Quotes about Perspective

I have no room for a God who lets children die." "The innkeeper had no room, but it did not thwart God's plan. Who is Ben Fielding to have no room for God? Shall the dog decide whether there is room in the house for the Master? Shall the cricket decide whether there is room in the forest for the Lion?

God uses suffering and impending death to unfasten us from this earth and to set our minds on what lies beyond.

God's ownership and sovereignty offer a life-changing and freeing perspective when the house is robbed (or burns to the ground), the car is totaled, the laptop computer is stolen . . . or the diagnosis is terminal cancer.

God provides not only in what he gives us, but at times in what he keeps from us. Have you ever noticed that excess money just seems to dissipate in a multitude of directions?

In the truest sense, Christian pilgrims have the best of both worlds. We have joy whenever this world reminds us of the next, and we take solace whenever it does not.

Jim Elliot put it, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Why work for what has no lasting value? Why rejoice over what in the end will not matter?

The people who change lives are the ones who point us away from the world's short-term perspective to God's long-term perspective. Life on earth is a dot, a brief window of opportunity; life in Heaven (and ultimately on the New Earth) is a line going out from that dot for eternity. If we're smart, we'll live not for the dot, but for the line.

For Christians, this present life is the closest they will come to Hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to Heaven.

Montaigne said something that rings true for many of us: "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.

Life on earth is a dot, a brief window of opportunity; life in Heaven (and ultimately on the New Earth) is a line going out from that dot for eternity. If we're smart, we'll live not for the dot, but for the line.

Ever seen that bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys wins"? Millions of people act as if it were true. The more accurate saying is "He who dies with the most toys still dies—and never takes his toys with him." When we die after devoting our lives to acquiring things, we don't win—we lose. We move into eternity, but our toys stay behind, filling junkyards. The bumper sticker couldn't be more wrong.

Eternal life doesn't begin when we die; it has already begun. With eternity in view, nearly any honest activity—whether building a shed, driving a bus, pruning trees, changing diapers, or caring for a patient—can be an investment in God's kingdom.