Frederick Buechner Quotes – Inspiring Words of Wisdom

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

Every once in a while, God lets you get caught between a rock and a hard place to show you that there is no rock or hard place.

The grace of God means something like: We’re screwed and that’s okay.

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born.

Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.

One life on this earth is all we get, whether it is enough or not, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.

The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Frederick Buechner Quotes – Inspiring Words of Wisdom part 2

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.

Grace can change your life in unimaginable ways, but only if you let it.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and the gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Theology is the study of God and his ways. And with that definition, everyone’s a theologian because everyone has some idea of what God’s like.

The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.

In the end, love is the only theology that matters.

You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.

If you don’t know what forgiveness is, you’ve never really needed it.

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness – especially in the wilderness – you shall love him.

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

Go into yourself, and see how deep is the place from which your life flows.

In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway.

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me.

If you love someone, you will love their failures as well as their successes.

The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all. If you don’t believe that, go try to fall asleep at night with the window open and look up at the sky. What is outside your window is both empty beyond measure and crowded with the world.

Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

You can’t be too careful what you tell a child because you never know what he’ll take hold of and spend the rest of his life remembering you by.

Jesus never asked his followers to sit down and shut up. He asked them to stand up, speak out, and be counted.

Our lives are filled with noise: TV, radio, conversations, thoughts. But sometimes, if we’re lucky, we hear a whisper from the still, small voice deep within us. And it changes everything.

The most important thing any human being can do is to love God more than anything else, more than life itself.

In the end, only love matters.

The love of God is a burden that lightens every other burden it touches.

The worst thing that can happen to a rich man is that he can have everything he wants. And when that worst thing happens, what’s left to wish for?

Our lives have a tendency to spin out of control. But even when we can’t see it, God is still there, holding the chaos together.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. But remember, too, that you are loved. And that makes all the difference.

You can’t know who you truly are until you know who God is.

God’s love is like a song that never ends. It keeps playing, even when we can’t hear it.

The only way to truly find yourself is to lose yourself in something bigger than yourself.

God doesn’t promise us an easy life, but He does promise to be with us every step of the way.

When the world feels like it’s falling apart, the best thing you can do is hold on tight to the One who holds it all together.

The most important decision you’ll ever make is whether or not to believe in God. Everything else flows from that.

Be still and know that I am God. In the midst of the chaos, take a moment to be still and remember that He is in control.