Jim Cymbala quote: “God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget

“We may be sure that it is the love of God only that can make us come out of self. If His powerful hand did not sustain us, we should not know how to take the first step in that direction.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 270.

“We've got to help each other, seeing as God doesn't help us. Do you see how great Jesus' idea was? Imagine how much it must have irritated God. Forget the devil, Jesus was the only true enemy of God, and he's the only friend us poor wretches have.”

Umberto Eco book The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004)

“The past is more than a memory.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"What it Means to be a Human Being" Speech (2001)

“Nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“Reason shows us our duty; he who can make us love our duty is more powerful than reason itself.”

Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766) king of Poland

No. 15.
Maxims and Moral Sentences

“Going to church don’t make anybody a Christian Any more than taking a wheelbarrow into a garage make it an automobile.”

Billy Sunday (1862–1935) American evangelist and baseball player

Source: Roger Biles, The human tradition in urban America http://books.google.pl/books?id=DqayY98DDDcC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=church+garage+automobile&source=bl&ots=NMnjn43sFY&sig=I-YoAzHs5ChdCEE6lsOEK073WQY&hl=pl&sa=X&ei=sUsCT6-QE8vJsgb4qfmDAg&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=church%20garage%20automobile&f=false (2002), p. 128.

“No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

“Whether God can make the past not to have been?
Objection 1: It seems that God can make the past not to have been. For what is impossible in itself is much more impossible than that which is only impossible accidentally. But God can do what is impossible in itself, as to give sight to the blind, or to raise the dead. Therefore, and much more can He do what is only impossible accidentally. Now for the past not to have been is impossible accidentally: thus for Socrates not to be running is accidentally impossible, from the fact that his running is a thing of the past. Therefore God can make the past not to have been.
Objection 2: Further, what God could do, He can do now, since His power is not lessened. But God could have effected, before Socrates ran, that he should not run. Therefore, when he has run, God could effect that he did not run.
Objection 3: Further, charity is a more excellent virtue than virginity. But God can supply charity that is lost; therefore also lost virginity. Therefore He can so effect that what was corrupt should not have been corrupt. On the contrary, Jerome says (Ep. 22 ad Eustoch.): "Although God can do all things, He cannot make a thing that is corrupt not to have been corrupted." Therefore, for the same reason, He cannot effect that anything else which is past should not have been.
I answer that, As was said above (Q[7], A[2]), there does not fall under the scope of God's omnipotence anything that implies a contradiction. Now that the past should not have been implies a contradiction. For as it implies a contradiction to say that Socrates is sitting, and is not sitting, so does it to say that he sat, and did not sit. But to say that he did sit is to say that it happened in the past. To say that he did not sit, is to say that it did not happen. Whence, that the past should not have been, does not come under the scope of divine power. This is what Augustine means when he says (Contra Faust. xxix, 5): "Whosoever says, If God is almighty, let Him make what is done as if it were not done, does not see that this is to say: If God is almighty let Him effect that what is true, by the very fact that it is true, be false": and the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2): "Of this one thing alone is God deprived---namely, to make undone the things that have been done."
Reply to Objection 1: Although it is impossible accidentally for the past not to have been, if one considers the past thing itself, as, for instance, the running of Socrates; nevertheless, if the past thing is considered as past, that it should not have been is impossible, not only in itself, but absolutely since it implies a contradiction. Thus, it is more impossible than the raising of the dead; in which there is nothing contradictory, because this is reckoned impossible in reference to some power, that is to say, some natural power; for such impossible things do come beneath the scope of divine power.
Reply to Objection 2: As God, in accordance with the perfection of the divine power, can do all things, and yet some things are not subject to His power, because they fall short of being possible; so, also, if we regard the immutability of the divine power, whatever God could do, He can do now. Some things, however, at one time were in the nature of possibility, whilst they were yet to be done, which now fall short of the nature of possibility, when they have been done. So is God said not to be able to do them, because they themselves cannot be done.
Reply to Objection 3: God can remove all corruption of the mind and body from a woman who has fallen; but the fact that she had been corrupt cannot be removed from her; as also is it impossible that the fact of having sinned or having lost charity thereby can be removed from the sinner.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

Summa Theologica Question 25 Article 6 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q25_A4.html <br class="br">Summa Theologica (1265–1274), Unplaced by chapter

“They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir (2005), p. 205.
Context: Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.

“Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.”

Juan Rulfo (1917–1986) Mexican writer

“God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget - not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it”

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