In fact, as I was driving home, running into one street after another that had been blocked by fallen trees, I thought, "You can choose to let this bother you or let this be an adventure and welcome the challenge.
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
The great illusion of leadership is to think that others can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
When you say, "I can offer only my love and my friendship" I wonder if you realize that you're offering the greatest gift I could ever receive.
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"While the rest of the world watches Seinfeld, I'm able to sit here and delight in your friendship, via this e-mail,"
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"Oh heavens no, Tom! I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"I've never been more scared in my life," he told me then. "But in some ways, I've never been more peaceful, either. It's not about the cancer, but about the good that I can make come out of it."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
As I was telling [a friend] last night, all Steve's life he's felt a little 'less than', or maybe a lot 'less than.' I'm so glad that he gets to know at the end of his life how much he's loved, how much he and his life have meant to so many people."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"So we're all in this together," Steve said. "Let's just teach. If we don't teach, all this crap has been for naught. We can't waste this, because this sucks. It bites the big one. But if we all learn how to teach a little better..." ". . . And love a little stronger," Terri said. "By God, every minute of it is worth it; every second of it,"
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“There's [all these people] inside this room and a gazillion people outside of this room who need love," he said. "So when you go to sleep tonight, thank God for tomorrow. Life isn't about what you've done, but what you can do."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"With grief there is, inevitably, some times of anger and you know, God can take our anger," he had told me that first day in his office. "I think God respects the fact that we would share a whole gamut of feelings."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"Sometimes," my five-year-old son said into my shoulder that night, "life is so beautiful, you just have to cry."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"In times of tragedy, look for the helpers," Nancy McFeely Rogers would often tell her son. “'They're always there. Perhaps on the sidelines, but the helpers are always there."
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
"I bet you know it," I said. "It begins, 'Dear God, make me an instrument of your peace.'" Fred immediately recognized the first line of the Prayer of St. Francis. He answered with the second. "Where there is hatred, let me sow love," Fred said. "Where there is injury, pardon," I said. Then, for the rest of the prayer, Fred and I alternated, line by line, speaking quietly on the telephone. Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy; O Divine Master, Grant that I not so much seek to be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“I’m convinced fewer and fewer can escape major suffering in this life. The kingdom of God is for the broken hearted.”
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“Your place in this life is unique, absolutely unique,” he wrote. “Do you know how special you really are?”
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“I think a man shows much more courage by being honest with his fears and feelings, sharing them with someone he can trust,” I said.
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“In our world, the movie stars and pro athletes tend to get the headlines and the standing ovations, while the real heroes of life, people who quietly go about their lives, raising their families, working hard, being faithful to their spouses—those people are pretty much ignored,” I said. “But for one night, I’d like to change that. Tonight, I’d ask you to stand up and give my father a standing ovation, honoring him and the millions of other men like him who are the quiet heroes of our world, who just get up every morning and do the right thing.”
I'm Proud of You
Tim Madigan
“Entering the study where his father was poring over his account books, Jack flung himself into a chair and observed, ‘I have a prejudice against the French.’ His father, interrupted in a long addition run, said irritably, ‘Why?’ Jack, crossing his legs and putting his finger tips together, replied, ‘If I knew why, it would not be a prejudice.’”
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
In the middle of the night of August 21 he spoke to her of the goodness of God. Like a flash she said, “What have we done for Him?” Words that he prayed he would never forget.
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
Smugy’s method of marking was quite peculiar. He gave plus points and minus points according to whatever was positively good or bad in a piece of work, and at the end of the term he added all the plus and minus marks together.
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
some were also put off by his cool, rational approach, by the lack of emotional and obvious devotional content. To him, of course, feelings were unreliable, transient things, and there was little to be gained by making people feel better.
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘thy will be done.’”24
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
But the greatest change of all, he said, had come from the machine, which “alters man’s place in nature” and gives us a new myth—that the new is better.
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
Till that words can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face until we have faces?”
