I’ve been dealing with some pretty bad anxiety attacks the last few days so wasn’t able to post anything, but since today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it’s a tradition for me to share some of my favorite quotes of his. And if you ever get the chance to read his book “Strength to Love,” I highly recommend you do so.
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.”
“So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love?”
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says ‘Love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. … the chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
“I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. Like the rich man of old, we have foolishly minimized the internal of our lives and maximized the external. We have absorbed life in livelihood. We will not find peace in our generation until we learn anew that ‘a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,’ but in those inner treasuries of the spirit which ‘no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.’”
“As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.”
“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
“They gave our Master a crown of thorns – why do we hope for a crown of roses?”
“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Vikram said,
January 21, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Hello nicole, my name is vikram.. I am 24 doing my phd. Well me a indian and regular follower of your blog.. it gives me peace and joy whenever I go through your reading.. today I dunno why It happened me right now ..going with a question in my mind and heart that does lord jesus needs me? If its so then why its so?
If its true then why can’t feel that love of christ in my heart..why me feel very deserted and alone right now.. and if he have opened a door for me then why I am unable to enter inside or why I can’t see that door..
Well, sorry to ask you all those..but dunno why but something made me to ask you right now rather then any single soul in the world.. if you can help or guide me then I would be grateful towards you..
Hope to hear from my elder sister ..:)
I just wanna come up and up..need ur guidance and prayers.. as I am tired of hating my self more and more..
Yours Brother in Christ,
Vikram
Dave said,
January 22, 2013 at 3:47 pm
Vikram, God loves you. He desires you to be closer to him than any human relationship. He uses emptiness or rather he allows us to feel completely empty so that we would search for him mightily. We don’t realize sometimes how hard we must search for God in order to find him. Many obstacles are in our way.
I’m like you. I’ve met him but a few years after I did, he seemed to go away, but he has been drawing me to him.
Don’t take the emptiness like God has left you, but take it like he wants you to run after him with all your heart.
Vikram said,
January 23, 2013 at 11:02 am
Dave, i agree for what you said, and truly i know him deeply and i don’t want him to be hurt gain coz of me as he got all these since past from the beginning of thee world, we the children of God hurt him centuries and centuries and he always kept loving us more and more, even he gets delight when he gains back his lost cattles as a good shepard.
to be true to myself i wannaa convey and seeking help as after knowing him, his love and everything my mere ego is coming in between as off i dunno, why this feeling hais in me in mind as ‘ if he being my beloved father my creator, doesnt hear my prayers for the things i asked i am disappointed and fr being finding him rude i too become very rigid in asking or praying back to him as i am his son his blood so i become stubborn like him.’..
when, i ask for help from holy people, my parents or y friends, they say one thing hold on have patience, you dont know god’s way as he is better planner then me, and moreover they say if he closed the door then he will open other for you… well i know all these but i lack patience and became stubbrn, i dunno why that is so? but i only know if he says i am his child , christ came for us made his friends, childrens etc then why why he is not listening…??
why at one side he says he loves me and other side he discriminate his love by hiding things to me? not hearing me when i am very need? i know i am like king david or any of his favourite child.. but he says he is my father then why he has left me hopeless? why he made me stubborn as he is stubborn to answer me?
one side christ said ask and you shall receive just have faith, i did that with all my heart with my faith, but he kept quiet, he left me wanderless cloud, just broken just all alone, still i am not complaining him or abusing him as for i owe this life of mine ..as he just wonderful..and i have seen people since ages hurt him his love and still hurting in this or the other way.. and to be true being his child and his son i don’t have courage to hurt him or see tears in his eyes.. i just love him very badly.
but the problem that occured seeing him being quiet towards me just broken me deeply still i love him, and the worst part is my ego entered this way he is my father if he can’t hear me as he became stubborn so me too being his child became stubborn and i stopped asking him i stopped praying him, its really a tough pain to bear.. he was all for me and now we both are not talking by any means..just a ego.
i dare for my almighty father the creator coz i love him and i dun care about anything in the world but i am hurt today and i am alone..as even loving him badly my ego is standing not allowing me unless he hears and seek me for he is my father.
sorry, if i said a lot but this is the truth, may be being a sinner i am unable to see ways and i desperately want to see them as i am his child.
