Quotes About Perspective

Churchill sent Keynes a cable reading, 'Am coming around to your point of view.' His Lordship replied, 'Sorry to hear it. Have started to change my mind.' "7

Some things just have to be believed to be seen.

I believe Christians walk a mental tightrope and are in constant danger of falling in one of two directions. On this subject, errors in thinking can have tragic results. The first error comes when we attribute all suffering to God, seeing it as his punishment for human mistakes; the second error does just the opposite, assuming that life with God will never include suffering.

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self. You become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the "real" world and the unseen world as the "unreal" world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.

Sometimes the only meaning we can offer a suffering person is the assurance that their suffering, which has no apparent meaning for them, has a meaning for us.

In God's presence I feel small because I am small.

If we cannot detect God's presence in the world, it may be that we have been looking in the wrong places.

Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget. I keep reversing roles, thinking of ways in which God should serve me, rather than vice versa. As God fiercely reminded Job, the Lord of the universe has many things to manage, and in the midst of my self-pity I would do well to contemplate for a moment God's own point of view.

The Quakers have a saying: "An enemy is one whose story we have not heard." To communicate to post-Christians, I must first listen to their stories for clues to how they view the world and how they view people like me. Those conversations are what led to the title of this book. Although God's grace is as amazing as ever, in my divided country it seems in vanishing supply.

Ironically, (the church's) respect in the world declines in proportion to how vigorously we attempt to force others to adopt our point of view.

Does prayer change God or change me?

We whine about things we have little control over; we lament what we believe ought to be changed.

Philip Yancey sees our blasé attitude toward the faithfulness of God in the waitstaff At Yellowstone. Even when they are finished their chores, they don't look up and marvel at the geiser going off. After all, they see it so often.

Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says, 'Oh dear, things can't possibly get any worse.' An optimist says, 'Don't be so sad. Things can always get worse.

Faith, I've concluded, means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.

Are we concentrating more on the kingdom of this world than on the kingdom that is not of this world?

La fe consiste en creer por anticipado algo que solo tendrá sentido cuando se mire hacia el pasado.

Some of us seem so anxious about avoiding hell that we forget to celebrate our journey toward heaven.

Along with Chesterton, I've had to take my place among those who acknowledge that we are what is wrong with the world. What is my snobbishness toward my childhood church, for instance, but an inverted form of the harsh judgment it showed me?

Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.

Virtually every passage on suffering in the New Testament deflects the emphasis from cause to response.

Can we live now "as if" God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The

Lord, if you can't make me thin, then make my friends look fat," humorist Erma Bombeck once prayed.