Psalms Quotes

“But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings–all of which the heart can do by itself–with prayer. And we confuse earth and heaven, man and God. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“Talk about one’s own guilt can be just as far from the Word of God as talk about one’s innocence.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men but only in the sight of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“It is characteristic of the faith of the Christian that through God’s grace and the merit of Jesus Christ he has become entirely justified and guiltless in God’s eyes, so that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8: 1 ). And it is characteristic of the prayer of the Christian to hold fast to this innocence and justification which has come to him, appealing to God’s word and thanking for it. So not only are we permitted, but directly obligated–provided we take God’s action to us at all seriously–to pray in all humiliation and certainty: “I was blameless before him and I kept myself from guilt” (Psalm 18:23); “If thou testest me thou wilt find no wickedness in me” (Psalm 17:3). With such a prayer we stand in the center of the New Testament, in the community of the cross of Jesus Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“The disciples want to pray, but they do not know how to do it. That can be very painful, to want to speak with God and not to be able to, to have to be speechless before God, to discover that every call to him dies within itself, that heart and mouth speak an absurd language which God does not want to hear.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“to finally take up his bourgeois responsibility as a German, he went to the spot where God had placed him through birth and talents. He never considered rejecting his position in life.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“Now he felt that it would be for him an illegitimate escape from responsibility if he were to avoid the growing contacts with the political and military resistance movement. Not that everyone ought to act as he did, but in his position he saw no possibility of escape any longer into sinlessness and innocence. The sins of the bourgeoisie became clear in the flight from responsibility.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“America, . . . a place of free expression of everything with everyone, which is made possible through the civil courage characteristic of the American and through the lack of all inhibiting officiousness in personal conversation” (Bonhoeffer, cf. report from 1931).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“heaven,”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

“Nicht was wir gerade beten wollen, ist wichtig, sondern worum Gott von uns gebeten sein will. Wenn wir auf uns allein gestellt wären, so würden wir wohl auch vom Vaterunser oft nur die vierte Bitte beten. Aber Gott will es anders. Nicht die Armut unseres Herzens, sondern der Reichtum des Wortes Gottes soll unser Gebet bestimmen.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Die Psalmen: Das Gebetbuch der Bibel

“Beten heißt ja nicht einfach das Herz ausschütten, sondern es heißt, mit seinem erfüllten oder auch leeren Herzen den Weg zu Gott finden und mit ihm zu reden. Das kann kein Mensch von sich aus, dazu braucht er Jesus Christus.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Die Psalmen: Das Gebetbuch der Bibel