Michael Card > Quotes

“Behind every specific call, whether it is to teach or preach or write or encourage or comfort, there is a deeper call that gives shape to the first: the call to give ourselves away - the call to die.”
― Michael Card, The Walk: The Life-Changing Journey of Two Friends

“But our wounds are part of who we are...and there is nothing left to chance....And pain's the pen that writes the songs....That call us forth to dance”
― Michael Card

“True friends define each other.”
― Michael Card, A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter

“Cool morning shadows sadly shift across the floor
Each time we say goodbye it’s harder than before
Even after all the pain of parting still we find
That we must mourn the death of the dreams we leave behind

As I turn my back on all that means the most to me
The sounds and smells, the light that dances on the sea
The greatest gamble is to act on the belief
That only the slave who leaves it all is truly free

The sacrifice that we both lay before His feet
A thousand moments that belonged to us
That now will never be

By faith we hold a better dream inside our hearts
A time when our family will never have to be apart
Till then we struggle with just what it really means
And we will mourn the death of our beautiful dreams
Mourn the death of our beautiful dreams”
― Michael Card, A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter

“There comes a moment in our lives when some of the pieces of the puzzle come together - where all our past experiences, both good and bad, are brought to bear in causing us to become who God intends us to be.”
― Michael Card, A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter

“You need to be confronted
By the Stranger on the shore
You need to have Him search your soul
You need to hear the call
You need to learn exactly
What it means for you to follow
You need to realize that He`s asking for your all.”
― Michael Card, A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter

“There is no proof great enough to prevent doubt. Ir you base your belief on proof, sooner or later you will sink!”
― Michael Card, A Fragile Stone: The Emotional Life of Simon Peter

“People who demand signs never believe them when they come.”
― Michael Card

“Creation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good
But the seventh He called holy
Creation’s seventh sunrise

We wake and go to work six days a week
To struggle with the strain and stress
But the Lords’ provided for the care of our souls
A day of rejoice and rest

Creation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good
But the seventh He called holy
Creation’s seventh sunrise

Come see a sanctuary made of time
Come speak forgotten words of prayer
It calls us, “Come away from your dissonant days”
“Come out and breathe the garden air.” (leave your worries there)

Creation’s seventh sunrise
We stand before the burning bush of time
The six days were good
But the seventh He called holy
Creation’s seventh sunrise

And the promise of that rest still stands
To all who would be free
And though we might be bound by time
We can taste Eternity”
― Michael Card, Michael Card - Soul Anchor

“all art forms attempt to translate what is unseen into what is seen. Painter Joel Sheesley states, "I ... suggest that the definition of content in art is very much like that New Testament definition of faith that calls faith `the substance of things hoped for."' Art, especially as we engage in it with a redeemed vision, becomes an activity of faith, translating the "substance of things hoped for" with words, paint and other materials into the content and form of art.”
― Michael Card, Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity

“God is beautiful. His beauty demands a response that is shaped that beauty, and that is art.”
― Michael Card

“In the Hebrew mind hesed is always something you do. It is a verb. It is loading wounded people on donkeys, running to greet runaway children, forgiving enormous debts, paying someone who worked an hour as much as the ones who worked all day, giving a party to those who can’t pay you back. It is a resonant response to the overwhelming kindness of the God of Exodus 34, who is full of hesed.”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“Let’s ask for the grace to be in awe of the God who, when he opened the door of his life to us, had this word consistently on his lips, remembering that even though we have no right to expect anything from him he is pleased to give us everything. He is pleased to open his heart and life to us precisely because he is the God of hesed.”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“Let’s let go of the illusion that hesed can be reduced to one English “literal” word and instead see it as a key that can open a door into an entire world—the world of God’s own heart, the world of loving”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“sold for the price of a slave. And in a matter of hours they hoped he would die like a slave; on a cross. Clearly Jesus would die as a slave, nailed to the cross beam, but he would not die like a slave.”
― Michael Card, A Better Freedom: Finding Life as Slaves of Christ

“Then Luke commits his most grievous error, and I'm not sure I will ever be able to forgive him for it, at least this side of heaven. Luke reports in verse 27 that Jesus explained everything concerning himself in the Old Testament. What was Luke possibly thinking? The greatest Bible lesson of all time, and yet we have not a single word!”
― Michael Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement

“Hesed is a defining characteristic of God. It is linked to his compassion and graciousness. It is expressed in his willingness to forgive wrongdoing and to take upon himself the sin, rebellion, and wrongdoing of his people. As an expression of his lovingkindness, God allows his people to experience the consequences of their sin, as he promised Moses in Exodus 34:7. Even this is an expression of his hesed. God can be approached boldly based on the confidence we have in this aspect of his revealed nature. He is amazingly kind and loving to his servants as well as to the ungrateful and wicked. He is delighted to show them kindness. Due to this, they marvel that no other god is like their God because of his hesed. The scope of hesed is expanded in the context of worship. It is most often sung, as our hearts resonate sympathetically to the One who created us in his lovingkindness. However, when the reciprocal nature of hesed has been violated we are encouraged in the imprecatory psalms to offer feelings of anger and outrage, trusting in the hesed of the One who knows our hearts and will stand in solidarity with us and act on behalf of the poor. When we are facing despair we can take confidence in all God’s former acts of lovingkindness. Hesed is a standard to which we can appeal. We understand that we can ask, beg, and expect to receive according to the standard of God’s hesed. In light of our inability to keep any of the covenants, God has graciously granted to us a new covenant, based solely on his faithfulness. That covenant came into effect and will be sustained by means of a person Jeremiah refers to as the “Righteous Branch.” He is the incarnation of hesed, full of grace and truth.”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“When scorn and ridicule come, we never have to bury our heads in our hands or lash out in hatred. Jesus has gone before. Because He endured the scorn for joy, we can too.”
― Michael Card, A Violent Grace

“The way you respond to the God of Exodus 34, the God of hesed, is to boldly ask him for what you do not deserve and then to stand by and confidently wait for him to be amazed.”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“What are the implications for us today of God’s hesed being everlasting and eternal? What kind of confidence might be born in our hearts and minds if we trusted that God’s love, mercy, and kindness will never fail, never leave us in the lurch? What would happen to our deepest lingering fears if we could summon the audacity to believe this promise, a promise that obviously meant so much to Israel?”
― Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

“They represent the last refusal to let go of the”
― Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament