Alan

“Life is a series of beautiful moments interspersed by great trials. The trick to being happy is to learn to have beautiful moments during the trials. Faith isn’t a belief that God will spare you from problems; it is a belief that he’s still God and will carry you through those problems.”
― W. Lee Warren, I've Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know

“Christians are to live their lives on earth dour and sullen; they enjoy the goods of this world as anyone is entitled. Yet they do so with a constant gratitude expressed through virtuous moderation and with an eye toward the giver of all good gifts. Christians are unified in love of their enemies and are therefore able to endure hatred in return because they know to whom they truly and eternally belong.”
― David Meconi, Christ Unfurled: The First 500 Years of Jesus's Life

“fasting is firstly about reversing the effects of the Fall by training the desires of the body to obey the will of the soul. If a person can learn to control cravings for good things, like food, he or she will more likely be able to control cravings for evil things, like sin.”
― Brant Pitre, Introduction to the Spiritual Life: Walking the Path of Prayer with Jesus

“Some persons whom I had interviewed had instantaneous “spontaneous recoveries during prayer, including one case in which other cases of such spontaneous recoveries were not known, but their doctors classified the recoveries as anomalies and refused to admit that a miracle had occurred. One doctor also told me of a dramatic, medically inexplicable healing that occurred after prayer, in which case he was an eyewitness, but the surgeon was content to label it a “spontaneous healing.”[151] This approach to classifying data to fit existing naturalistic paradigms inevitably obscures all potential evidence in conflict with the paradigm.”
― Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts