To confess your sins to God is not to tell [God] anything [God] doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.
Frederick BuechnerRead
Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Faith represents a deep yearning and uncertainty that drives human experience.
In this quote, Frederick Buechner articulates faith as an emotional and complex state of being, characterized by a longing for understanding and a sense of anticipation. Rather than a definitive belief or conclusion, faith is portrayed as a journey marked by hope and a willingness to embrace uncertainty, suggesting that the essence of faith lies in the movement toward something greater rather than in a concrete answer.
Themes
FaithLongingMovementUncertaintyHope
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a religious gathering reflecting on the nature of faith.
More from Frederick Buechner
All quotes βBy and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you need most to do and b) the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement b).
Frederick BuechnerRead
When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
Frederick BuechnerRead
We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but now I know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters.
Frederick BuechnerRead
To be wise is to be eternally curious.
Frederick BuechnerRead
if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.
Frederick BuechnerRead
Similar quotes
There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
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My childhood began, as everybody's childhood begins, with prejudices. Man finds prejudices beside his cradle, puts them from him a little in the course of his career, and often, alas! takes to them again in his old age.
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Don't seek God in temples. He is close to you. He is within you. Only you should surrender to Him and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness.
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Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.
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We can't live in a state of perpetual doubt, so we make up the best story possible and we live as if the story were true.
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Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
Saint AugustineRead