Vikram said,
January 23, 2013 at 11:06 am
please note : * left out one word ‘not’ so please don’t mind and now the sentence goes this way”
i know i am not like king david or any of his favourite child.. but he says he is my ….”
Nicole the ragamuffin said,
January 24, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Vikram, I apologize for taking a few days to respond to you. I’ve been struggling with anxiety this week and haven’t been very punctual. Thank you so much for coming to me with your questions and I feel honored that you have been affected by my little blog.
First off, I want to tell you that the fact you are asking these questions and seeking answers to these issues shows that your heart is in a place where it’s supposed to be — seeking God, desiring intimacy with him, truth, and so on.
The first question you posed that stuck out to me was if God needs you and if he does, why is that so. I’m not very good at articulating things when I want to, but I had a revelation years ago where I saw that the essence of God was pure Goodness, and the nature of Goodness is that it can’t be kept to itself, it has to share, it has to manifest. I think we were created to be sharers in divine Goodness… if any of this makes sense.
That relationship has been broken to some extent, but the truth still is that while God does’t need us, he does want us, because he really, really loves us for some crazy reason, and seeks our healing, and seeks us to be reconciled to him so his spirit can once again be in us and we can receive his love and can be his love to others in a way that only we can.
In regards to your other questions, all I can say is that I understand the pain and longing you’re experiencing. What you’re going through is an experience familiar to me, and probably to most people. The yearning you express is an essential, it seems, and painful road that those who truly seek, desire, and long to know what’s Really Real spend some amount of time travelling.
Questions without answers and incomplete understanding are things that torment us all. And I feel like I can’t answer them all satisfactorily.
What I do, and what I think would help you to do during times like this is to hold on to what you know is true.
In your questions I can gather that not only are you a follower of Christ, but that you really do love him. I don’t know what led you to him or inspired you to develop this love for him, but if you have, it must have been inspired partly with not only the knowledge of who he is, but also the experience of who he is — his character, his heart, his essence, so on.
You seem to love him very deeply, which leads me to assume that at some point you have experienced him in some way like I have. Before you believed, after, or both. At some point he has revealed to you who he is, given you a glimpse of his heart, a revelation of his character, something like that.
HOLD ON TO THAT.
And I’ll give you an example — have you ever had a long-time friend or family member act in a way or say something that you didn’t understand, or that came across as hurtful or out of character? I’ve experienced it at some point or other with pretty much everyone I know.
What prevented me from assuming they meant to hurt me by what they did or said? I simply recalled who I knew them to be, and experiential knowledge I had gained of their character and the love they had toward me. And once I held on to what I knew to be true of them, once I remembered who they were, I acknowledged that there must be some misunderstanding, miscommunication, or an inability to understand on my part.
God’s particular ways of operating have at times brought me to the same questions and turmoil as you. But I cannot deny what I have experienced. And the pieces of himself he has revealed to me give me the strength to trust and persevere, even if it is through clenched teeth.
Because we can search for answers upon answers to ever more precise questions, but at the end of the day, if the person they’re about is beautiful, the answers must be beautiful, though we can’t fully understand them through our disordered lenses and incomplete understanding.
So we need to go back to reminding ourselves WHO THIS PERSON IS (based on experiences I can’t deny) to get us through the periods where we can’t see beyond our own pain.
I will be praying for you, my friend, and asking that God will give us glimpses of himself to give us the strength to carry on, “though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).
I hope I could be of some help.
Dave said,
January 24, 2013 at 7:18 am
Vikram, you are God’s favorite child in a sense. It’s as if you are the only person that exists to God. He sees you and thinks of you every moment. You ask some sincere and desperate questions. Many people are feeling the way you do right now. I have felt this way for many years. All I know at the moment that things are very different with God than how they appear to us. I have no proof except that I have met him. I am along side you with this trouble.
Please give me a few days to answer. Your questions touch very deep subjects. In the meantime, don’t give up or give into what seems hopeless. God always shows himself true and loving. Hold on!
Vikram said,
January 26, 2013 at 3:09 pm
My dear nicole and dave,
I really appreciate your prayers and all what you said.. to be true still I am not satisfied on either way.. yes, dave you can have your time.
