A Quote by Susan Beth Pfeffer

What's the point of God making us human if He doesn't want us to act like we're human?' 'To see if we can rise above our natures,'Megan said. — © Susan Beth Pfeffer
What's the point of God making us human if He doesn't want us to act like we're human?' 'To see if we can rise above our natures,'Megan said.
Until we begin to discover the national values that for centuries have allowed us to rise above our natures and act as civilized men and women, our country will continue to suffer the steady deterioration in standards that disturbs us all.
I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (I know, I know: he was quoting the Psalms, and who quotes a poem when being tortured? The words aren’t the point. The point is he felt human destitution to its absolute degree; the point is that God is with us, not beyond us, in suffering.)
Prayer is a gift from Almighty God that transforms us, whether we bow our heads in solitude, or offer swift and silent prayers in times of trial. Prayer humbles us by reminding us of our place in creation. Prayer strengthens us by reminding us that God loves and cares for each and every soul in His creation. And prayer blesses us by reminding us that there is a divine plan that stands above all human plans.
Christ, in short, asks us to give everything, all our false redemption in the lifeboat, all our false ideas about who God is, all our trust in something other than God to redeem us. In so doing, we die to our broken natures in exchange for His perfect nature, and find unification with Him that will allow God to see us as one.
One more thing," Megan said, stopping Doug in his tracks. His shoulders slumped and he turned around. "What? You want my kidney?" "I want in on the next ultimate Frisbee game," Megan said. Doug grinned. "You're playing skins." Megan grinned back. "We'll see about that.
The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus , his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.
And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens.
Human life is an extension of the principles of nature, and human civilization is a venture extrapolated out of human natures: man and his natural potential are the root of the entire human domain. The great task of all philosophizing is to become competent to interpret and steer the potential developmental forces in human natures and in the human condition, both of which are prodigiously fatalistic.
...as there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God. Justice we see and know, Love, Freedom, Power. These natures no man ever got above, but they tower over us, and most in the moment when our interests tempt us to wound them.
When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise.
I believe that God wants to put His hand upon us so that we may reach ideal definitions of humility, of human helplessness, of human insufficiency, until we will rest no more upon human plans, but have God's thoughts, God's voice, and the Holy Spirit to speak to us.
Put simply, behavioural economics argues that human beings' decision-taking is guided by the evolutionary baggage which we bring with us to the present day. Evolution has made us rational to a point, but not perfectly so. It has given us emotions, for example, which programme us to override our rational brain and act more instinctively.
Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence
The most courageous, and pious act of a human is to be with another human, because we are like stars in the sky, born at one time and space, to be ourselves. Everybody is our neighbor. All we have to do is say, "I am with you." When you start being one with everybody, then you are actually with God, because if you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at all.
We must embrace our differences, even celebrate our diversity. We must glory in the fact that God created each of us as unique human beings. God created us different, but God did not create us for separation. God created us different that we might recognize our need for one another. We must reverence our uniqueness, reverence everything that makes us what we are: our language, our culture, our religious tradition.
I believe the message in the hymn "Rise Up, O Men of God" (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holiness; to reach and stretch and grasp for that spiritual direction and sacred empowerment promised to the Lord's agents, to those charged to act in the name of our Principal, Jesus Christ; and to point the way to salvation and deliverance and peace in a world that finds itself enshrouded in darkness, a world that yearns for spiritual leadership.
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