Miles to Go

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Richard Paul Evans continues his wonderful Walk series in book 2.  This book is so enjoyable. Once you start reading it you do not want to put it down. The stories seem so real to life. The characters make you want to love them. I have included several quotes and I understand the quotes from this book will not do them justice until you read them in the book and see them in context. But, the quotes are to good to be left out of my blog. So here they are:

We plan our lives in long, unbroken stretches that intersect our dreams the way highways connect the city dots on a road map. But in the end we learn that life is lived in the side roads, alleys, and detours.

We do not take a trip; a trip takes us.  ~Steinbeck

Life is what happens to us while we’re planning something else.

Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam. Translated means “Emotion, which is suffering, stops … no … ceases to be suffering when a clear and distinct idea is formed.

Psychologists tested the story of the Good Samaritan. What they learned gives us reason to pause. The greatest determinant of who stopped to help the stranger in need was not compassion, morality, or religious creed. It was those who had the time. Makes me wonder if I have time to do good.

There are people who come into our lives as welcome a a cool breeze in summer – and last about as long.

People aren’t wired to be alone. Even in the stressful population of prison, solitary confinement is still considered a cruel punishment.

We humans are born egocentric. The sky thunders and children believe that God is mad at them for something they’ve done – parents divorce and children believe it’s their fault for not being good enough. Growing up means putting aside our egocentricity for truth. Still, some people cling to this childish mind-set. As painful as their self-flagellation may be, they’d rather believe their crises are their fault so they can believe they have control. In doing so they make fools and false gods of themselves.

The first step of a journey is always the longest.

There can be no joy without gratitude.

Developing a friendship is like feeding squirrels at the park. At first it’s all grab and go. But with gentle motion, time and consistency, soon they’re eating from your hand.

There are two kinds of people. Those who climb mountains and those who sit in the shadow of the mountains and critique the climbers.

When a man loses his vision of the future he dies.

Old friends are memories personified.

Forgiveness is the key to the heart’s shackles.

I don’t think it is as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone.

There are two kinds of suffering in this life. That which pursues us and that which we doggedly pursue.

It’s almost as difficult to believe that someone with so many trials could harbor such hope, as that there are those with so much advantage who harbor such hopelessness.

There’s no problem so big that whining won’t make it worse.

Everyone has problems. It’s how you choose to deal with them. Some people choose to be whiners some choose to be winners. Some choose to be victims some choose to be victors.

There are times when the great Cosmic Architect gives us brief glimpses of the blueprint so we can do our part.

Some men see mountains as obstacles. Others as a canvas.

We are all in motion. Always. Those who are not climbing toward something are descending toward nothing.

Without great mountains we cannot reach great heights.

If you will read this book you will be encouraged in your daily life!

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The Walk

The Walk by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book in “The Walk” series. I actually read the third one first and thought it was a true story of someone walking across the country.  This book explains why Alan decides to walk from Washington State to Key West, FL. His one true love his wife has an untimely death, his partner steals his clients and Alan loses everything. This is why he starts his walk. This is the best book series I have ever read. I have now read the first three books in the series. If you enjoy a short read you will enjoy this book. I highly encourage everyone to read this book! The second book in the series, “Miles To Go,” I will include lots of quotes.

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The Common Sense of an Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom, and Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan

The Common Sense of an Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom, and Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan by Ronald Reagan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ronald Reagan is my favorite President of all time. His adopted son, Michael, put this book together. It is mostly quotes (just a little commentary from Michael) from the President. The quotes are divided by categories. There are 62 categories. Most of the quotes have the places and dates of where and when Reagan said them. If you know President Reagan you know he was a fantastic communicator. His quotes are well-known and inspiring. His quotes also are just as true today as they were the day he said them. I have listed just a few of the quotes below:

Someone told my old boss Jack Warner that I'd announced for governor. And Jack thought about it for just a second, and then he said, "No, Jimmy Stewart for governor, Ronald Reagan for best friend.

If I'm ever in need of any transplants, I've got parts they don't make anymore.

I believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way, a country created by men and women who came here not in search of gold but in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law, with faith in their Maker and their future.

When White House aid Lyn Nofziger told Reagan [after Reagan had been shot in the assassination attempt], "You'll be happy to know that the government is running normally while you're in the hospital." Reagan instantly quipped: What makes you think I'd be happy about that?

Bureaucrats favor cutting red tape - lengthwise.

You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.

I'm just a citizen temporarily in public service.

The Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith - the second oldest in the world - first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: "Ye shall be as gods."

I have one question for those rulers: If communism is the wave of the future, why do you still need walls to keep people in and armies of secret police to keep them quiet?

