Our little systems...

I’m in sunny California this week speaking to the very bright students at Hope International University. I really loved this group, and hope to return again someday. Several students approached me after my chapel talk to ask for copies of some of the quotes I used. I figured everyone could benefit from these inspiring words, so here they are: 

“Our little systems have their day:They have their day and cease to be;They are but broken lights of thee And thou, O Lord, art more than they.”- Tennyson

“If you think you understand, it isn’t God.” – Augustine

“We are often taught that it is unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs, but I believe that we must question them continually—not God, not Christ, who are the center of our lives as believers and creators—but what human beings say about God and about Christ; otherwise, like those of the church establishment of Galileo’s day, we truly become God’s frozen people...Galileo’s discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man’s rigid ideas of the nature of God. We must constantly be open to new revelation, which is another way of hearing God, with loving obedience.“Artists keep us from frozenness, from smugness, from thinking that the truth is in us, rather than in God, in Christ our Lord. They help us to know that we are often closer to God in our doubts than in our certainties, that it is all right to be like the small child who constantly asks, “Why? Why?”  - Madeleine L’Engle 

“Belief is always a risk, a gamble—an adventure if you will. The line between faith and doubt is the point of action. You don’t need certainty to obey, just a willingness to risk being wrong.” - David Henderson 

“If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that serious doubt—the kind that leads to despair—begins not when we start asking God questions but when, out of fear, we stop. In our darkest hours of confusion and in our most glorious moments of clarity, we remain but curious and dependent little children, tugging frantically at God’s outstretched hands and pleading with every question and every prayer and every tantrum we can muster, “We want to have a conversation with you!”  God must really love us, because he always answers with such long stories.” -Evolving in Monkey Town 

So what are some of your favorite quotes about faith and doubt?