8. Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

It had been Luther's idea that Christians should confess to one another instead of to a priest. Most Lutherans had thrown that baby out with the bathwater and didn't confess to anyone. Confession of any kind was considered overly Catholic, just as extemporaneous prayer was criticized as too pietistic. But Bonhoeffer successfully instituted the practice of confessing one to another.

It's much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

This was evidently the place Wilberforce had come to, a place of such guilt before God, of such misery at his own failings, that nothing short of being publicly pilloried would do. And so now he unburdened himself somewhat by declaring himself to his friends. One can only imagine what, in this overemotional state, he might have written to them, and one can only imagine what they would have thought upon reading his declaration.

Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgement. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin.

If she were alive today, she would be ashamed of me. I'm trying to change that.

One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission.

The amazing thing is that He loves you so much, and yet you're not always right with Him

But You never reject a repentant and humble heart.

I needed to let go of the idea of a God who was mad at me for feeling how I was feeling. Now, I bask in an understanding of the divine that delights in truth and the complexities of the human experience - even when it's not very 'clean.'

He had heard men talk of the unfairness of a death-bed repentance - as if it was an easy thing to break the habit of a life whether to do good or evil.