A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
The right way to pray is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True prayer involves seeking a personal connection with a divine being, akin to a child reaching out to a caring parent.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer emphasizes the importance of approaching prayer with the trust and openness of a child towards a loving parent. This quote highlights the relationship between the individual and God, suggesting that effective prayer is not simply about words but about the heartfelt connection that recognizes God's benevolence and care.
Themes
PrayerFatherSpiritualityConnectionTrust
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon about the nature of prayer, I could include this quote to illustrate the importance of a personal relationship with God.
More from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
All quotes βIn normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then letβs see something to prove it.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
Similar quotes
If you want to talk to God, pray. If you want him to talk to you, read your scriptures.
Richard G. ScottRead
People think of faith as being something that you don't really believe, a device in helping you believe simply it. Of course that is quite wrong. As Pascal says, faith is a gift of God. It is different from the proof of it. It is the kind of faith God himself places in the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument... He says of it, too, that it is the heart which is aware of God, and not reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not be reason.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Let us ask the Lord for this grace: that our hearts become free and filled with light, so that we can rejoice as children of God.
Pope FrancisRead
If our gospel does not free the individual up for a unique life of spiritual adventure in living with God daily, we simply have not entered fully into the good news that Jesus brought.
Dallas WillardRead
There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.
Abraham Joshua HeschelRead
Whoever wants God intensely, finds Him. Go and verify it in your own life.
RamakrishnaRead