Conservatives were brought up to hate deficits and justifiably so. We've long thought there are two things in Washington that are unbalanced - the budget and the liberals.

I don't think that making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain guns will lower the crime rate - not when criminals will always find a way to get them.

We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

The great rediscovery of the 1980s has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.

My whole family were Democrats. As a matter of fact, I had an uncle who won a medal once for never having missed voting in an election for fifteen years ... and he'd been dead for fourteen.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.

A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.

Yours is a sacred mission. In the words of Henry Adams, "A teacher affects eternity." Each of you, as tiring and routine as your daily duties may sometimes seem, is a keeper of the American dream, the American future. By informing and exercising young minds, by transmitting learning and values, you are the vital link between all that is most precious in our national heritage and our children and grandchildren, who will some day take up the burdens of guiding the greatest, freest society on Earth.

What America needs is spiritual renewal and reconciliation - first, man with God, and then man with man.

Whatever happens now, I owe my life to God and will try to serve Him in every way I can. Diary entry after being released from the hospital following the 1981 assassination attempt

Freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted.
When the liberals say "family" they mean "Big Brother in Washington." When we say "family" we mean "honor thy father and mother."

The right of parents and the rights of family take precedence over those of Washington-based bureaucrats and social engineers.

Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics" As government expands, liberty contracts.

For two hundred years we've lived in the future, believing that tomorrow would be better than today and today would be better than yesterday. I still believe that.

Let us be frank. Evil still stalks the planet. Its ideology may be nothing more than bloodlust; no program more complex than economic plunder or military aggrandizement. But it is evil all the same. And wherever there are forces that would destroy the human spirit and diminish human potential, they must be recognized, and they must be countered.

Government is like a baby - an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.

Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

If you want to make sure crime doesn't pay, let the government run it.

Once upon a time, the only contact you had with government was when you went to buy a stamp.

My young friends, history is a river that may take us as it will. But we have the power to navigate, to choose direction, and make our passage together.

There's nothing as good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.

[Once, as governor of California, someone suggested to Reagan that he might build rapport with the young people if he rode a motorcycle. His reply:]I'll have to stick to horseback. You see, there is the matter of security. When I go anyplace, I'm one of a group. We might look like Hell's Angels with all of us there on motorcycles.

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough.

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn't do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. Arlington Cemetery, May 25, 1986

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the rear of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the sixth of June 1944, two-hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers - at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two-hundred and twenty-five came here. Another two days of fighting only ninety could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Point du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war. You can listen to this speech, The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger. honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." This speech can also be watched online. You can watch the takeoff and explosion here!

Die-hard conservatives thought that I couldn't get everything I asked for, I would jump off the cliff with the flag flying - go down in flames. No, if I can get seventy or eighty percent of what it is I'm trying to get ... I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future.

We intend to keep the peace - we will also keep our freedom.

Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.

Free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by Democrats.

My friends, some years ago the federal government declared war on poverty - and poverty won.

I'll confess that I've been a little afraid to suggest what I'm going to suggest, what I'm going to say. But I'm more afraid not to. Can we begin our crusade joined together in a moment of silent prayer? [The audience rises, with heads bowed, for a few silent moments, after which Ronald Reagan concludes:] God bless America! ~Republican National Convention, Detroit, Michigan, July 17, 1980

We don't lump people by groups or special interests. And let me add, in the party of Lincoln there is no room for intolerance and not even a small corner for anti-Semitism or bigotry of any kind. Many people are welcome in our house, but not the bigots.

I, too, have always believed that God's greatest gift is human life and that we have a duty to protect the life of an unborn child. Until someone can prove the unborn child is not a life, shouldn't we give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is?

I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent - we can take our Fifth Amendment.

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15.

Anyone who seeks success or greatness should first forget about both and seek only the truth. The rest will follow.

We didn't discover our values in a poll taken a week before the convention.

The doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.

I think the best possible social program is a job.

We don't celebrate dependence day on the Fourth of July. We celebrate Independence Day.

Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.


I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys history!


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The Wisdom of Faith

The Wisdom of Faith by Bobby Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

FSU's Bobby Bowden is the coach that lead UGA's coach Mark Richt to the Lord. Coach Bowden has always been upfront with his love of Jesus Christ. From all I can tell he has lived his life reflecting his love for the Savior. This book is not about football although he does share some illiustrations from his playing and coaching days. This book is about how to live the victorious Christian life. Below are the chapter titles:


The Wisdom of Faith
The Wisdom of Fear
The Wisdom of Trust
The Wisdom of Courage
The Wisdom of Responsibility
The Wisdom of Humility
The Wisdom of Patience
The Wisdom of Discipline
The Wisdom of Contentment
The Wisdom of Suffering
The Wisdom of Love

He finished the book using a great illustration emphasizing all is in vain without first Christ as your personal Savior. I'm including just a few quotes from the book:

We cannot help make the world more as our Creator intended until we first learn to see it through our Creator’s eyes.