Before, I urge to speak I want to clear something,
When I was kid, I used to wonder what is love? And if there something called love why do people relate it as true or untrue love..? I got its answer from my dad ..he told me a beautiful story which was this way ..” long time ago mosses was going through a village, during his visit to the village he felt hungry.. so he thought to have some food ..so he knocked the door and a poor old lady with his husband opened the door.. she, said o the blessed one oh! God’s favourite I am blessed you visited my house..and was very glad too see him . Later Mosses asks her that he is hungry and needs food …she said to him yes, you can have them as we have enough of food .. and during the time when Mosses was having food, the old lady asks Mosses, tell me sir since you are too favourite of almighty god will I would have childrens ever?
Mosses reply in courtesy well surely I would reply but after asking the God. So, later part he asks God will that lady and her husband gonna bear childrens..? God replies no, they wont.. so on the back from the village he visits the house of lady and says God said you wont bear any childrens.. the she says, its sad but alright for all God’s wish.
Later on after some time, from the same village a holy priest was going on so he too dropped at the old lady’s house asks for food because he was hungry. She welcomed him and gave food to eat.. and she thought lets ask the same question about childrens to this priest as he too loves the God, and she asks the holy priest.. yup he replies yes you would bear 6 childrens..that very moment..and leaves.
And later she bears 6 childrens as the priest said..and after some years Mosses was again passing by the same village, suddenly he found kids playing at the same lady’s house.. he enters inside that very moment, seeing Mosses lady welcome him with his husband I mean family and gave food..and in mean while she says to Mosses, see you lied to me as you said I wont bear any kids but I have 6 childrens now.. and was happy.
Mosses, felt insulted so he directly goes to God in anger to ask all about why it happened and why God lied to him and other questions… and when God saw Mosses coming, God says to Mosses I will answer you all your questions but before that take this plate and knief and get me some fresh human flesh.. hearing that, Mosses leaves taking the plate and knief in search of fresh human flesh.. he wandered from one place to another he couldn’t find a single soul or human who can give his or her flesh for almighty God..suddendly on the way when he was searching he met the holy priest, and when the priest saw Mosses he greets him and asks why are you in tension?
Mosses replies nothing but says God need some human flesh and I can’t find any.. the priest smiles and says to Mosses don’t be worried.. you can take flesh from my body.. so he takes the knief and cuts a part of his right cheek then he says to mosses wait take some from my left cheek, hand, legs from complete body as you don’t know God is funny some time and he would say why didn’t you got from hands or legs or back etc.. so mosses get the flesh and reaches the Almighty God.
God, says I am happy with you and I guess you got your answers. Mosses replied I am sorry I couldn’t. ..then God’s says to him what I told to you was true the lady was not going to bear childrens..but suddenly after you went the priest came and said to her she would bear childrens and I couldn’t deny the priest..
As the priest too loved me as you, and if you want a justification about love see when I said I want human flesh and I gave you plate and knief but you too being human could have done that and would had given me flesh.. but that priest when you said I need human flesh..and the priest withouth thinking gave his flesh.. and when a person who loves me so much and he says anything to anyone I have to do it. Mosses was ashamed..
Well I shared this story, coz wanted to clear out something about love and sacrifice etc.. coz unless I share I can’t explain what I need..!
Do give a sweet thought deeply about this story for how and where our life is going on this timeless and busy world..
And, in some while from now I will disclose out my questions and all problems.. sorry wanted to do it right now but since I shared a story and I don’t want the theme of the story to lost all around in my questions or problems..
And, yes Nicole and Dave I need your prayers and guidance ..
apart dear Nicole, do always try when the hour of darkness ends its almost 4am in the morning that very moment you do wake up and just pray as it was taught and trust me all your problems regarding anxiety, migrane will go off for ever from your life..and remember never doubt during that moment ever when you pray.
Pls. Note will explain and share sometime all about hour of darkness and why its so..
Lastly, seeking prayers and blessings from you all with my all prayers..
Stay Blessed and Bless Others!
Nicole the ragamuffin said,
January 28, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Vikram, I think it might be easier if we communicated through email, because this could be long… so I hope it’s okay that I send you one.
– Nicole