Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Martin LutherRead
God uses lust to impel men to marry, ambition to office, avarice to earning, and fear to faith. God led me like an old blind goat.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that God uses human emotions and motivations to guide people towards meaningful actions in life.
Martin Luther illustrates how various human desires and fears can be harnessed as divine tools to motivate individuals toward significant life choices, such as marriage, ambition in career, financial pursuits, and ultimately faith. The metaphor of being led 'like an old blind goat' implies a lack of control in one's direction, yet acknowledges that these impulses can lead to meaningful outcomes under God's guidance.
Themes
LustAmbitionAvariceFearFaithMarriage
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about the complexity of human motivations in life decisions.
More from Martin Luther
All quotes βNow if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ...God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
Martin LutherRead
It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and wellbeing, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.
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Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Martin LutherRead
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Martin LutherRead
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
Martin LutherRead
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