Faith

Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?

The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. – F. B. Meyer

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

Aurelius Augustine (354-430) is known for the stirring Christian experience he described in his Confessions and for the seminal theological thought that has shaped theology to this day.

When I read “The Pitesti Phenomenon”, in my teens, I was bewildered by how cruel human nature can be. It was also then that I realized that being forced to renounce yourself, to bury your values and defining beliefs to become the reflection of a rotten system, to become inhuman is worse than being physically tortured.

When war kills not one but three of your children, what is there left besides hatred?

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:27

I believe that doubt is a part of faith, not its opposite. It took me quite a few years to say this without feeling guilty. I needed to have many experiences before I could accept that questions are legitimate and not a sign of spiritual decay.

Contrary to one's initial impression, vigilance is not the main theme of Jesus' parables of "absence and expectation." Absence is central to these stories, because it is absence which enriches them, rather than impoverishing them. Absence is not a shortage, a gap, or a sign of non-existence—it is a catalyst.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Some people regret the big choices they’ve made in life; others regret that life has not given them a choice.

There is a subtlety in the way God’s love changes our lives, especially on those days that seem ordinary. Amid the bustle of the modern world, it offers an inner peace that redefines the meaning of every gesture—from the way we work to the way we choose to stop.

Following a poll, the Gallup Organization revealed good news and bad news. The good news is that 94% of the population believes that it is very important to forgive. The bad news is that 85% admit that, in their own power, they are not ready to forgive.

The Bible is not the product of an event or a circumstance, but of time, study and especially of the journey that humanity took on its way to its development. But could it be that all the time that has passed has also eroded its relevance? How much confidence can we still have in the Bible, in the 21st century?

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Winston Churchill