More Notable Quotes April 27, 2015
Last week Iran a series of compelling quotes from Tim Keller’s excellent book Walkingwith God Through Pain and Suffering. Keller’s treatment of suffering is sothorough and his viewpoint is so compelling, I wasn’t able to include all thenoteworthy quotes in that column. So here are a few more:
“If an all-powerfuland all-wise God were directing all of history with its infinite number ofinteractive events toward good ends, it would be folly to think we could lookat any particular occurrence and understand a millionth of what it will bringabout. The history-butterfly effect means that only an omniscient mind couldgrasp the complexities of directing a world of free creatures towardprevisioned [good] goals. Certainly manyevils seem pointless and unnecessary to us—butweare simply not in a position to judge.”
“Jesus took awaythe only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast awayfrom God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life willonly make you great. …Jesus Christ suffered, not so that we would neversuffer but so that when we suffer we would be like him.”
“Our darkness canbe relativized by the darkness of Jesus. Because he wastruly abandoned by God, we only seem to be or feel to beabandoned by him. But we aren’t, despite our failures.”
“Here is how itworks. The grief and sorrow drive you more into God. It is just as when it getscolder outside, the temperature kicks the furnace higher through thethermostat. Similarly, the sorrow and the grief drive you into God and show youthe resources you never had.”
“The Joseph storytells us that very often God does not give us exactly what we ask for. Insteadhe gives us what we would have asked for if we had known everything he does.”
“God allows eviljust enough space so it will defeat itself. The story of Job is a smallerversion of what God is doing in your life and in the history of the world. Godhas now mapped out a plan for history that includes evil as part of it. Thisconfuses and angers us, but then a book like Job pulls back the veil for justan instant and shows us that God will allow evil only to the degree that itbrings about the very opposite of what it intends.”