Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of faith and divine support in overcoming suffering.
Timothy Keller's quote suggests that the experience of suffering can feel overwhelming and intolerable, especially if one lacks the assurance of divine presence and support. Faith in God provides comfort and strength during difficult times, allowing individuals to endure hardships by feeling supported and accompanied through their struggles.
In practice
In discussing the challenges of life, one might say, 'As Timothy Keller noted, suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.'
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.
It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.
My interest in well-being evolved from my interest in decision making - from raising the question of whether people know what they will want in the future and whether the things that people want for themselves will make them happy.
Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.
In my research, I've interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call 'different': scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.
Hope, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention.
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