Deborah Raney Quotes

Seeds of faith are always within us; sometimes it takes a crisis to nourish and encourage their growth.

To me, growing into spiritual maturity is becoming less self-conscious and more God-conscious.

Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps us tap and develop these powers.

We are all on a journey of faith, and we have to polish that faith.

What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens.

You don't have to leave the world to be holy and grow closer to the Holy One.

A church is an incubator, a nursery, a grade school. You start where people are and move them to where they need to be.

My training in Science of Mind had begun with my mother. She took me to a different church every Sunday, and she encouraged me to question the minister afterward.

God does things on his time. He wanted me to sit down and wanted me to get some other aspects of my life back in order.

Things I've done in the past always make me cringe a bit. When I think back to being a Christian. Proselytising to people, that makes me cringe.

I'm not big on faith rules, but if I had to choose one, it would be that every person must choose a faith issue upon which to hang her hat that requires her to change - not somebody else.

Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.

God will bring people and events into our lives, and whatever we may think about them, they are designed for the evolution of His life in us.

Learn the lesson of your own pain--learn to seek God, not in any single event of past history, but in your own soul--in the constant verifications of experience, in the life of Christian love.

A Christian is never in a state of completion but always in a process of becoming.

Let us take a little time to meditate, to think of what we can do to improve our lives and to become better examples of what a Latter-day Saint should be.

God’s priority isn’t your destination but your development. God’s priority isn’t the dream but the dreamer.

The circumstances we ask God to CHANGE are often the circumstances God is using to CHANGE US.

I used to think the Lord's Prayer was a short prayer; but as I live longer, and see more of life, I begin to believe there is no such thing as getting through it. If a man, in praying that prayer, were to be stopped by every word until he had thoroughly prayed it, it would take him a lifetime.

I went to Catholic school for 12 years and went to church every Sunday. I may not do that anymore but I think it gave me a good basis. I've also explored things on my own different philosophies and spiritual teachings and I use what works for me.

I study the bible regularly, meet with older wiser mentors weekly, and keep a group of guys in my life who challenge me spiritually. That keeps me moving.

It is enough to be responsible for ensuring that our people have the opportunity to graze in the rich grass of God's nutritious word. Beyond that, we must trust the word to take it's effect. It will work faster in some people than in others. the spiritual body grows and metabolizes food at different rates much like the natural body does.

The first step on the journey of faith is to recognize that everything is moving onward to something else, inside us and outside... We see that a self-image we've been holding doesn't need to define us forever, the next step is not the last step, what life was is not what it is now, and certainly not what it might yet be.