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Quote by Bernie Siegel

“I once heard a man say he knew there was a God, he just didn't think he needed Him. It is nice to take care of yourself and be independent, but it is also nice to know that you have a resource to rely on in times of need. If you are used to fending entirely for yourself, then when a catastrophe occurs you will expend a lot of energy looking for help at a time when you need your energy looking for help at a time when you need your energy for creative work.”

Quote by Bernie Siegel

Author

Bernie Siegel
Bernie Siegel

Bernie Siegel is an American writer known for his works on life philosophy and health psychology. His books emphasize the importance of a positive attitude towards life and self-actualization. more

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“The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child, many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall. That "eye," placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there to represent God, filled my heart with chilling fear. . . . Heaven overflows with good will toward us! Our God not only wishes good, he wills it!”

“A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. . . . The truth is that the will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others-life more abundant.”

“There's an old saying that God made us in His image, and we've been trying to return the favor ever since. People often view God in a human image. This God changes His mind, gets upset, answers some prayers but not others, loves some people but not others. But even with that limited image, if we pray sincerely, we'll eventually realize that God is changeless. He's the same all the time because He's not in time-time is in Him.”

“It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking bad-tasting medicine when we are sick, or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that the sunrise is also God's will. There is the time of harvest, the harvest which will provide food and clothes for us, without which life could not be sustained on earth. God ordered the seasons-they are his will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones.”

“How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. . . . We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved. . . . God is no stop-gap; he must be recognized as the center of life, not when we are at the end of our resources.”