Waiting well requires us to wait for God and trust His timing. To put it differently, waiting well means to remind ourselves time and again – especially when troubles mount up – that God is in control. Such waiting gives us confidence. We gain strength. Our endurance grows. Hope burns brighter. And those encumbrances that once dragged us down slowly lose their grip. (Is. 40:31)

Great joy can be found by those who have little and need less. Great joy can also be found by those who have much and give more. Contentment is available to us whatever our circumstance in life, if our eyes are set first and constantly on the Living God.

It's not the amount of our possessions, but the value we give them, that distinguishes the wise from fools.

It is not miracles that produce faith but faith that produces miracles.  ~Fyodor Dostoevsky


I would recommend this book to college football fans, Bobby Bowden fans, and Christians who want to walk the talk!

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I Am Loved at Community Bible Church

9781500693282 by Sandi Adams Hutcheson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book was written by the daughter of the Pastor of the church where I became a believer. So, it was an excellent read for me. The book of course, was a little bais since it was written by the pastor's daughter. It also was more about the pastor of the church then just the church. The pastor, Buford Adams, had a profound influence on many people either to trust Christ as their Savior or to further their walk with the Lord and it most cases both. If you enjoy reading about churches, pastors, leadership then you will enjoy this book. Some of the personal relationships Buford enjoyed are well known people in Christian circles. One example is Paul Van Gorder (Radio Bible Class). Buford attended Van Gorder's church (Colonial Hills Baptist) in his early years.

I owe much of my Christian growth to Buford Adams, his pastoral staff, and Clayton Community Church. The church changed locations from Clayton County to Henry County and changed its name to Community Bible Church. Buford's son, Beau, is now the senior pastor.

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Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening

Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening by Roger Nierenberg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What a wonderful book on leadership. I have never heard of the author of the book, but saw it in a second hand store and the title looked interesting. The book it an easy read but has many good principles that apply to leadership and life. The book is written in story form. A business man learns many business principles from watching and talking with a conductor of an orchestra. I have shared serval below. I know those that enjoy music will especially enjoy this book.

A maestro doesn't micromanage. Instead of demanding mindless obedience, he communicates a larger vision, inviting people to draw upon the full range of their talents.

A maestro enables people to feel ownership of the whole piece, not just their individual parts.

A maestro leads by listening. When people sense an open and receptive ear, they offer more of their full potential. If not, they get defensive and hold back their best ideas.

It is a wonderful thing to project confidence and authority. But your main channel of influence with an orchestra is your listening. Every time you come to the podium, ask yourself," Am I really hearing what's going on in this room? Am I being affected by what I'm hearing?" If not. then you must take some of your attention away from what you yourself are doing, and focus it on the people you're here to lead.

As the conductor says, "Eventually I realized that a great performance would happen only when the motivation sprang as much from them as from me. I learned to see my job as simply creating an environment where that could happen. Once I learned to engage their artistry, everything felt so much easier."

If a leader wants his people to truly own the work, then he has to be willing to let go of some control.

You can force compliance with your directions, you can require obedience, but you can't mandate enthusiasm, creativity, fresh thinking, or inspiration. If you value that, then people need to feel ownership of the work, and the leader must cede some control to them.

Everything I do is aimed at creating a feeling of community and shared responsibility.

The conductor's job is to create success. It really falls upon him to stretch his reality until it encompasses that of the players, too.

The conductor needs to understand the reality from the chairs as well.

If a conductor wants them to play with unity then he must stretch his imagination to embrace their reality. That's what elicits the kind of cooperation and trust that invites them to get interested in the unique perspective the podium offers.

My (podium) position allowed me to see what each part contributed to the whole. The members of the team, however, were surprisingly unaware of the support they received from others, but hyperaware of any threat posed by the invisible activity in another building or wing.

Certain problems can be solved most easily from the chair, but others require the podium view.

One's first task is not to stamp one's own personality on everything, at whatever cost, but to listen.

It is a wonderful thing to project confidence and authority. But your main channel of influence with an orchestra is your listening.

