Quotes about Estrangement

In this fallen world, struggles, sin, and unfaithfulness are a given. The only question is whether our response to these struggles, sin, and unfaithfulness will draw us closer to God—or whether it will estrange us from ourselves, our Creator, and each other.

You get used to it, not in the good way, to the extent of the entire world oftentimes feeling like a place where you weren't invited. If you've been here, you know. If not, must be nice.

Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. (2 Sam. 14:14)

God is never in the wrong when He and one of His children are separated; yet He devises ways so that the banished person may not remain estranged from Him. Never underestimate the significance of timing when it comes to mending. You may not get another chance.

I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.

Insecurity not only paralyzes our relationship with the living God but has a devastating effect on interpersonal relationships. It is the starting point of all social estrangement. It breaks down openness, which is the bridge to the existential world of the other. It undermines real communication and causes a kind of rupture in the evolution of authentic personality.

What is happening here is an unheard-of event: hurtful, offensive, and in radical contradiction to the most venerated tradition of the time. Kenneth Bailey, in his penetrating explanation of Luke's story, shows that the son's manner of leaving is tantamount to wishing his father dead.

Tragically, when sin entered the world, human beings were separated from God and from one another. For example, in Genesis 3 we see our first parents hiding from God and one another in shame that includes confusion over their nakedness and sexuality.

The estrangement between Edwards and his people began in 1744, in connection with a case of discipline in which a large number of the youth belonging to the leading families of the town were brought under suspicion of reading and circulating immoral books.

And he felt that his son, as the heir apparent, ought especially to behave himself to set an example for the nation. But the way his son behaved seemed to express a wish for England's ruin, and father and son became bitterly estranged.

Herein lies the serpent's deceit. Man knows good and evil, but because he is not the origin, because he acquires this knowledge only at the price of estrangement from the origin, the good and evil that he knows are not the good and evil of God but good and evil against God. They are good and evil of man's own choosing, in opposition to the eternal election of God. In becoming like God man has become a god against God.

Even sharp comments and hasty judgments that are often excused as being honest and straightforward, are thwarting the effect of the influence of the Holy Spirit on others. Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride. Pride creeps in almost everywhere, and the assemblies of the saints are not exceptions.