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis
George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
Something happens when you feel ownership. You no longer act like a spectator or consumer, because you’re an owner. Faith is at its best when it’s that way too. It’s best lived when it’s owned.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
They need a change of attitude, not more opportunities.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
It has all the potential you bring to it—nothing more, nothing less. To find out just how much that is, all you have to do is show up. You don’t need a plan; you just need to be present.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
He was committed to me and he believed in me. I wasn’t a project; I was his friend.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The world can make you think that love can be picked up at a garage sale or enveloped in a Hallmark card. But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Neither of us was a very good shot and we rarely hit what we aimed for, so we just called whatever we hit the target. There are a lot of people who still do that.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
There was also something about studying the Bible with a bunch of guys on Wednesdays, which sounded weird because I thought you were supposed to read it and do what it said, not just study it.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The people who slowly became typical have the greatest problem wrapping their minds around a dynamic friendship with an invisible, alive God.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
What Jesus said we could do is leave typical behind. We could leave all of the comparisons and all of the trappings and all of the pretending of religion. Jesus told the people He was with that it’s not enough to just look like you love God. He said we’d know the extent of our love for God by how well we loved people.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I learned that fully loving and fully living are not only synonymous but the kind of life that Jesus invited us to be part of.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Ryan was out of control. He had no idea what an outrageous thing he was asking. But you see, to Ryan, I wasn’t a total stranger—no one was. To him, the whole world was full of coconspirators when it came to winning over his love. He was completely unaware of and unimpeded by what was proper, what was acceptable, and what was conventional. Nothing was going to get in the way of what he decided he was going to do.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Ryan’s love was audacious. It was whimsical. It was strategic. Most of all, it was contagious.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It’s about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That’s what I want my life to be all about—full of abandon, whimsy, and in love. I want to be engaged to life and with life.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The thing I love about God is He intentionally guides people into failure. He made us be born as little kids who can’t walk or talk or even use a bathroom correctly. We have to be taught everything. All that learning takes time, and He made us so we are dependent on Him, our parents, and each other. The whole thing is designed so we try again and again until we finally get it right. And the whole time He is endlessly patient.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I’ve realized that I used to be afraid of failing at the things that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I used to think I could shape the circumstances around me, but now I know Jesus uses circumstances to shape me.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I’ve learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can’t see past it.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I once heard somebody say that God had closed a door on an opportunity they had hoped for. But I’ve always wondered if, when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in our hearts because He wants it for us and it honors Him. Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God wants us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can come in.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
If Jesus has taught me anything, though, it’s that sometimes you can really want to know somebody and it takes them forever to want to know you back.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Like I’ve been saying, though, love is a do thing. It’s an energy that has to be dissipated.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Because God made me to love Maria, and because God made it so I had to convince her to love me back, He gave me a very real way to understand what is happening in the universe. Because of our love for each other, I understand just a little more how God has pursued me in creative and whimsical ways, ways that initially did not get my attention. Nevertheless, He wouldn’t stop. That’s what love does—it pursues blindly, unflinchingly, and without end. When you go after something you love, you’ll do anything it takes to get it, even if it costs everything.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Am I the right guy? I don’t know, but I’m the guy being asked, and the last thing I want to do is miss an opportunity or make God mad, so I just keep saying yes. Maybe God is doing some inexplicable things in your life. Each of us gets to decide every time whether to lean in or step back—to say yes, ignore it, or tell God why He has the wrong person.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
We were all meant to save many lives. God is always trying to save lives, and it seems like He usually uses the least likely people to do it.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
“You know what it is about someone that makes them a friend? A friend doesn’t just say things; a friend does.”