Every time you come to the podium, ask yourself, "Am I really hearing what's going on in this room? Am I being affected by what I'm hearing? If not, then you must take some of your attention away from what you yourself are doing, and focus it on the people you're here to lead. [This quote I listed twice on purpose]

It's important to make a distinction between problems that are the musicians can best solve themselves, and problems that involve collaboration and teamwork. When your baton undertakes to solve every problem that might arise, you actually decrease the orchestra's listening ability.

I want to acquaint you with how to lead when the orchestra already knows the music and doesn't need to be taught. That is the most difficult type of leadership to learn. They still need direction if they're ever to perform to their potential, but the direction must be more visionary and strategic and less about helping them manage the details.

As leaders we should strive to exert the minimum necessary intervention.

A leader must commit to that which has not happened.

It is only in anticipating, and committing to what will happen next, that any leadership can take place.

When you have a group that's well disciplined in teamwork, it liberates you to do your best.

It doesn't matter how good you sound if you don't match the others who are playing with you.

Leadership doesn't make a small difference, it makes all the difference in the world.

If you're a leader you can elevate your team to heights beyond their wildest imagination.

Here is a website for more information about this type of leadership music paradigm


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The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God by Lee Strobel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As most of you know Lee Strobel has written several "The Case for ..." books. This one is very good. I don't necessaryly like his writing style but the information in is books are great. It takes me a little bit longer to read his books than most books I read but it is worth it. You will get a great taste for the book from the quotes below. I trust they will either encorage you or challenge your belief. Enjoy!

William Provine of Cornell University said, “If Darwinism is true, then there are five inescapable conclusions:
• there’s no evidence for God
• there’s no life after death
• there’s no absolute foundation for right and wrong
• there’s no ultimate meaning for life
• and people don’t really have free will.”

It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. … The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design. ~Physicist Paul Davies

Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose? ~Sir John Templeton

… all the seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants in physics have one strange thing in common – these are precisely the values you need if you want to have a universe capable of producing life. ~Patrick Glynn

In his book God: The Evidence, [Patrick] Glynn credits the absolutely incredible fine-tuning of the cosmos as being among the key reasons why he concluded that the universe must have been the handiwork of a master designer.

A universe aiming at the production of man implies a mind directing it. Though man is not at the physical center of the universe, he appears to be at the center of its purpose. ~Robert Augros

When scientists talk about the fine-tuning of the universe they’re generally referring to the extraordinary balancing of the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe. Our minds can’t comprehend the precision of some of them. The result is a universe that has just the right conditions to sustain life. The coincidences are simply too amazing to have been the result of happenstance. ~Robin Collins … as Paul Davies said, “the impression of design is overwhelming.”

As scientific knowledge grew, dreams of finding lunar civilizations dissipated. Everyone came to agree that the moon cannot support life. Yet surprising discoveries in recent years have shown the opposite to be true: the moon really does support life – ours! Scientific evidence confirms how this parched, airless satellite actually contributes in unexpected ways to creating a lush and stable environment a quarter of a million miles away on Earth. ~Lee Strobel

There was a remarkable finding that the moon actually stabilizes the tilt of the earth’s axis. The tilt is responsible for our seasons. During the summer, in the northern hemisphere the north pole axis is pointed more toward the sun. Six months later, when the Earth is on the other side of the sun, then the south pole is more pointed toward the sun. While the Earth’s tilt at 23.5 degrees, this gives us very mild seasons. So in a very real way, the stability of our climate is attributable to the moon. ~Guillermo Gonzalez

What would happen if the moon were not there? Then our tilt could swing wildly over a large range, resulting in major temperature swings. If our tilt were more like ninety degrees, the north pole would be exposed to the sun for six months, while the south pole would be in darkness, then vice-versa. Instead, it varies by only about one and a half degrees – just a tiny variation, because the gravity from the moon’s orbit keeps it stabilized. ~Guillermo Gonzalez

We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cossetted, cherished group of creatures; our Darwinian claim to have done it all ourselves is as ridiculous and as charming as a baby’s brave efforts to stand on its own feet and refuse his mother’s hand. If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in. ~John A. O’Keefe

If God so precisely and carefully and lovingly and amazingly constructed a mind-boggling habitat for his creatures, then it would be natural for Him to want them to explore it, to measure it, to investigate it, to appreciate it, to be inspired by it – and ultimately, and most importantly, to find Him through it. ~Lee Strobel

We have always underestimated the cell. … The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. … Why do we call [them] machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. ~Bruce Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences

We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations. ~Biochemist Franklin M. Harold

One scientist described a singled-celled organism as a high-tech factory, complete with artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction … [and] a capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours. ~Lee Strobel

Today we buy information, we sell it, we regard it as commodity, we value it, we send it down wires and bounce it off satellites – and we know it invariably comes from intelligent agents. So what do we make of the fact that DNA stores far more information in a smaller space than the most advanced supercomputer on the planet? ~Lee Strobel

Wilder Penfield, the renowned father of modern neurosurgery, has encountered concrete evidence that the brain and mind are actually distant from each other, although they clearly interact.

