Quotes About Perspective

What is faith, after all, but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse

How differently will I relate to the uncommitted if I view them not as evil or unsaved but rather as lost.

one East European Christian observed, "You Western Christians often seem to consider material prosperity to be the only sign of God's blessing. On the other hand, you often seem to perceive poverty, discomfort, and suffering as signs of God's disfavor. In some ways we in the East understand suffering from the opposite perspective. We believe that suffering may be a sign of God's favor and trust in the Christians to whom the trial is permitted to come.

When I am tempted to complain about God's lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence.

Unless we can grasp our own beliefs as truly good news, we cannot easily communicate them to a thirsty world.

Let him who is about to accuse God consider the greatness of the God accused.

the important issue facing Christians who suffer is not "Is God responsible?" but "How should I react now that this terrible thing has happened?

Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

It makes all the difference in the world whether I view my neighbor as a potential convert or as someone whom God already loves.

What counts is the way a person reacts in the face of suffering. That is the real test of the person: What is our personal attitude to life and its changes and chances?

It is not the same as optimism or wishful thinking, for these imply a denial of reality.

Revelation 12 presents Christmas from a cosmic perspective, adding a new set of images to the familiar scenes of manger and shepherds and the slaughter of the innocents.

A grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through "grace-tinted lenses.

It takes great effort, and considerable faith, to keep the Big Picture in mind. In some ways it makes me feel utterly insignificant, in some ways eternally significant

At times, God's history seems to operate on an entirely different plane than ours...Exodus identifies by name the two Hebrew midwives who helped save Moses' life, but it does not bother to record the name of the Pharaoh ruling Egypt (an omission that has baffled scholars ever since).

Unfortunately, most of my secular friends would agree with Bill Gates, who considers religion a waste of time: "There's a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning," he told an interviewer. They view the church not as a change agent that can affect all of society but as a place where like-minded people go to feel better about themselves.

He aprendido a ver la realidad espiritual por encima de la realidad física de este mundo. Tenemos tendencia a pensar que la vida debería ser justa, puesto que Dios es justo. No obstante, Dios no es la vida.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is required. The stars neither require it nor demand it. ANNIE DILLARD

We live in an atmosphere choked with the fumes of ungrace. Grace comes from outside, as a gift and not an achievement.

Pain allows us, the fortunate ones at least, to lead free and active lives. If you ever doubt that, visit a leprosarium and observe for yourself a world without pain.

What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day?

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?

It makes a huge difference whether I treat a nonbeliever as someone who is wrong rather than as someone who is on the way but lost.

A very small class of books have nothing in common say that each admits us to a world of its own that seems to have been going on before we stumbled into it, but which, once found by the right reader, becomes indispensable to him.