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
When people realize there’s no agenda other than friendship and better understanding, it changes things. The leaders realized we weren’t there to tell them to stop doing this, start doing that, or talk about controversies or conflicting beliefs or plans.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I used to think I needed an invitation to get into most places, but now I know I’m already invited.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
That the words people say to us not only have shelf life but have the ability to shape life.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The cool thing about taking Jesus up on His offer is that whatever controls you doesn’t anymore.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I think faith can be kind of the same because Jesus didn’t always explain everything in great detail. If someone I trust tells me something, and I know it’s for my benefit, I just trust it.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The people I know, they are mostly aiming their crosshairs at stuff like being loved, not being lonely, finding some security, and a bunch of other things that are actually pretty normal and worth pursuing. In fact, I think God put it in our hearts to aim for those things, and it’s nice when we actually hit those targets.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
You become like the people you hang around, and to a great degree, you end up going wherever they’re headed. When there is someone else behind the steering wheel, it needs to be someone you’d trust with your life, because you’ve given a great deal of control over your life to them.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
the mind, they say, works a lot like the Internet, a map of information collected from all of our experiences and interactions with other people. In other words, we become connected together and are influenced more than we think.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
What I’ve decided is a pretty good idea is to just ask people where they’re going before you get in with them.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I’m glad I ran into Lynn, and I’m glad she kept calling too. It taught me something about faith. It taught me that when God is big enough and loves me enough to say He forgives me, I should actually believe Him. I mean, I shouldn’t keep feeling bad about all of the times I’ve messed up because that’s ignoring what God said, just like Lynn ignored what I said.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Most great adventures work that way. You don’t plan them, you don’t wait to get all the details right, you just do them.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
That’s what guys who are together on an adventure do—they don’t make a big deal out of everything. The big deal is that they’re together.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Somehow in all of this, the terrain we navigate doesn’t seem as scary either, because when we’re on an adventure with God we’re too excited to be afraid and too engaged to be thinking of anything else.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
You don’t need to know everything when you’re with someone you trust.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I wondered if these surfers were cheating the same way I did in the doctor’s office. Maybe they were pretending to hear just because someone like me was looking.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
God doesn’t talk to me in an audible voice because God isn’t a human being; He’s God. That makes sense to me, because human beings are limited and God isn’t limited at all. He can communicate to us in any way He wants to anytime He wants to. Through flowers, other people, an uncomfortable sense, a feeling of joy, goose bumps, a newfound talent, or an appreciation we acquire over time.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
We don’t always know where He’s headed or what to expect along the way. But I think direction is the point, the part, and whole of it. He wants followers, not just onlookers or people taking notes.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
She just kept pointing me back toward the God I’m trying to follow, the people and the places I’ve been drawn to, and the hopes that have emerged within me. That’s what Jesus does too; He points us toward Himself.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
For those who resonate with formulas, here it is: add your whole life, your loves, your passions, and your interests together with what God said He wants us to be about, and that’s your answer. If you want to know the answer to the bigger question— what’s God’s plan for the whole world?—buckle up: it’s us.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
We’re God’s plan, and we always have been. We aren’t just supposed to be observers, listeners, or have a bunch of opinions. We’re not here to let everyone know what we agree and don’t agree with, because, frankly, who cares? Tell me about the God you love; tell me about what He has inspired uniquely in you; tell me about what you’re going to do about it, and a plan for your life will be pretty easy to figure out from there. I guess what I’m saying is that most of us don’t get an audible plan for our lives. It’s way better than that. We get to be God’s plan for the whole world by pointing people toward Him.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Until then, it seems that what God does most of the time when He has something to say is this . . . He doesn’t pass us messages, instead He passes us each other.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Despite our inherent beauty, each of us is tempted to hide the original so we won’t get damaged. I understand why, I really do. And the fake version of us, it’s not worthless. It’s just worth less because it’s only a copy of the real us, a version we don’t care about as much. When we hang the fake version out there, it’s not the version God created.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
They said that for me to know God, there was a whole pile of things I’d need to know first. Honestly, they sounded a lot like the guy in aisle three. What I realized, though, is that all I really needed to know when it came down to it was the direction I was pointing and that I was somewhere inside the large circle of God’s love and forgiveness.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I read somewhere in the Bible that there is a book of life. I don’t think that this book of life is full of equations, and I don’t think that it’s just a list of names either. I think that this book of life is more like a book of lives, a book of stories. I bet it’s about people traveling in the direction of Jesus, trying to follow Him. People like me who made lots of mistakes and midcourse corrections. It’s about people who stayed within the large circle of His love and grace, staying the course on a long line pointing toward Him. And their names weren’t in the book because of what they did or didn’t do. They were in there because of who God is and what He has done to draw a circle around them.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
After we each cross the finish line in our lives, I imagine it like floating into the Hawaiian marina when our names were announced, one by one. And at the end, perhaps simple words spoken by a loving and proud God will be, “Friends, it’s been a long trip. Welcome home.”
