My feelings of God's presence — or God's absence — are not the presence or the absence.

As the noted physiologist Harold G. Wolf puts it, "Hope, faith and a purpose in life, is medicinal. This is not merely a statement of belief but a conclusion proved by meticulously controlled scientific experiment.

Afraid salvation is a vaccination that will not take

In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we must first lose hope in everything that deceives. —Georges Bernanos (in Reason for Being by Jacques Ellul)

As Paul Tournier said, "Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.

It is not the same as optimism or wishful thinking, for these imply a denial of reality.

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a drive toward [loving the One] who rings our heart like a bell. —ABRAHAM HESCHEL

some of the most inspiring stories of faith come from those often considered "losers" by the rest of the world.

It takes great effort, and considerable faith, to keep the Big Picture in mind. In some ways it makes me feel utterly insignificant, in some ways eternally significant

prayer incorporates the unknown and unpredictable in the outworking of God's grace.

It was no accident, I believe, that Jesus spoke his triumphant words, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD, even as Roman soldiers were buckling on weapons for his arrest. He knew how to judge the present by the future.

As Solzhenitsyn elegantly expressed it in his classic One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, faith in God may not get you out of the camp, but it is enough to see you through each day.