Americans are nervous; Americans are restless; and what troubles me the most is that Americans are uncharacteristically pessimistic.

Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal - 'I'm not letting go until I get what I want' - it's a problem.

One problem I have with faith-healing is that it tends to be focused only on the physical aspect of healing. But Jesus always backed away when people came to him only to get their physical needs met. My goodness, he was ready to have you lop off your hand! His real interest was in healing the soul.

I have an interesting perspective on depending on others. I think it gives people a chance to serve. And I'm not so much big on independence, as I am on interdependence. I'm not talking about co-dependency, I'm talking about giving people the opportunity to practicing love with its sleeves rolled up.

God knows I tried to make it earlier in life, but with all due respect to myself, nothing I ever did was any good.

I believe in this being, not because I have any proper or direct knowledge of His existence, but I am at a loss to account for the existence and arrangement of the visible universe, and, being left in the wide sea of conjecture without a clue from analogy or experience, I find the conjecture of a God easy, obvious, and irresistible.

Love works not for profit nor reward; yet God has ordained that great gain shall be the certain result of every labor of love.

I know that those who esteem these little organised associations to be the churches of God, see nothing but mere meetings of men in every other gathering of God's children.