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Maybe Jesus wants us to be secretly incredible instead. That was His plan for self-promotion. Secretly incredible people keep what they do one of God’s best-kept secrets because the only one who needs to know, the God of the universe, already knows.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The truth is, the task would probably be even nobler if we didn’t talk about it and just did it instead.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I’d rather trade all the religious jargon for the chance to invite one person into experiencing Jesus.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
You want a mission statement to go along with being secretly incredible? Okay, here it is: “Be Awesome.” That’s it. If you want to follow Jesus’ example of how He did things, that’s probably all we’d write down instead of our otherwise heady doctrinal statements.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
He’s another one of those secretly incredible guys who doesn’t measure his value by what he has but by what he’d be willing to give up.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
That’s one of the things about love. It always assumes it can find a way to express itself.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
rather than having us apply for a position, He says our lives are the position.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
What whimsy means to me is a combination of the “do” part of faith along with doing something worth doing.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Perhaps God doesn’t want us spending our time picking sides or teams and trying on jerseys either. He wants us to pick a fight, and He also wants us to pick Him.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Sure, it’s easier to pick an opinion than it is to pick a fight. It’s also easier to pick an organization or a jersey and identify with a fight than it is to actually go pick one, to commit to it, to call it out and take a swing.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I collected pictures and gathered artifacts and bumper stickers about Christianity, and I talked about knowing Jesus like we were best friends, when actually, we really hardly knew each other at all. And I memorized Bible verses and the names of the books of the Bible in order and the sequence of a bunch of events as well as who was there. At some point I had to confess that I was stalking Jesus. I was actually creeping myself out a little and I realized I was probably creeping God out too. So I decided I’d stop.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
What’s up with equating “Bible study” with knowing God anyway? Wouldn’t it be a horrible thing if we studied the ones we loved instead of bonding in deeper ways by doing things with them?
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Thinking about work as a day job has made a big difference in the way I approach what I do. It’s also helped me not to confuse who I am with what I do.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
I think about my day job as a great way to fund the things we’re doing. Now when I put on a suit and tie or jump on a plane to go take a deposition, we call it “fund-raising.” It still makes me grin every time to say it this way.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
Something about the hardwiring that God gave each of us links the position of our bodies and position of our hearts.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
The world has been shouting over the noise of our programs that it doesn’t need more presidents or organizations, what it needs are more friends. If you are a sincere friend, folks around you will quickly understand that there’s no hidden agenda and nothing on the other side of the equals sign—just you.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
We weren’t thinking at that time about where the chain reaction would stop, and we’re still not thinking about it. I’d like to think it’s because we didn’t have a plan. We had a big idea instead.
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World
Bob Goff and Donald Miller
All of our notions of modernity and progress and all our advances in technological expertise have not brought an end to war. Our declaring the notion of sin to be obsolete has not diminished human suffering. And the easy answers: blaming technology, or, for that matter, the world’s religions, have not solved the problem. The problem, C. S. Lewis insists, is us.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining ‘It’s not fair’ before you can say Jack Robinson.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris
It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics)
C. S. Lewis and Kathleen Norris