Notable Quotes April 20, 2015
Books don’tchange lives. Paragraphs do. Sometimes single sentences. At least that’s how itworks for me. I can remember specific sentences from specific books that lit myheart on fire and profoundly changed the way I thought. Here’s a sample of someof those verbal incendiary bombs from Tim Keller’s book Walking with GodThrough Pain and Suffering.
“While otherworldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the comingsorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’ssorrows, tasting the coming joy.”
“Sufferingtakes away the loves, joys, and comforts that we rely on to give life meaning.How can we maintain our point, or even our peace and joy, when that happens?The answer is that we can do that only if we locate our meaning in thingsthat can’t be touched by death.”
“One of the mainteachings of the Bible is that almost no one grows into greatness or finds Godwithout suffering, without pain coming into our lives like smelling salts towake us up to all sorts of facts about life and our own hearts to which we wereblind.”
“Modern people are farmore prone than their ancestors to conclude that, if they can see nogood reason for a particular instance of suffering, God could not have anyjustifiable reasons for it either.”
“Partial Christianity ortheism is far more difficult to hold in the face of horrendous suffering thanis atheism. Natural evil offends thosewho believe in a God who exists for us, and confounds those who don’t believewe are all sinners needing salvation by sheer grace. It is as we get larger inour own eyes, less dependent on God’s grace and revelation, and surer that weunderstand how the universe works and how history should go that the problem ofevil becomes so intolerable.”
“The sovereign Godhimself has come down into their world and has experienced its darkness. He haspersonally drunk the cup of its suffering down to the dregs. And he did it not to justify himself but to justify us,that is, to bear the suffering, death, and curse for sin that we have earned.”
“The main reasonthat Christians insist that God can be trusted in the midst of suffering isthat God himself has firsthand experience of suffering.”