Quotes about Pilgrims

What makes the Bible God's Word isn't its uncanny historical accuracy, as some insist, but the sacred experiences these stories point to, beyond the words themselves. Watching these ancient pilgrims work through their faith, even wrestling with how they did that, models for us our own journeys of seeking to know God better and commune with him more deeply.

Miracles may occur now and then, but for the most part ordinary pilgrims do God's work by preaching, caring for widows and orphans, challenging society's wrongs, and marshaling the faithful to show the world a better way to live.

Our confused society badly needs a community of contrast, a counter-culture of ordinary pilgrims who insist on living a different way. We can make the world stop and think before pulling a trigger, or exacting revenge, or neglecting the vulnerable, or practising euthanasia on those it deems 'devoid of value'.

The trials that those men do meet with, Who are obedient to the heavenly call, Are many and various, and suited to the flesh, And come, and come, and come again afresh; That now or some time else we by them may Be taken, overcome, and cast away. O let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, Be vigilant and quit themselves like men.

Christians are simply pilgrims who acknowledge their lostness and their desire for help in finding the way.

America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers. When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth they prayed. When the Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they invoked our creator four times, because in America we don't worship government, we worship God.

Standing in the way of the path to life—the way of the heart—is a monstrous barrier. It has stopped far too many pilgrims dead in their tracks, for far too long. There is a widespread belief among Christians today that the heart is desperately wicked—even after a person comes to Christ. It is a crippling belief. And it is untrue.

Face the hard questions that life requires you to ask. Gather with other travelers on the narrow road, pilgrims who acknowledge their confusion and feel their fears. Then, together, live those questions in My Presence.

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty. All in our custody seethes with an inner restlessness. But in dreams we stand in this great democracy of the possible and there we are right pilgrims indeed. There we go forth to meet what we shall meet.

I'll shower blessings on the pilgrims who come here, and give supper to those who arrive hungry." The devout mind goes back to those years in the wilderness when God gave water from the rock, manna from the ground and quail from the skies, and fashions a hope for abundant, eternal providence.

For those who choose to live no longer as tourists but as pilgrims, the Songs of Ascents combine all the cheerfulness of a travel song with the practicality of a guidebook and map. Their unpretentious brevity is excellently described by William Faulkner. "They are not monuments, but footprints. A monument only says, 'At least I got this far,' while a footprint says, 'This is where I was when I moved again.'"

The Pilgrims . . . put their ideals ahead of all material considerations. It is not surprising that the Pilgrims had little and succeeded, while we have much and are in danger of failing. No civilization can make progress unless some great principle is generously mixed into the mortar of its foundations in life.