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Dietrich Bonhoeffer's inspiring message to young people!?

“This is the last one.
But for me, it is the beginning of life.”

These were the last words of 39-year-old Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he ascended the gallows on April 9, 1945.
As the saying goes, Bonhoeffer's death was the beginning of life.
His life and writings revitalized postwar German society and church, which had been completely devastated, and cultivated the soil on which the tree of righteousness could once again grow.

I hope that Bonhoeffer's words, which seem to shine a light on a dark night, will reach the youth of today. I have compiled excerpts from his various works.
Reading his writings, you will be amazed at how profound theology, radiant with foresight, is so beautifully expressed in language that it so clearly reveals truth.
Above all, you will learn where the true value of human existence lies as a human being created in the image of God, and how to live a truly meaningful life.

I hope this book will serve as a small stepping stone to get a little closer to Bonhoeffer's great legacy.
I hope that through his writing, the youth of this era, who are suffering amidst the extreme confusion of values, will see the light and find their way.

You are heavily armed with iron armor
Towards the brightly shining mountain fortress, piercing through the veil of death and demons.
Riding a horse through a dark valley
You probably know the knight with the stern expression.
For life and purity like this article
Fight bravely against the evil forces working in darkness.
If you want to become whole as a person
First of all, you must be whole as a child,
Also, as a young person, you must be whole.
Be everything you are,
You must exist as a whole person.
Be wholehearted in everything you do.
---「Ⅰ.
From "Speaking of Youth"

I just finished reading "The Record of the House of the Dead."
It was very wise and contained a lot of good content.
Dostoevsky's assertion that humans cannot live without hope, and that humans who have truly lost all hope become savage and evil, never leaves my mind.


It is unclear whether the word "hope" is used in this book in the same sense as "fantasy."
While the importance of fantasy in life cannot be underestimated, it is crucial for Christians to have only grounded hope.
If fantasy exerts such a powerful influence on human life, sustaining it from collapse, how much more powerful would a hope with an absolute foundation for life exert? That life would never be broken or destroyed.
“According to the commandment of Christ Jesus, our hope” (1 Tim. 1:1).
This formula of Paul is the power of our lives.
_---「Ⅱ.
From "Speaking of Humans"

I pray to the Lord early in the morning.

I can't pray on my own.
Help me to pray,
Please gather my scattered thoughts.

There is darkness within me, but there is light with the Lord.

I am lonely, but the Lord does not abandon me.

I am helpless, but the Lord helps me.

I am anxious, but with the Lord there is peace.

I am in unbearable pain, but the Lord has patience.

I do not know your ways, Lord, but you know my path.
---「Ⅲ.
From “Speaking of Faith”

When people suffer, they go to God
I implore him for help, asking for happiness and bread,
I pray for deliverance from sickness, sin, and death.

Everyone does it, whether they are Christians or Gentiles.

People come to the suffering God
Without a home and without bread,
Finding Him in poverty and contempt
We look at Him who is swallowed up in sin, weakness, and death.

Christians stand beside Him who suffers.

God seeks out all those who are suffering.
Feed your body and soul with His bread
He died on the cross for Christians and Gentiles.

And forgive them both.
---「Ⅳ.
From "Speaking of Eternity"

The church is a part of the world.
The church is part of a lost world, a world without God, a world under the curse, a world of vanity and evil.
Yes, in that the church misuses God's name.
The church is a world of great evil, with enormous potential, in that it treats God as a plaything and turns Him into an idol of human beings.
If the Church withdraws from the last solidarity with the evil world and boasts of a hostile role toward it, then it is undoubtedly the world that has been lost forever, the world of the Antichrist.

---From the "Appendix"