Quotes from Philip Yancey

Pain allows us, the fortunate ones at least, to lead free and active lives. If you ever doubt that, visit a leprosarium and observe for yourself a world without pain.

God shattered the inexorable law of sin and retribution by invading earth, absorbing the worst we had to offer, crucifixion, and then fashioning from that cruel deed the remedy for the human condition. Calvary broke up the logjam between justice and forgiveness. By accepting onto his innocent self all the severe demands of justice, Jesus broke forever the chain of ungrace.

a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness.

As Christ's body on earth we are compelled to move, as he did, toward those who hurt. That has been God's consistent movement in all history.

What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day?

Nature teaches me nothing about Incarnation or the Victorious Christian Life. It does, though, awaken my desire to meet whoever is responsible for the monarch butterfly.

do worry about the recent tendency for the labels "evangelical Christian" and "religious right" to become interchangeable. Increasingly Christians are perceived as rigid moralists who want to control others' lives.

The more we focus on tangential issues, the less effective we will be in addressing matters of true moral significance.

Every institution, it seems, runs on ungrace and its insistence that we earn our way.

by embracing grief and standing beside the hurting person, we can indeed aid another's search for meaning.

God took a great risk by announcing forgiveness in advance, and the scandal of grace involves a transfer of that risk to us.

Where is God when it hurts? I have often asked. The answer is another question, Where is the church when it hurts?