“The Father cares. He knows each of us by name. He is deeply involved in the little drama of our personal existence. ”Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.” (Luke 12:7) Within this climate of trust the Christian confidently searches to discern the Fathers’ will. It is the atmosphere in which all his decisions become clear and from which all his actions spring. The outcome is less vague, ambiguous, and uncertain than one might suppose. The sounds of inner peace, harmony, and consonance resonate in the heart attuned to the Father’s will, while agitation, conflict, dissonance, and contretemps resonate in the untuned heart singing its own song.” – Brennan Manning
“If we know how much He loves us, we could always be ready to face life – both its pleasures and its troubles. The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them – through faith or unbelief – that makes them so.” – Brother Lawrence
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard; … how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it means to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves.” –C.S. Lewis
“Each time I fall, I am propelled to renew my efforts by a blind trust in the forgiveness of my sins from sheer grace, in the acquittal, vindication, and justification of my ragged journey based not on any good deeds I have done (the approach taken by teh Pharisee in the temple) but on an unflagging trust in the love of a gracious and merciful God.” – Brennan Manning
“I say to the glory of God and in utter humility that whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anybody anything.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“What a crazy world this is that we live in – a world where brokenness is unfortunately a part of life. Death and suffering, war and violence, conflict and strife… from anger, hatred, and racism to hurricanes, tornados, and tsunamis. We can’t avoid it or deny it, no matter how hard we may try. But the beautiful thing is that brokenness does not have the last word… wholeness does. For no matter how broken the heart, or the life, or the circumstance; we have this amazing God who says, ‘With me nothing is wasted. Gather the pieces, I am in the midst of them.’ ” –Jim Branch
“The mother of expectation is patience. The French author Simone Weil writes in her notebooks: “Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” Without patience our expectation degenerates into wishful thinking. Patience comes from the word “patior” which means to suffer. The first thing that Jesus promises is suffering: “I tell you… you will be weeping and wailing.. and you will be sorrowful.” But he calls these pains birth pains. And so, what seems a hindrance becomes a way; what seems an obstacle becomes a door; what seems a misfit becomes a cornerstone. Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.” – Henri J. Nouwen
“Living in an awareness of our belovedness is the axis around which the Christian life revolves. Being loved is our identity, the core of our existence.” — Brennan Manning
“Too many of us panic in the dark. We don’t understand that it’s a holy dark and that the idea is to surrender to it and journey through to real light.” – Sue Mark Kidd
“Cultivate my heart, Lord, so I may catch every word that falls from Heaven – every syllable of encouragement, every sentence of rebuke, every paragraph of instruction, every page of warning. Help me to catch these words as the soft, fertile soil catches seeds.” – Ken Gire
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! So I’m happy, tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord!” – Dr. Martin Luther King
