Quotes About Understanding

Is listening a matter of waiting for the other person to stop so that you can start talking, or is it a skill that you genuinely want to develop? It's amazing how rare good listeners are, and by becoming one of those rare people, you can take a big step toward making yourself truly unforgettable.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is appreciation. Go find somebody's hand and squeeze it, while there's time.

Maggie Louise sat in a hardback chair, holding her baby brother, Squinchy, and her eyes fell upon Agee. There was something about the eyes of Maggie Louise that caught him the first time they met. They were 'temperature less, keen, serene, and wise and pure gray eyes,' Agee said, and they seemed to look everywhere and see into things. To look into the eyes of Maggie Louise was 'scary as hell, and even more mysterious than frightening,' said Agee. She knew she'd like him and he her.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak. — SPINOZA DUTCH PHILOSOPHER

Much of our problem is not, as is often said, that we have failed to get what is in our head down in our heart. Much of what hinders us is that we have had a lot of mistaken theology in our head and it has gotten down into our heart. And it is controlling our inner dynamics so that the head and heart cannot, even with the aid of the Word and the Spirit, pull one another straight.

If the Bible says something once, notice it but don't count it as a fundamental principle. If it says it twice, think about it twice. If it is repeated many times, then dwell on it and seek to understand it. What you want to believe from the Bible is its message on the whole and use it as a standard for interpreting the peripheral passages.

And when people sense that something is coming around the logical corner that they will not to be so, they often just refuse to carefully follow the argument. It's as common as sin, and a large part of it too.

Whatever our position in life, if our lives and works are to be of the kingdom of God, we must not have human approval as a primary or even major aim. We must lovingly allow people to think whatever they will. We may, if it seems right, occasionally try to help them understand us and appreciate what we are doing. That could be an act of love. But in any case we can only serve them by serving the Lord only.

Faith is not opposed to knowledge; faith is opposed to sight. And grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.

Pastors now are mistakenly seen, and perhaps even see themselves, as teaching what Christians are supposed to believe (perhaps what we had better believe), not what is known and what can be known through fair inquiry.

First, we must learn from him the reason why we live and why we do the things we do.

You know something when you are able to deal with it as it is on an appropriate basis of thought and experience.

My people perish from lack of knowledge" (Hos 4:6).

Religion as actually lived, not as some figment of the academic imagination, always claims to involve knowledge of how things are.

Mystery" means, in the language of the New Testament, something that had long remained hidden but then came to be known for the first time. The

Preliminary 2: In a Mirror, Dimly

People perish for lack of knowledge, because only knowledge permits assured access to reality; and reality does not adjust itself to accommodate our false beliefs, errors, or hesitations in action. Life demands a steady hand for good, and only knowledge supplies this. This is as true in the spiritual life as elsewhere.

Keep in mind that God did not say that Job was wrong in what he said, but that he did not understand what he was saying.

In particular, I had learned that intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of scripture on oneself through the week, in church or out, will not reorder one's mind and spirit—just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once and for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word.

Prayer, it is rightly said, is the method of genuine theological research, the method of understanding what and who God is.

Seek not to speak, but that you might have something to say.

If you bury yourself in Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life.

Knowledge" in biblical language never refers to what we today call "head knowledge," but always to experiential involvement with what is known—to actual engagement with it.

Tolerance is not indifference, but a generous regard and even provision for those who differ from us on points we deeply care about.