Quotes from John Ortberg

The question is, can a human being hold on to God in the face of suffering? After all, suffering is the test of love.

It only makes sense to ask God for guidance in the context of a life committed to "seeking first the kingdom.

The anonymous1 author wrote, "Wherefore play the game of life warily, for your opponent is full of subtlety, and take abundant thought over your moves, for the stake is your soul.

The problem with people, according to Jesus, is not that we are too happy for God's taste, but that we are not happy enough.

And it struck me, in that year, how deeply both faith and doubt are part of my life. We often think of them as opposites. Many books argue for one or the other. But while in some respects they are enemies, in other ways they are surprisingly alike: both are concerned with ultimate issues; both pop up unasked for at unexpected moments; both are necessary. I

No one can see God's face" (see Exodus 33:20). What do they mean when they say that no one can see God's face? They mean that we cannot see God as he is. We are not capable of this. We inevitably project our own fallenness onto God.

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who doubts sometimes, has written that the reason so many babies keep being born is that God loves stories. Why

He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Etty spent her last days giving hope and care, "with a kind word for everyone she met on the way." Her final words were written on a postcard and thrown off Wagon No. 12, the railroad car she rode to what she knew would be her death in Auschwitz. "We left camp singing," she wrote. The Nazis took control of her possessions, her mobility, her work, her family, her body, and finally her life, yet she believed that they did not truly take anything at all.

Dostoyevsky, who was a believer, wrote that the "death of a single infant calls into question the existence of God."1

I remember how at night I didn't have slow, sweet talks, but merely rushed the children to bed so I could have more time to myself.

The character of the faith that allows us to be transformed by suffering and darkness is not doubt-free certainty; rather, it is tenacious obedience.