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
To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Loving God is a difficult command, especially in tough times, but it remains vital.
This quote expresses the struggle of maintaining faith and love for God during challenging times, likening such a command to impossible tasks like being well when sick or running with broken legs. It highlights the paradox of being asked to love in times of despair, yet asserts the significance of this love, especially in hardship.
Themes
LoveFaithStruggleWildernessCommandment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a sermon about maintaining faith during difficult times.
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
No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society.
Friedrich August Von HayekRead
I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag.
Michael ChabonRead
The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.
Immanuel KantRead
We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.
Michael CrichtonRead
The cross reveals that we're called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive and open to new dimensions of life which our religious boundaries - creeds, atonement theologies - have kept us from experiencing.
John Shelby SpongRead
What is there unreasonable in admitting the intervention of a supernatural power in the most ordinary circumstances of life?
Jules VerneRead