QuoteProject
To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him.
Frederick Buechner
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Loving God is a difficult command, especially in tough times, but it remains vital.

This quote expresses the struggle of maintaining faith and love for God during challenging times, likening such a command to impossible tasks like being well when sick or running with broken legs. It highlights the paradox of being asked to love in times of despair, yet asserts the significance of this love, especially in hardship.

Themes

LoveFaithStruggleWildernessCommandment

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a sermon about maintaining faith during difficult times.

More from Frederick Buechner

To confess your sins to God is not to tell [God] anything [God] doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.
Frederick BuechnerRead
By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you need most to do and b) the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement b).
Frederick BuechnerRead
When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
Frederick BuechnerRead
We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but now I know that I do not need to know, and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters.
Frederick BuechnerRead
To be wise is to be eternally curious.
Frederick BuechnerRead
if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.
Frederick BuechnerRead

Similar quotes

In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Few things in this world are more predictable than the reaction of conventional minds to unconventional ideas.
John Anthony WestRead
It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.
Isaac AsimovRead
We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, 'What is real?' Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.
Philip K. DickRead
You didn't have to read 'Playboy,' visit the mansion, wear pajamas, or even be straight: The effects of its ideas about women on the American psyche were totalizing. Women were inferior to men because, for 'Playboy,' they were scenery - pretty, passive, usually white, often blonde, there.
Wesley MorrisRead
Now, when Luke Skywalker unmasks his father, he is taking off the machine role that the father has played. The father was the uniform. That is power, the state role.
Joseph CampbellRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.