God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the depth of God's empathy for human suffering.
In this quote, Timothy Keller reflects on the profound nature of divine compassion, suggesting that God not only acknowledges human misery but also personally engages with it. This willingness to bear suffering highlights the gravity with which God considers our pain, offering a perspective that encourages individuals to find solace and hope in their struggles, knowing that they are not alone in their suffering.
In practice
In a sermon about resilience, one might use this quote to illustrate the depth of divine empathy.
Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.
Only in Jesus Christ do we see how the untamable, infinite God can become a baby and a loving Savior. On the cross we see how both the love and the holiness of God can be fulfilled at once.
All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause.
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.
The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is actually the right to destroy the city.
Age steals away all things, even the mind.
Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.
To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.
At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.
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