“Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off your bowlines. Leave the still waters of the harbor. Catch the trade winds with your sail!”
—Mark Twain
“The world we live in does not offer any lasting security. It can’t. What it does offer is trials, challenges, and a whole lot of opportunity. Our security can only be found in our obedience to God’s call in our lives.”
—John Maxwell
“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I ought to do, and what I ought to do, by God’s grace I will do.”
—Anonymous
“Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don’t be disappointed at anything or over-elated, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.”
—Jim Elliot
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
—Jim Elliot
“Have I an object, Lord below
Which would divide my heart with Thee?
Which would divert its even flow
In answer to thy constancy?
O teach me quickly to return,
And cause my heart afresh to burn.
Have I a hope, however dear,
Which would defer Thy coming, Lord—
Which would detain my spirit here
Where naught can lasting joy afford?
From it, my Savior, set me free
To look and long and wait for Thee.
Be Thou the object bright and fair
To fill and satisfy the heart,
My hope to meet Thee in the air,
And nevermore from Thee to part;
That I may undistracted be
To follow, serve and wait for Thee.”
— G.W. Frazer
What if I tell them who they are?
What if I take away any element of fear in condemnation, judgment or rejection?
What if I tell them I love them, will always love them, that I love them right now, no matter what they’ve done, as much as I love my only Son, that there’s nothing they can do to make my love go away?
What if I tell them there are no lists? What if I tell them I don’t keep a log of past offenses, of how little they pray, how often they’ve let me down, made promises that they don’t keep?
What if I tell them they are righteous, with my righteousness, right now?
What if I tell them they can stop beating themselves up? That they can stop being so formal, stiff and jumpy around me?
What if I tell them I’m crazy about them? What if I tell them, even if they run to the ends of the earth and do the most horrible, unthinkable things, that when they come back, I’d receive them with tears and a party?
What if I tell them that I am their Savior, they’re going to heaven no matter what—it’s a done deal?
What if I tell them they have a new nature—saints, not saved sinners who should now ‘buck up and be better’ if they were any kind of Christians, after all He’s done for you!
What if I tell them that I actually live in them now? That I’ve put my love, power, and nature inside of them, at their disposal?
What if I tell them that they don’t have to put on a mask? That it is OK to be who they are at this moment, with all their junk. That they don’t need to Pretend about how close we are, how much they pray or don’t, how much Bible they read or don’t?”
What if they knew they don’t have to look over their shoulder for fear if things get too good, the other shoe’s gonna drop?
What if they knew I will never, ever use the word “punish” in relation to them?
What if they knew that when they mess up, I will never ‘get back at them’?
What if they were convinced that bad circumstances aren’t my way of evening the score for taking advantage of me?
What if they knew the basis of our friendship isn’t how little they sin, but how much they let me love them?
What if I tell them they can hurt my heart, but that I never hurt theirs?
What if I tell them I kinda like Eric Clapton’s music too?
What if I tell them I never really liked the Christmas hand bell deal with the white gloves?
What if I tell them they can open their eyes when they pray and still go to heaven?
What if I tell them there is no secret agenda, no trapdoor?
What if I tell them it isn’t about their self-effort, but about allowing me to live my life through them?
What if I tell them?
— The New Testament Gamble by John Lynch.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air… .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr
“What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy… Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection.”
— Len Sweet & Frank Viola
Nothing this world offers is eternal or lasting, and nothing earthly can offer the hope or security of knowing life eternal.
— Teresa of Avila
When I can slowly detach myself from this need for human affirmation and discover that it is in relationship with Jesus that I find my true self, an unconditional surrender to him becomes not only possible but even the only desire.
— Henri J. M. Nouwen
The river’s been here longer, it’s older and stronger
and knows where to go.
I guess I’m wondering where the river’s trying to take me
overnight if I never did resist,
and what strange breezes make a sailor want to let it come to this,
with lines untied, slipping through my fist.
— David Wilcox
An authentic spiritual understanding of detachment devalues neither desire nor the objects of desire. Instead, it aims at correcting one’s own anxious grasping in order to free oneself for committed relationship to God.
—Gerald May
To wait is to learn the spiritual grace of detachment, the freedom of desire. Not the absence of desire, but desire at rest.
— John Eldredge
Thus Jesus introduced us to the shocking power of sacrifice, which can turn something that looks for all the world like loss into something that feels for all the world like gain.
— Barbara Taylor
But, oh! the trust necessary for this new way!
Not to be always reaching out for the old hand-holds.
— Susan W. N. Ruach
Why, then, weep at this little death? Take it to you—quickly—with a smile die this death, and become free to go further—one with your task, whole in your duty of the moment.
— Dag Hammarskjold
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
— 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)
