Quotes about Proximity

When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there.

God seems far away and French fries are right around the corner at the drive-thru.

You see, whenever we live in relationship, whenever we simply live in proximity to other people, sooner or later we will run up against their issues—the unhealed or unholy parts of their personalities. Just as they will run into ours. Living in community is like a pack of porcupines sharing the same den. We will get stuck.

We make our friends we make our enemies but God makes our next door neighbour.

Nothing will give you emotional laryngitis like living in close proximity to someone who refuses to listen. Having emotions but no voice chokes the life out of relationships.

I don't know if you'll really get to know me unless you're close to me.

With lack of sleep and too much understanding I grow a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon.

The nearer the church, the further from God.

If we want to see God as he longs for us to see him, we must look at Jesus very closely.

God's ear lies close to the believer's lip.

One must love what is nearest, one must love what is to hand, as a dog loves.

Being in proximity makes a difference. Relationships make issues real and complicated and personal. Relationships move us from ideology to compassion. We can't love our neighbor if we don't know them. And once we are proximate, love requires us to take action, to stand up for life in tangible ways.