Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The 'will to power and independence' has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal.
It is not the nature of love to force a relationship, but it is the nature of love to open the way.
I really do believe that God is love, one of deep affection and grace and forgiveness and inspiration.
Jesus was always challenging the dogma of religion. So, you know, it's not like I'm out there by myself.
I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later.
Image and appearance tell you little. The inside is bigger than the outside when you have the eyes to see.
Thank goodness there are women in our lives -- that's all I can say. We get saved by the women in our lives.
It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair.
Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.
So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.
Transformation without work and pain, without suffering, without a sense of loss is just an illusion of true change.
Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.
Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve.
Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.
And the Law that once contained impossible demands -- Thou Shalt Not... -- actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.
The ability to choose is at the essential core of our grandeur. Even evil exists because God respects our ability to choose.
Through . . . lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. . . . Lies become an inhibitor in your relationship . . . .
Today's minor irritations may become tomorrow's treasured memories. We often don't know what we are missing, until it's missing.
God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellect.
Emotions talked to you before you had words, so listen to them ... they are often more honest than the mind's remarkable ability to self deceive.
In some sense every parent does love their children. But some parents are too broken to love them well& others are barely able to love them at all.
Don't ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.
I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.
He was sick of God and God's religion, sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn't seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes.
The world in many ways would be a much calmer and gentler place if women ruled. There would have been fewer children sacrificed to the gods of greed and power.
You cannot heal yourself. You cannot heal anybody else. We're designed to do this in community because we were created inside community for community by community.
You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship.
I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.
I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful.
The intricacy and the inherent beautiful fragility of the human soul is such that it is uniquely damaged and only God knows how to heal it, and it's going to take time.
those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control
...humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.
Disconnect your identity from what you produce, and that’s a hard thing for us because we think of our significance, worth and value based on what we do instead of who we are.
My dad was a preacher. My relationship, for example, with my father -- very difficult, and very painful, and it took me 50 years to wipe the face of my father off the face of God.
"Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly"... "And if left unresolved you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place."
Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.
Anger is the right response to something that is so wrong. But don't let the anger and pain and loss you feel prevent you from forgiving him and removing your hands from around his neck.
Does that mean," asked Mack, "that all roads will lead to you?" "Not at all," smiled Jesus..."Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.
I think that most creative fiction involves the transformational process, whether it is Dickens or Dostoyevsky and the writer in some sense is expressing their own journey through such a wilderness.
I have moments that aren't too bad, but there's always something I'm struggling with, or feeling guilty about. I just figured I needed to try harder, but I find it difficult to sustain that motivation.
You need boundaries... Even in our material creations, boundaries mark the most beautiful of places, between the ocean and the shore, between the mountains and the plains, where the canyon meets the river.
Perhaps there is supranatural: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in.
I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.
Why do children love to hide and seek? Ask any person who has a passion to explore and discover and create. The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life.
Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?' Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don't want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.
Part of my journey is to say that the soul of the human being must be a massively intricate, wonderful creation that God has a respect for in ways that we do not and that leaves a huge amount of space to go explore.
I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day.
I wrote a story for my kids. It's fiction. It's not systematic theology. It's not a new book of the Bible. It's flawed, I wrote it. All of that goes into the mix, but I love the controversy. It elevates the conversation.
And when you learn, over the course of your life, that it's not about pleasing God, it's about learning how to trust God. That's a huge watershed, because trust is a whole different ballgame than appeasement or pleasing.
Much as I venerate the name of Newton, I am not obliged to believe that he was infallible. I see ... with regret that he was liable to err, and that his authority has, perhaps, sometimes even retarded the progress of science.