faith 2

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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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

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

Faith is not belief without proof,
but trust without reservation.

Elton Trueblood

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

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

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

faith 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith is not, contrary to the usual ideas, something that turns out
to be right or wrong, like a gambler's bet; it's an act, an intention,
a project, something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go
so far, far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of time and right into
Eternity, which is not the end of time or a whole lot of time
or unending time, but timelessness, that old Eternal Now.

Joanna Russ

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

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

Faith and daily life, faith and work--these are not separate things.
They are one and the same.  To think of them as separate--that faith
is faith, and work is work-- is theoretical faith.  Based on the recognition
that work and faith are one and the same, we should put 100 percent
of our energy into our jobs and 100 percent into our faith, too.  When
we resolve to do this, we enter the path of victory in life.  Faith means
to show irrefutable proof of victory amid the realities of society
and in our own daily lives.

Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism Day by Day

faith 2

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

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

I believe not only that religious faith will be victorious, but that it is vital
to humankind that it shall be.  We may differ in form and particulars in our
religious faith.  Those are matters that are sacred to each of our inner sanctuaries.
It is our privilege to decline to argue them.  Their real demonstration is the lives that we live.

Herbert Hoover

Faith is a belief in the unknown.  Faith heals, faith creates, faith works
wonders, faith moves mountains.  Faith is the searchlight for God-finding.

Sivananda

I don't think there is anyone who needs God's help as much as I do.
Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak.  I think that is why God uses
me.  Because I cannot depend on my own strength,
I rely on Him twenty-four hours a day.

Mother Teresa

Faith is the great motive power, and no person realizes his or her
full possibilities unless one has the deep conviction that  life is
eternally important and that his or her work well done
is part of an unending plan.

Calvin Coolidge

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

I nurture a faithful heart.  When difficulties, sorrows, and trials beset
me, I consciously choose faith in the face of despair.  Like the mountain
climber who reaches the summit a step at a time, I hold an ideal in my
heart.  Despite the temptation to bitterness, despite the seduction of
rage, I choose a path of temperate endurance, grounding my daily life
in the small joys yet available to me.  Learning from the material world,
I harbor the seeds of hope against the long winter.  I count the small
stirrings of beauty and delight still present in a barren time.  My heart
is a seasoned traveler.  Moving through hostile and unfamiliar terrain
it remains alert to encounter unexpected beauty blossoming despite
the odds.  In the arms of adversity, I yet find the comfort of tenderness
to myself and others.  I refuse to harbor a hardened heart.
Decisively and deliberately, I expand rather than contract.

Julia Cameron
Transitions:  Prayers and
Declarations for a Changing Life

Faith is a belief in things that your senses have not experienced and your
mind does not understand, but you have touched them in other ways and
have accepted them.  It is easy for one to speak of faith;
it is another thing to live it.

Peace Pilgrim

Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service.
Without faith, nothing is possible.  With it, nothing is impossible.

Mary McLeod Bethune

No ray of sunshine is ever lost, but the green which it awakes into
existence needs time to sprout, and it is not always granted
to the sower to see the harvest.  All work that is worth
anything is done in faith.

Albert Schweitzer

Faith is not a commitment to as no questions.  Faith is
the capacity to understand that for some things there
are no answers, at least not here and now.

Joan Chittister
Seeing with Our Souls

Faith is the invisible safety net that helps 20 percent of women break out
of abusive situations and create more self-honoring relationships.  It is the
unflinching ally of those who overcome addictions and conquer self-
demeaning habits.  It is the torch of hope for those who leave bad marriages,
jobs, or living situations and trust that life will take them to a better place.
Such people recognize that behind the appearances of change, grace is
present. Your faith may not yet be perfect as you step ahead; doubts and
fears may still assail you.  But even a small step is enough
to begin the journey home.

Alan Cohen
The Tao Made Easy

Faith is an ever-widening pool of clarity, fed from springs beyond the
margin of consciousness.  We all know more than we know we know.

Thornton Wilder
The Eighth Day