Men are wrong to think that the blind cannot see. The truth is that they see, but differently. I would even say that they see something other.

One of his [Rebbe Mikhal of Zlotchev] prayers: I have but one request; may I never use my reason against truth.

most of us turn to religion for our ethics because we don't know where else to find them.

God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It is the same spirit that taunted, If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross. There is unbelief, there is even rebellion, in the attitude that says, God has no right to do this to five men unless...

God will never disappoint us… If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. …To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true.

We are not asked to SEE, said Amy. Why need we when we KNOW? We know--not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering?

Faith is not merely "feeling good about God" but a conscious choice, even in the utter absence of feelings or external encouragements to obey His word when He says, "Trust Me." This choice has nothing to do with mood but is a deliberate act of laying hold of the character of God whom circumstances never change.

The preoccupations of seventeen-year-old girls--their looks, their clothes, their social life--do not change very much from generation to generation. But in every generation there seem to be a few who make other choices. Amy was one of the few.

She stood, as it were, with her face to God and her back to the people, waiting to receive His word for the 'chose people.' She had a vision of holy living. She would not deviate from that no matter how well-established, rational, and practical the ways of older missions seemed to be.

You either believe God knows what He's doing or you believe He doesn't. You either believe He's worth trusting or you say He's not. And then, where are you? You're at the mercy of chaos not cosmos. Chaos is the Greek word for disorder. Cosmos is the word for order. We either live in an ordered universe or we are trying to create our own reality.

Is it more important to understand than to obey? Is it more important to me to know than to believe?

When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die.