It is remarkable to think that God has given us a partnership with him in directing the course of human events. It is extraordinary to realize that our prayer can change events and circumstances in the world around us. But what is just as remarkable is that when we pray, we change. More often than not we become the answer to our own prayers as we open up ourselves to God in prayer.
—John Guest in Only a Prayer Away
How To Become A Dunce
A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows of it.
—George MacDonald in The Princess and Curdie
Ordinary Miracles
God’s wonderful works which happen daily are lightly esteemed, not because they are of no import but because they happen so constantly and without interruption. Man is used to the miracle that God rules the world and upholds all creation, and because things daily run their appointed course, it seems insignificant, and no man thinks it worth his while to meditate upon it and to regard it as God’s wonderful work, and yet it is a greater wonder than that Christ fed five thousand men with five loaves and made wine from water.
—Martin Luther in Day by Day We Magnify Thee
Of Miracles And Pumpkins
The philosophical case against miracles is somewhat easily dealt with. There is no philosophical case against miracles. There are such things as the laws of Nature rationally speaking. What everybody knows is this only. That there is repetition in nature.
What everybody knows is that pumpkins produce pumpkins. What nobody knows is why they should not produce elephants and giraffes.…
The question of miracles is merely this.
Do you know why a pumpkin goes on being a pumpkin? If you do not, you cannot possibly tell whether a pumpkin could turn into a coach or couldn’t. That is all.
—G. K. Chesterton in the essay “Miracles and Modern Civilisation”
Wrong Image
When men stop worshipping God, they promptly start worshipping man, with disastrous results.
—George Orwell in the Observer (1945)
Masterpieces Don’T Lie
Serious critics sometimes argue that the standards in art are always relative, but all artistic masterpieces give them the lie.
—John Gardner in The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
Not So Simple
A missionary friend of mine once said, “Things were simple before I went to Africa. I knew what the African’s problem was, and I knew the answer. When I got there and began to know him as a person, things were no longer simple.”
I would rather have speeches that are true than those which contain merely nice distinctions. Just as I would rather have friends who are wise than merely those who are handsome.
—Augustine, quoted by Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor
No Infinity In This Life
At 65 one is not merely 20 years older than one was at 45. One has exchanged an infinite future—and one had a tendency to look upon it as infinite—for a finite future.
—Simone de Beauvoir in The Coming of Age
Unstable Decisions
When the fear of God is gone, the decisions of daily life are threatened.
—Roberta Hestenes, speaking at the 1989 Evangelical Press Association convention
Practical Atheism
Most professing Christians, from the liberals to the fundamentalists, remain practical atheists. They think the church is sustained by the services it provides or the amount of fellowship and good feeling in the congregation. This form of sentimentality has become the most detrimental corruption of the church and the ministry.
—Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon in the Christian Century (Mar. 15, 1989)
No Lion Tamers
You defend God like you defend a lion—you get out of his way.
—Bill McNabb in the Wittenburg Door (June/July 1988)
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
The plan would organize UMC churches in four global regions, with each given more leeway around same-sex marriage and other theological issues.
