Quote

Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try to find anything.....It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap he does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain.

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
Trying
Away
Fill
Would
Another
Keeps
Love
Doe
Kept
Anything
Empty
Fills
May
Cost
Grieving
Find
Alive
Communion
Nothing
Wrong
Gaps
Even
Pain
Nonsense

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self- satisfied in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The deceit, the lie of the Devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God's Word.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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All are called to be what in the reality of God they are already.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Cheap grace is grace without discipleship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Once again, Jesus calls those who follow him to share his passion.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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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When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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And if we ask how are we to know where our hearts are, the answer is just as simple - everything which hinders us from loving God above all things and acts as a barrier between ourselves and our obedience to Jesus is our treasure, and the place where our heart is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer