Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby.
-Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions
We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn’
-C.S. Lewis, @CSLewisDaily
It would be a good contest among Christians, one to labor to give no offense, and the other to labor to take none.”
-Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas Edison
God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
If the last will truly be first, why are we always fighting to get to the front of the line?
-Louie Giglio, @LouieGiglio
Every sin is an act of cosmic treason, a futile attempt to dethrone God in His sovereign authority.
-R.C. Sproul
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
-C.S. Lewis, @CSLewisDaily
After calming the sea he said, “Why are you afraid?” Not because Christians never drown. But they are safe in drowning.
-John Piper, @JohnPiper
Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies.
-Augustine of Hippo
[America] is the country with the most radical and realistic view of evil at its core-expressed in the notion of the separation of powers in the Constitution because of human nature and the abuse of power. But various philosophies and ideas have undermined that view over the last 200 years, so that American views today are weak, confused, and divided. On one side, many progressive liberals still think that we humans are essentially good and getting better and better. On the other side, many postmoderns actually think it is worse to judge evil than to do evil. And in the middle, many ordinary folk plaster life with rainbows and smile buttons and wander through life on the basis of sentiment and clichés.
-Os Guinness, “Author Insight: Os Guinness on Evil (Part 1)”
The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Human sloth pretends to long for rest, but what sure rest is there save in the Lord? Luxury would fain be called plenty and abundance; but thou art the fullness and unfailing abundance of unfading joy. Prodigality presents a show of liberality; but thou art the most lavish giver of all good things. Covetousness desires to possess much; but thou art already the possessor of all things. Envy contends that its aim is for excellence; but what is so excellent as thou? Anger seeks revenge; but who avenges more justly than thou? Fear recoils at the unfamiliar and the sudden changes which threaten things beloved, and is wary for its own security; but what can happen that is unfamiliar or sudden to thee? Or who can deprive thee of what thou lovest? Where, really, is there unshaken security save with thee?
-Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions
