The Bible tells us very clearly that to “know” God is not an affair of the mind only, but an act in which our whole being — heart, mind, and will — is vitally engaged; so that sheer intellectual speculation would enable us to form certain ideas about God but never to know Him. To be grasped, God’s will must be met with a readiness to obey.

…Suzanne de Diétrich (1891-1981), Discovering the Bible
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey —
whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

…Romans 6:16,17 (NIV),Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will… It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God’s mind — that is, His overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

…C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “The Efficacy of Prayer”

For your heart is your life, and your life can only be altered by that which is the real working of your heart. And if your prayer is only a form of words, made by the skill of other people, such a prayer can no more change you into a good man, than an actor upon the stage, who speaks kingly language, is thereby made to be a king: whereas one thought, or word, or look, towards God, proceeding from your own heart, can never be without its proper fruit, or fail of doing a real good to your soul. Again, another great and infallible benefit of this kind of prayer is this; it is the only way to be delivered from the deceitfulness of your own hearts. [Continued tomorrow]

… William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer [1749]

“If a man loves the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the Gods have called him.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

…William James

“The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.”

… Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Seeds of Contemplation [1949]

“The only definition of success is how you handle disappointments.”

Joseph Papf (sp?) quote may not be quite correct.

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him what your plans are.”

I heard Kim Basinger say this on Bravo, but she did not coin the expression.

“If you don’t take the credit, you don’t have to take the blame.”

…Anon

During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the “worldliness” of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man… It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one… This is what I mean by worldliness — taking life in one’s stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness… How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?

…Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison