Quotes from Philip Yancey

When we make condescending judgments, or proclaim lofty words that don't translate into action, or simply speak without first listening, we fail to love — ?and thus deter a thirsty world from Living Water. The good news about God's grace goes unheard.

Who helped you most? Most often they (suffering people) answer by describing a quiet, unassuming person. Someone who was there whenever needed, who listened more than talked, who didn't keep glancing down at a watch, who hugged and touched, and cried. In short, someone who was available, and came on the sufferer's terms and not their own.

Even when everything seems out of control, God remains firmly in control.

On the other hand, if the subject had nothing to do but think about his pain (as is true in many hospitals and nursing homes), he showed much greater sensitivity.

We do not give up on the institution of family because of its imperfections-why give up on the church?

If reduced to a single phrase, the Bible's message would be something like this: God gets his family back. The Bible tells the story of how God, wanting to live in harmony with all that he had made, set out to win a rebellious world back to himself.

We sometimes use the term "savior complex" to describe an unhealthy syndrome of obsession over curing others' problems. The true Savior, however, seemed remarkably free of such a complex. He had no compulsion to convert the entire world in his lifetime or to cure people who were not ready to be cured.

God does not seek the people most outwardly capable, nor the most naturally "good." He works with the most unlikely material so that everyone can see the glory is his and his alone.

Jesus extended the privileges of God's chosen family to the whole world, regardless of race or nation. Thus an obscure Jewish sect became a new global faith, Christianity, open to all.

grace happens at unexpected moments. It stops us short, catches the breath, disarms. If we manipulate it, try to control it, somehow earn it, that would not be grace.

Moralism apart from grace solves little.

Gary Haugen, founder of the International Justice Mission, say something similar: "God has a plan to fight injustice, and that plan is us — ?his people. There is no Plan B.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.

The resurrection and its victory over death brought a decisive new word to the vocabulary of pain and suffering: temporary. Jesus Christ holds out the startling promise of an afterlife without pain. Whatever anguish we feel now will not last.

Dr. Eric Cassell, an internist at Cornell University, concluded about his patients, "If I had to pick the aspect of illness that is most destructive to the sick, I would choose the loss of control.

The gospel transforms culture by permeating it like yeast, and long after the people abandon belief they tend to live by habits of the soul. Once salted and yeasted, society is difficult to un-salt and un-yeast.

God has entrusted flawed human beings with a message so powerful that it sometimes does its work in spite of us.

Today, if I had to answer the question "Where is God when it hurts?" in a single sentence, I would make that sentence another question: "Where is the church when it hurts?" We form the front line of God's response to the suffering world.

12Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. 13Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.

Death becomes the expression of everything you are, and you can bring to it only what you have brought to your life," said Roemer after the filming.

Wise companions learn to seek out the delicate balance between offering help and offering too much help.

Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

People who are rich, successful, and beautiful may well go through life relying on their natural gifts.