Bonhoeffer writes to his brother-in-law:
If if is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible., not only in the New but also in the Old Testament. . . .
And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way--and this has not been for so very long--it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, and often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer. - Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, p. 137.
