Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
It rejects the idea that God is a servant who grants wishes on demand.
In plain terms
God is not a cosmic button‑press for our requests.
What can you take from it?
Do not expect instant divine solutions.

Where it applies

  • praying for specific outcomes
  • seeking quick answers

Putting it to work

  • cultivate patience
  • focus on personal responsibility

Questions to consider

  • How do you view the relationship between prayer and action?
  • What expectations do you hold about divine intervention?

Another view

Some find comfort in believing in a responsive deity.

More from Harry Emerson Fosdick

  1. 'Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man is his endowment with personal capacities.'

    Permalink to quote #8
  2. 'Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.'

    Permalink to quote #10
  3. 'Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to. '

    Permalink to quote #7

Related quotes

  1. I regard Shelley's early 'atheism' and later Pantheism, as simply the negative and the affirmative side of the same progressive but harmonious life-creed. In h…

    Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley quote #218
  2. That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such - be it so; but I love, and …

    Vincent Willem Van GoghVincent Willem Van Gogh quote #1
  3. Non Agli sed Angeli

    Gregory IGregory I quote #1