We may not understand the pathways God lays out before us. We may not even like walking the journey. But even in failure, we can trust that He’ll do more than we expect.
Growth comes in the aftermath of failure, not wild success.
I realized that what I feared the most had materialized, yet I survived.
Why must we cling to those who walk away instead of granting freedom? We must give the same liberty God gives to prodigals-an ability to let them go-or we'll be perennially bound to others for our happiness and effective service.
Growth comes from God, to those with surrendered, yielded hearts.
Jesus wastes none of our stories, even our tales of woe. He transforms them into epic adventures where we dare to face our past for the sake of our present.
When Jesus isn’t our everything, our enough, we pursue every other thing that fills.
I understand true life doesn't happen when I constantly gaze backwards, mulling over all the injustices others have done or I have done to others.
I wear the word victim like a badge of honor — my own purple heart. I see what others do more than I see what I'm capable of.
My stubborn, self-savvy heart will not reach for the sky if my earth becomes everything I need. If people fill me up then where is my need for the transcendent? If everything is glory and beauty and sweetness and light, will I be the type of soul tha...
With an all-or-nothing mind-set, you tend to judge yourself relentlessly…Eeyore becomes your best friend.
We’d avoid a lot of insecurity, if we fully, wholly believed in God’s wild affection for us.
Pain can either thrust me into the arms of Jesus or make me turn my back on Him. Either way, it's a choice.
Sometimes we control our family members because we idolize and idealize our perfect plan over the journey that God has laid out for them. (p. 56)
We cannot love our enemies until we see those twin truths: God loves me. God loves them.
We enslave in the manner we talk to ourselves. But the truth is, God already set us free. He secured our release. To constantly hurt ourselves, resting in our inadequacy, is to call Him a LIAR.
The roadblocks to growth and joy come when we forget the bigness of God & instead make people bigger than He is.
It’s never easy letting go. But if we don’t learn the art of relinquishment, we’ll never move forward to embrace the new relationships God has for us.
