Sacrifice, discipline and prayer are essential. We gain strength through God's word. We receive grace from the sacrament. And when we fumble due to sin - and it's gonna happen - confession puts us back on the field.
If we say we trust in Him, but in reality do not, then God, taking us at our word, lets us see that we do not really confide in Him; and hence failure arises.
Where there's a storm, from one moment to the next, God can bring calm. That's why I have faith. I confide in him and give myself to his hands.
I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, that our only hope is in God.
When 'Top Gun' came out, my sisters were like, 'Oh, my God, 'Top Gun!' Tom Cruise!' And I very confidently said, 'I'm going to marry him one day.' It wasn't like, 'How do I get to Tom Cruise?' It was just, 'I think I'm going to marry him. Why not? He'll like me. I'm fun.'
God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.
Jail didn't make me find God, He's always been there. They can lock me up, but my spirit and my love can never be confined to prison walls.
I am grateful that early in my life I was blessed with a simple faith that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that he saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, in a vision. He translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. That testimony has been confirmed to me over and over again.
I wanted to be baptized as an adult, confirming my faith and my beliefs. It was also a way for me to consciously thank God and Jesus for everything in my life.
When holiness is achieved by conforming to God's will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.
This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.
A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.
When it comes to power, God Himself is the power. God often uses foolish things to confound the wise. That is why people like me will ever be grateful to God. In terms of knowledge, education and name, I am nowhere - a neglected stone.
Hope lies in having more faith in the power of God to heal us than in the power of anything to hurt or destroy us. In realizing that as children of God we are bigger than our problems, we have the power at last to confront them.
Why don't the names of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius offend people? The reason is that these others didn't claim to be God, but Jesus did.
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can't budge you from believing God, he won't know what to do with you anymore.
These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn' fool if they weren't.
I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.
But I think it's up to a local congregation to determine whether or not a marriage should be blessed of God. And it shouldn't be up to the government.
