Quotes about Perceptions

Have I placed more value on my status or title than on my character? What perceptions do I have about myself, other people, and the world? Are they aligned with my purpose? Do they reflect the values I claim to have? What is my true nature, apart from my reputation? What values will I refuse to deny because, to do so, I would violate my ideals and ethics?

God doesn't change, but God—being God—is never fully captured by our perceptions. As people continue to live and breathe and experience life, how they see God changes too.

This might sound odd, but I believe that one of the biggest reasons there are so many negative perceptions of Christianity and the church is that Christians hang out with each other too much.

Words are important. Words shaper our perceptions. When they define, they can also distort. There is a far better way to describe this man whose face is the most human face of all. Jesus is beautiful.

Story is how we figure things out, bring order and meaning to the events around us. The story we hold at any given time shapes our perceptions, hopes, and expectations; it gives us a place to stand.

I've decided I can't really control people's perceptions of me. All I can do is decide on what I work on and how hard I work on it.

The roots of discrimination, conflict, and war are not to be found outside us. They are within our own way of thinking and looking at the world. The real enemy is our ignorance, our attachment to views, and our wrong perceptions.

My dear friend, I may be the victim of wrong perceptions, and what I write here may not reflect the truth. However, this is my experience of the situation. This is what I really feel in my heart. If there is anything wrong in what I write, let us sit down and look into it together

few years ago, the Barna Group, a prominent research company, went to every state in the US and asked young non-Christians what their perceptions of Christians were. What they found was heartbreaking. The top three answers were: (1) anti-gay, (2) judgmental, (3) hypocritical. And they did not say the number one thing Jesus said we should be known for: loving.

But liturgy is meant to be an interruption. It disrupts our reality and refocuses it on God. It reshapes our perceptions and lives with new rhythms, new holy days, a whole new story.

The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.

It shows, first of all, how powerfully conditioning affects our perceptions, and our paradigms. If ten seconds can have that kind of impact on the way we see things, what about the conditioning of a lifetime?