"You can't always expect God to make things easy."
John Bul Dau, Sudanese "Lost Boy" and focus of the new documentary God Grew Tired of Us, as quoted in People magazine. When civil war broke out in the Sudan in 1984, Dau, then 12, fled government fighting by walking more than a thousand miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. "We chewed the grass," said Dau. "We drank mud and urine. It was a very bad life."

"I prayed and I talked to God and I found an apartment. I always felt that God has his hand on me."
Tory Lewis, a formerly homeless mother of one, on how the Lord helped her move out of a shelter, as quoted in Florida's News Leader. Because Lewis believes that God has been guiding her life, one would also have to assume that God pushed her onto the streets in the first place.

"God chose me to be His servant. There is such a thing as freedom of speech.''
San Mateo, Calif., resident Estrella Benavides, who has taken to painting on her house and car messages she recieves from God, as quoted in the San Franciso Chronicle. The 48-year-old woman began painting God's words on her house (see picture below) a year ago, around the time that her husband left her and she lost custody of her son. San Mateo city officials have threatend her with fines of up to $10,00 a day if she does not stop painting the messages on her house, an action that prompted the above quote. And last month as part of a religious fast, she had two pins inserted through her lips to prevent herself from eating.

"Listen, I believe in prayer. I pray every night."
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) on how he plans to end the war in Iraq if he were president, as quoted in Vanity Fair. Keep that up, John. It's working so far.

“The Lord didn’t say nuclear, but I do believe it’ll be something like that--that’ll be a mass killing, possibly millions of people, major cities injured.”
Kook preacher Pat Robinson's prediction that the United States will fall victim to a terrorist attack in the latter half of 2007, as quoted on The 700 Club, Robinson's Home Shopping Network for other religious kooks. Robinson makes annual predictions based on his conversations with God. Not all of his prognostications come to pass, just like those contained in the Bible.

"Even God had not answered me. He had remained locked in the churches, protected in the convents, he had made some chalk statues of Madonnas cry and he had allowed the doctors to go ahead with this absurdity."
Piergiorgio Welby, paralyzed muscular dystrophy patient who could not eat, talk, or breathe on his own, as quoted from a 2002 blog entry. Welby had been requesting to been euthanized since being placed on a respirator after falling into a coma in 1997. Last week, a doctor turned off Welby's respirator, allowing him to die. Welby also wrote on his blog what he imagined dying would be like: "Dying must be like falling asleep after making love, tired, tranquil with that sense of wonder that pervades everything."

"People say, to a so-called ladies' man or whatever, that when you have girls it changes you. So I was like, 'What's God trying to tell me by giving me two girls?' When I pray every morning, I thank God for showing me what he showed me while I still have a chance to enjoy myself."
Sean "Diddy" Combs, whose longtime girlfriend Kim Orter is expecting twins, as quoted in Vibe. Evidently God wants Diddy to stop sleeping with women other than Porter once his daughters are born; God obviously couldn't care less how infedelity affects Combs and Porter's 8-year-old son, Christian.

"I am telling him (Bush) that all the world is threatening you since the general path that the world is taking is towards worshipping god and divinity. This massive stream is moving and you are nothing in comparison to God's will."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rejoinder to American President George Bush's remark that Ahmadinejad was a tyrant, as quoted on ExpressIndia.com, the companion Web site to The Indian Express. I have no comment, considering I like my head attached to my body.

"Why did God do this to me?"
James Polehinke, sole survivor of a plane crash in Lexington, Ky, that left him a quadraplegic, as quoted in the Cincinnati Post.

"It was not God. It was just an accident."
His mother's reported response to the question.

"Here I'd always imagined Jesus was the sweet, cuddly, loving dude, and suddenly I find out he makes Conan the Barbarian look like Conan the wimp. He didn't come with a guitar singing Kum Ba Yah. Jesus brought a sword to the earth, and he is still swinging it."
Actor Stephen Baldwin, another person who has obviously never read the gospels, from his book The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith, which details how he found Christ

"I like to ask friends of mine, happy couples who seem to have a pretty good marriage, I will ask them, 'How's your sex life?'...They will say something like pretty good or okay or no complaints here. Here's what I tell them: Imagine taking a healthy sex life and inviting the power of God into that exchange."
Actor Stephen Baldwin, who is definitely into the freakiest threesomes ever, from his book The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith, which details how he found Christ

"I do not believe that any mental illness exists other than demons, and no medication can straighten it out, other than the power of God."
Pastor Doyle Davidson, who has at least one thing in common with Tom Cruise, testifying at the murder trial of Dena Schlosser, as quoted on the Web site of NBC affilaite KXAN in Austin, Texas. Scholsser is accused of cutting the arms off of her 10-month-old daughter. Her husband, John, also testified he wasn't alarmed and didn't seek medical help when his wife told him she wanted to "give the baby to God" about a week before the murder.

"Can't you see they're already in hell? Hell is a place in life. In death, everyone is redeemed."
God, in a message to Bishop Carlton Pearson, as quoted in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Pearson reportedly received the message as he watched a news segment on starving Rwandan refugees and asked God "how you can call yourself a loving God and allow [the refugees] to suffer so much and then send them to hell." Since hearing the message, Pearson has preached that Hell does not exist and has seen his congregation fall from a high of 6,000 persons to a few hundred

"[T]hat lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn't [sic] what God intended."
Congresswoman Katherine Harris (R-FL) , alleged vote tinkerer and possibly the poorest student of both the electorial process and American history, as quoted in the Florida Baptist Witness

"Jesus is Love. Transport for Christ."
Mud flaps seen on an 18-wheeler. Transport for Christ is an evangelical group that supports truckers with ministries in truckstops across North America.

"This is a Christian household. If you hate God do not move in."
Statement in a lease landlord and God-loving man Joe Fabics provides to tenants renting one of six rooms in his New Brunswick, NJ, house. Fabics, who has most likely never read New Jersey's Fair Housing Act, explained the inclusion of the statement this way: "The reason for that is people lie to me and say they believe. But they are actually atheists and won't feel comfortable because this is actually God's house"

"Thank you, Jesus!"
Junior Stowers, Honolulu man responding in court to his acquittal of abusing his son. Stowers' outburst landed him in jail for contempt of court because the judge had warned defense and prosecuting attorneys that neither side should show any emotion after the verdict was read

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?"
Pope Benedict XVI, speaking rhetorically, during a speech at the Auschwitz concentration camp

"I do not know what we did. But we must have sinned for God to be angry like this."
Jodi Riwono, a survivor of an earthquake that struck near the town of Yogyakarta in Indonesia and a man who knows little about plate tectonics, as quoted in Time magazine

"You look at things that have happened to us this year. You look at some of the moves we made and didn't make. You look at some of the games we're winning. Those aren't just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this."
Dan O'Dowd, Colorado Rockies general manager, on his team's first winning season since 2000, which he credits to the organization's embrace of Christianity. As Christians, the Rockies' management has banned profanity-laced music and men's magazines from the clubhouse; the team continues, however, to play in a ball park named Coors Field