Delight becomes pictorial when viewed through pain—more fair, because impossible that any gain. The mountain at a given distance in amber lies; approached, the amber flits a little—and that is the skies! Men always ought to pray and not lose heart. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. People describe intercession as allowing oneself to see or experience something from someone else’s place, and see how it feels. That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective. Let your heart not be troubled. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit. Any problem that comes while I obey God increases my delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7

The World is full of unbelievers and many of these nonbelievers feel a strong urge to worship something or somebody and therefore invent all kinds of surrogate deities. Man’s gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. Those who do not believe in Him, believe nevertheless in some little pocket god or even devil of their own. Religious agnosticism is not a psychological fact, but a self-deception, it is an essential law [ein Wesensgesetz] that every fine spirit believe either in God or an idol. These idols may vary greatly. So-called unbelievers may treat the state or a woman or art of knowledge or any number of things as if they were God. Hunger for God, in its orthodox no less than in its newer substitute expression, is invariably the result of certain deprivations and traumatic experiences. People who suffer from insufficient contact with other human beings and who do not find the natural World satisfying will tend to experience longings for something supernatural or feel a need to endow human beings with supernatural attributes.  #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7

All the faculties and feelings of our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the faculties and feelings of our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the faculties suppose the existence of those objects. Thus, the eyes in their very structure, supposes that there is light to be seen, and the ear would be unaccountable and inconceivable without the existence of sound, the heart would not feel if it could not project and sense love. In like manner our religious feelings and aspirations necessitate the existence of God. You must learn to grapple against the things that hinder your communication with God, and grapple in prayer for others people. Tussling before God makes an impact in His Kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. However, if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God…praying always does.  The yearning for some kind of God does point toward an in-built hunger in each of us—a hunger for something greater than we are. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7

However, every other hunger has its normal gratification. This is true of physical hunger, of love and the sex, and of our craving for beauty. If, similarly, out religious hunger did not have its proper gratification, it would be difficult to see how it got built into natures in the first place. What is it doing there? We have eyes and that there is light and that the eyes are useful because there is light, so that, other things being equal, organisms with eyes are likely to win out in the struggles for survival in the struggle for survival against organism without eyes. Well, an architect of the human soul and body, who supplied organisms with their native equipment in order to fit them to their environment. Whatever desires are implanted in our minds by nature, we may reasonably conclude, will in due time be gratified under the government of a Being infinite both in power and goodness. Immortality after the existence of a beneficent deity has been independently established. Belief in God is instinctive. Men no more need to be taught that there is a God, then they need to be taught that there is a thing as sin. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7

Adam believed in God the moment he was created, for this same reason that he believed in the external World. His religious nature, unclouded and undefiled, apprehended the one with the same confidence that his senses apprehended the other. The human mind was made by a God who would not deceive his creatures. And absence of the belief in God does not prove absence of a yearning for God; and in fact there are undoubtedly unbelievers who wish they could believe. All human beings, past and present, can be counted as believers in God. However, here it is not maintained that there are innate tendencies in human beings to believe in God. If anything, the opposite is true: men crave liberty of action and resent any being with superior authority. If, nevertheless, nearly all human beings are perfectly certain of the existence of their absolute Master, this can be so because the voice of reason is so clear and empathic: All races, civilized and uncivilized alike, are at one in holding that the facts of nature and the voice of conscience compel us to affirm this [the existence of God] as certain truth. If the whole of mankind were mistaken in a conclusion of this kind, it would follow that something is amiss with man’s intellect, that it is idle for man to search for truth. In this event, pure skepticism would be the only alternative. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7

However, all of us, unless we wish to be perverse, realize that man’s intellect is fundamentally trustworthy—that, though frequently misled in this or that particular case through accidental causes, yet the instrument itself is sound. Since reason is fundamentally trustworthy, universal skepticism is not a serious alternative to the acceptance of mankind’s conclusion that God exists. In fact, visitors who tour the necropolis beneath Saint Peter’s tomb in the Vatican were impressed by the excavation of his bones. That is impressive because Saint Peter is one of the friends of Jesus, and that proves that God does exist, and many accounts in the Bible are true. Pope Benedict XVI also reported that Saint Paul’s tomb has been found and carbon-14 dating of the bone fragments gave the Vatican what it was looking for: The bones belonged to someone who lived between the first and second centuries.  That was sufficient for the archaeologist to states that their findings did not contradict the tradition that this was, indeed, Saint Paul’s tomb. Even for the independent thinkers, there is such a thing as a consensus of best opinion which cannot be defied without the weightiest of reasons. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7

There is in fact no race without religion. Focal things are concrete, tangible, and deep, admitting of no functional equivalents; they have a tradition, structure, and rhythm of their own. They are unprocurable and finally beyond our own control. They engage us in the fullness of our capacities. And they thrive in a technological setting. A focal practice, generally, is the resolute and regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors discipline and skill which are exercised in a unity of achievement and enjoyment, of mind, body, and the World, of myself and others, and in a social union. Simple artifacts and traditional practices sustained a spiritualized family life within a coherent social context. Examples of focal practices including running fly-fishing, or cooking and eating a family meal: each requires intimate, embodied knowledge and technique. Thus, deep engagement through focal things and practices stands against the postmodern device, like the television, that has become the new God of the masses and has step by step stripped the household of substance and dignity. Nonetheless, a person may be said to believe in God if he believes in a Supreme being, personal and intelligent, to whom man owes honor and reverence, regardless of what else he also believes or fails to believe. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7