And when you learn, over the course of your life, that it's not about pleasing God, it's about learning how to trust God. That's a huge watershed, because trust is a whole different ballgame than appeasement or pleasing.
You are the root, and only God knows that the flower will be.
I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.
I'm trying to get far away from [picturing God as] Gandalf or Santa Claus.
Emotions talked to you before you had words, so listen to them ... they are often more honest than the mind's remarkable ability to self deceive.
Living unloved is like clipping a bird's wings and removing its ability to fly.
I wrote a story for my kids. It's fiction. It's not systematic theology. It's not a new book of the Bible. It's flawed, I wrote it. All of that goes into the mix, but I love the controversy. It elevates the conversation.
I was raised in a tribal situation, among cannibal people.
I'm not an actual author but an accidental one.
Jesus was always challenging the dogma of religion. So, you know, it's not like I'm out there by myself.
If a rainbow makes a sound, or a flower as it grows, that was the sound of her laughter.
Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.
mistakes are a part of life, and Papa works her purpose in them too.
I'm an accidental writer.
Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.
I want to tell you about the God that actually showed up and healed my heart. Not the God I grew up, because the God I grew up was fundamentally, and I use the word advisedly, fundamentally untrustworthy -- schizophrenic, narcissistic, unreachable, unknowable, and my concept within which I grew up was that Jesus -- He likes me -- but He came to save me from God the Father -- who was the one who was angry and distant, and unreachable, unknowable. All of that had to come crashing down.
So no, I’m not too big on religion...and not very fond of politics or economics either...And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three?
Nothing in life is ritual.
You are a beautiful mess, you are the melody.
He was sick of God and God's religion, sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn't seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes.
This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come.
I think people are tired of religion and how it divides and damages people. You can name it whatever you want, Islam or Christianity, but if you have a system in which God is distant and angry all the time, and you're trying to please him through the right disciplines, it isn't going to work for everyone.
I grew up fundamentalist, evangelical, Protestant. Those are my roots, and they are good roots. But it means the Pharisees are my people. I grew up with an image of God that was not helpful -- largely the face of my father expanded.
Look at us human beings: it's so much easier to be right than to love.
Anger is the right response to something that is so wrong. But don't let the anger and pain and loss you feel prevent you from forgiving him and removing your hands from around his neck.
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