Quotes from Philip Yancey

The more we focus on tangential issues, the less effective we will be in addressing matters of true moral significance.

Every institution, it seems, runs on ungrace and its insistence that we earn our way.

by embracing grief and standing beside the hurting person, we can indeed aid another's search for meaning.

God took a great risk by announcing forgiveness in advance, and the scandal of grace involves a transfer of that risk to us.

Where is God when it hurts? I have often asked. The answer is another question, Where is the church when it hurts?

the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What has happened?

But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

When God looks upon my life graph, he sees not jagged swerves toward good and bad but rather a steady line of good: the goodness of God's Son captured in a moment of time and applied for all eternity.

That this world spoiled by evil and suffering still exists at all is an example of God's mercy, not his cruelty.

True hope is honest.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults," said Pascal, "but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognize them.

ARTAXERXES King of Persia; allowed Ezra to rebuild Jerusalem temple "Friendly Foreigner"—

Christians tend to be Augustinian in theory but Pelagian in practice. They work obsessively to please other people and even God.

You cannot earn God's acceptance by climbing; you must receive it as a gift.

Realistic hope permits a dying person to confront reality, but at the same time gives strength to go on living.

Modern books on pain make a sharp contrast. Their authors assume that the amount of evil and suffering in the world cannot be matched with the traditional view of a good and loving God. God is thus bumped from a "friend of the court" position to the box reserved for the defendant. "How can you possibly justify yourself, God?" these angry moderns seem to say.

the gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. In all the talk of voting blocs and culture wars, the message of grace—the main distinctive Christians have to offer—tends to fall aside. It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the message of grace from the corridors of power.

Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate. Sadly, to a world desperate for this grace the church sometimes presents one more form of ungrace.

In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts laments the loss of "deep reading," which requires intense concentration, a conscious lowering of the gates of perception, and a slower pace.

Perhaps the greatest way to give suffering people time is being patient with them — giving them room to doubt, cry, question and work out strong and often extreme emotions.

In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. Earth is a proving ground, a dot in eternity — albeit an important dot, for Jesus said our destiny depends on our obedience here.

God does some of God's best work with people who are truly, seriously lost.

We'll stay true to God only if our love becomes a decision.

Every hour or so she asks how I'm feeling, and I hear her giving reports on the phone to her friends. "He's doing better today. A little trouper, doesn't complain at all." I like hearing her talk about me, as if I matter.