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If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
Quite
Determine
Prayer
Contrary
Word
Praying
Important
Necessary
Heart
Poverty
Perhaps
Aright
Ought
Richness
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Pray

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Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.
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As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
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In Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.
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We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
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Man seeks, in his manhood, not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas, but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness and faithful in friendship, making man free.
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The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
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It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
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Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.
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Whenever Christ calls us, His call leads us to death.
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We are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one event to the next in order not to have to spend a moment alone with ourselves, in order not to have to look at ourselves in the mirror.
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Every call of Christ leads into death.
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Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.
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