Quotes about Presence

But I'm afraid I'm bad at comforting; I can listen all right, but I can hardly ever find anything to say.

God is not a matter of mood. He is still present even when we are not in the mood to meet with him.

Those who have found God in the cross of Jesus Christ know how wonderfully God hides himself in this world and how he is closest precisely when we believe him to be most distant.

The more I begin to love the commandments of God in creation and word, the more present they will be for me in every hour.

I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves.

The first moments of the new day are not the time for our own plans and worries, not even for our zeal to accomplish our own work, but for God's liberating grace, God's sanctifying presence.

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.

Jesus is Lord of the ages and is always with his own, even when things are difficult, and will abide with us; that is our comfort. If tribulation and anxiety come upon us, Jesus is with us and leads us over into God's eternal kingdom.

The believer need not feel any shame when yearning for the physical presence of other Christians, as if one were still living too much in the flesh. A human being is created as a body; the Son of God appeared on earth in the body for our sake and was raised in the body.

At the same time, however, for antiquity the holiest sign of the presence of God, the cross, is the symbol of utter disgrace and remoteness from God. Antiquity becomes our historical heritage in this twofold relationship to Christ, in its nearness and its opposition to Christ.

God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.

Insight, knowledge, truth without love is nothing—it is not even truth, for truth is God, and God is love. So truth without love is a lie; it is nothing. "Speaking the truth in love," says Paul in another letter [Eph. 4:15]. Truth just for oneself, truth spoken in enmity and hate is not truth but a lie, for truth brings us into God's presence, and God is love. Truth is either the clarity of love, or it is nothing.