Quotes about Action

One hidden act of kindness is worth more than all the burial mounds of rhetoric, all the mumbling and fumbling and tardiness of Christians so preoccupied with cultivating their prayer lives that they cannot hear the anguished cry of the child in the barrio.

Restlessness, therefore, is not to be regretted, but marshaled. Humans live toward.

Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.

We must not think that action alone is successful Christ-following. In God's eyes, the motives behind our actions are of paramount importance. You can want a godly family or a successful career or a low handicap or a beautiful lawn, but if you want them for yourself and not the glory of God, it's a fail.

Wayne Grudem, my friend and seminary professor, put it well: "God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with His whole being, yet God acts differently in different places."

We know we are called to act like quality men with urgency that is governed by clarity in the strength of the Lord. What remains is this matter of love.

Although it may be evident enough in theory that whoever plays a finite game plays freely, it is often the case that finite players will be unaware of this absolute freedom and will come to think that whatever they do they must do.

When machinery functions perfectly it ceases to be there-but so do we. Radios and films allow us to be where we are not and not be where we are. Moreover, machinery is veiling. It is a way of hiding our inaction from ourselves under what appear to be actions of great effectiveness. We persuade ourselves that, comfortably seated behind the wheels of our autos, shielded from every unpleasant change of weather, and raising or lowering our foot an inch or two, we have actually traveled somewhere.

You had decided to take the action, whatever it was."   "Yes."   "Yes. It involved perhaps a period of inaction."   "Of comparative inaction—yes."   "Of suspense, shall we say?"   "Yes—of suspense, certainly."   "Possibly

They had merely discovered that comfortable and well-fed people are constitutionally disinclined for united action of any sort—a fact which explains the asinine meekness of the income-tax payer.

It is in vain to expect our prayers to be heard, if we do not strive as well as pray.

Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost.