a loving, tender, forgiving,
unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender,
and forgiving, and unselfish, as well.

Hannah Whitall Smith

It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking bad-tasting medicine when we are sick, or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that the sunrise is also God’s will. There is the time of harvest, the harvest which will provide food and clothes for us, without which life could not be sustained on earth. God ordered the seasons—they are his will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones.

Charles L. Allen

God doesn't do the work for you; he does the work through you.
It's not enough to look up; you must also look within.

Patti LaBelle

The majority of us do not enthrone God, we
enthrone common sense. We make our decisions
and then ask the real God to bless our God's decision.

Oswald Chambers