At this point, having considered J.P. Moreland’s critique of physicalism. I wanted to hear his affirmative case that consciousness and the souls are immaterial entities. “What positive evidence is there that consciousness and the self are not merely a physical process of the brain?” I [Lee Strobel] asked.

“We have experimental data, for one thing,” he replied. “For example, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield electrically stimulated the brains of epilepsy patients and found he could cause them to move their arms or legs, turn their heads or eyes, talk, or swallow. Invariably the patient would respond by saying, ‘I didn’t do that. You did.’ According to Penfield, ‘the patient thinks of himself as having an existence separate from his body.’

“No matter how much Penfield probed the cerebral cortex, he said, ‘There is no place … whose electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or to decide.’ That’s because those functions originate in the conscious self, not the brain.

“A lot of subsequent research has validated this. When Roger Sperry and his team studied the differences between the brain’s right and left hemispheres, they discovered the mind has a causal power independent of the brain’s activities. This led Sperry to conclude materialism was false.”

The portrait of the Creator that emerges from the scientific data is uncannily consistent with the description of the God whose identity is spelled out in the pages of the Bible.
• Creator? “In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.”
• Unique? “You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides Him there is no other.”
• Uncaused and timeless? “Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.”
• Immaterial? “God is spirit.”
• Personal? “I am God Almighty.”
• Freedom of will? “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
• Intelligent and rational? “How many are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.”
• Enormously powerful? “This Lord is … great in power.”
• Creative? “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
• Caring? “The earth is full of His unfailing love.”
• Omnipresent? “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain You.”
• Has given humankind purpose? “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, … everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him.”
• Provides for life after death? “He will sallow up death forever.”
As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made [that is, His creation], so that men are without excuse.” ~ Lee Strobel

James Tour of Rice University said, “Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.” Astrophysicist and priest George Coyne put it this way, “Nothing we learn about the universe threatens our faith. It only enriches it.”

Polkinghome, who achieved acclaim as a mathematical physicist at Cambridge before becoming a full-time minister, the same kind of thinking he uses in science has helped him draw life-changing conclusions about God: “ No one has ever seen a quark, and we believe that no one ever will. They are so tightly bound to each other inside the protons and neutrons that nothing can make them break out on their own. Why, then, do I believe in these invisible quarks? … In summary, it’s because quarks make sense of a lot of direct physical evidence. … I wish to engage in a similar strategy with regard to the unseen reality of God. His existence makes sense of many aspects of our knowledge and experience: the order and fruitfulness of the physical world; the multilayered character of reality; the almost universal human experiences of worship and hope; the phenomenon of Jesus Christ (including His resurrection). I think that very similar thought processes are involved in both cases. I do not believe that I shift in some strange intellectual way when I move from science to religion. … In their search for the truth science and faith are intellectual cousins under the skin.”

Religious knowledge is more demanding than scientific knowledge. While it requires scrupulous attention to matters of truth, it also calls for the response of commitment to the truth discovered. ~ Polkinghome

Many have found that the awesome sight of the star-studded heavens evoke a sense of wonder, an awareness of transcendence, which is charged with spiritual significance. Yet the distant shimmering of stars does not itself create this sense of longing; it merely exposes what is already there. They are catalysts for our spiritual insights, revealing our emptiness and compelling us to ask whether and how this void might be filled.

Might our true origins and destiny somehow lie beyond these stars? Might there not be a homeland, from which we are presently exiled and to which we secretly long to return? Might not our accumulation of discontentment and disillusionment with our present existence be a pointer to another land where our true destiny lies and which is able to make its presence felt now in this haunting way?

Suppose that this is not where we are meant to be but that a better land is at hand? We don’t belong here. We have somehow lost our way. Would not this make our present existence both strange and splendid? Strange, because it is not where our true destiny lies; splendid, because it points ahead to where that real hope might be found. The beauty of the night skies or a glorious sunset are important pointers to the origins and the ultimate fulfillment of our heart’s deepest desires. But if we mistake the signpost for what is signposted, we will attach our hopes and longings to lesser goals, which cannot finally quench our thirst for meaning. ~Alister McGrath

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