Greg Paul > Quotes

“You’re my child. My beloved. My pleasure.” This is the heart of the matter. This is the message that blows quietly, sweetly through the whole Bible. It’s easy to lose it in the strictures of law, the violent stories of the people of Israel, the doom-laden pronouncements of the prophets, or the near-psychedelic foretelling of future events. It’s so tender, so gentle, that it’s easy to miss it blowing through my own little life story, with all its dramas and distractions. There are a thousand other voices, most of them much louder and more insistent, that have other things to say about who I am. They say things that are demeaning or discouraging.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“Every story has a structure. Most simply, a beginning, a middle, and an end—although, as Bilbo recognizes in The Lord of the Rings, the story never really ends, and there is always something that came before the beginning of any tale we might tell.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“We remember stories more easily and more completely than we do facts. We assimilate stories differently, bringing to them the shades of understanding made possible by our own experiences, finding something new each time we approach even one that has long been familiar. A story is like a multifaceted jewel, giving off a different light each time it is turned.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“All my life, I’ve loved stories. My children did too— is there a child who doesn’t? Through the years, I read aloud all the books of the Narnia Chronicles, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings to my kids. Curled up on the couch or on their beds, we got lost together in those fabulous tales. We read Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, and Treasure Island. On a driving trip through Nebraska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, down through Utah and into Arizona, we plowed through a slew of Louis L’Amour’s books as the very landscape of those punchy little cowboy yarns slid past the van windows.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“My children and I inhabited those stories together. A good story allows you to admit your fears, and hope that you might be a hero in the face of them. I’m not sure why adults so often lose the art of “entering” a story in written form.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“Sometimes they speak words that cut or bruise my soul, telling me I am unlovely and unlovable—a message I am unaccountably ready to believe. They may be the voices of people close to me, the culture around me, the advertising I can’t escape, religion, education, or of my own innate pride or insecurities.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“When I seek him, root my values and desires in him, when I found my relationships and sense of self on him, my capacity for joy increases. The more I "have" Jesus, the deeper my enjoyment of him. He increases my desire for those things that are good, adds value to that which is benign, and diminishes the strength of the negative (the evil) that threatens to throttle me. My dependence on material values and experiences as the means by which I define or please myself decreases.”
― Greg Paul, The Twenty-Piece Shuffle: Why the Poor and Rich Need Each Other

“I still love novels and would rather read them than philosophy, theology, “real” history, psychology, or any other form of fact-based writing. I think I’ve learned more about the human condition—and the scope of the human spirit—from novels than from any other form of writing. (Just as I have learned more about real faith and true spiritual growth from my street-involved friends, as they have shared their stories with me, than I have from any of the sources that are supposed to convey such understanding.)”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy

“My child. My beloved. My pleasure. It seems as if it should be easy to hear these words and believe them, but it’s not. An entire life of discipleship cannot fully mine these three simple expressions. It’s the work of a lifetime just to begin to truly believe them.”
― Greg Paul, Close Enough to Hear God Breathe: The Great Story of Divine Intimacy