The most terrifying specter that haunts the modern psyche is not death or disease or nuclear annihilation. It is loneliness.
Terryl L. GivensTag: life
A supreme deity would no more gift us with intellect and expect us to forsake it in moments of bafflement, than He would fashion us eyes to see and bid us shut them to the stars
Terryl L. GivensTag: god spirituality
...our minds are driven to answer questions that far transcend the bounds of our own lives.
Terryl L. GivensTag: mind spirituality
In the Garden story, good and evil are found on the same tree, not in separate orchards. Good and evil give meaning and definition to each other. If God, like us, is susceptible to immense pain, He is, like us, the greater in His capacity for happiness. The presence of such pain serves the larger purpose of God's master plan, which is to maximize the capacity for joy, or in other words, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." He can no more foster those ends in the absence of suffering and evil than one could find the traction to run or the breath to sing in the vacuum of space. God does not instigate pain or suffering, but He can weave it into His purposes. "God's power rests not on totalizing omnipotence, but on His ability to alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss into wisdom, understanding, and joy.
Terryl L. GivensTag: evil god good spirituality
What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.
Terryl L. GivensTag: choice faith spirituality
The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see if we "get it right." It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts...The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.
Terryl L. GivensTag: god faith revelation
...God is not exempt from emotional pain...One the contrary, God's pain is as infinite as His love.
Terryl L. GivensTag: god spirituality
Those mortals who operate in the grey area between conviction and incredulity are in a position to choose most meaningfully, and with most meaningful consequences […] Perhaps only a doubter can appreciate the miracle of life without end.
Terryl L. GivensTag: doubt conviction seeking grey-areas
We humans have a lamentable tendency to spend more time theorizing the reasons behind human suffering, than working to alleviate human suffering.
Terryl L. GivensHis desires are set upon the whole human family, not upon a select few. He is not predisposed to just the fast learners, the naturally inclined, or the morally gifted.
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