Philip Gulley > Quotes

“I can only make one person happy each day.

Today is not your day.

Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Too many times we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be swept asunder.”
― Philip Gulley

“In the end . . . . . . . Stand where we feel led. Stand straight, stand tall, and try to remember that other folks might be led to stand elsewhere.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“...We always look for Christ amid magnificence. But ... Christ has a history of showing up amide the unlovely. Born in a dirty stall. Crowned with thorns. Died gasping on a shameful cross atop a jagged rise.

We don't need to be beautiful for Christ to take us in. He is equally at home when we're broken-down and dirty. It's like George Herbert wrote:
'And here in dust and dirt, O here,
The lilies of God's love appear.'
We think magnificence is in short supply, that dust and dirt choke out the lilies. But that's not true and never was. Lilies may root in dirt, but they reach for heaven—and in the reaching, reveal their magnificence.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near—that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.

I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due—that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.

Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Love, even that love which is imagined, is sometimes all we have to get us through.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Wrinkled women lifting their faces, chasing their youth.
Fat men sucking in bellies.
Poor folks putting on airs.
Sinners acting like saints.
All of us keeping pace with our companions, stepping lively in this dance of deceit.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow.”
― Philip Gulley

“The leaves of our blessed lives fall to the ground and if we're wise like my grandfather, we gather them in a pile and keep them safe lest the winds of forgetfulness blow them away.”
― Philip Gulley

“We just never know. We think we do. We think we have life figured out, and in our arrogance we become hard. But life has a way of humbling us, of softening us. ”
― Philip Gulley

“If you can go home to someone who loves you, if your children are proud of you, if you can keep your integrity, you’ve hit the jackpot. You don’t need the state to call your number. It’s already been called.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“I ran across the following thought that I JUST LOVE & I thought of you......
"I do not know where we will sit at the final banquet, but I suspect who will sit beside us - on our right will sit the person whom we have harmed the most. On our left will sit the person who has done the greatest evil to us. We will be seated between grace received and grace required".”
― Philip Gulley, If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person

“There’s danger in thinking joy is a matter of location. If we can’t find joy where we are, we probably won’t find it anywhere.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“When love takes you by the hand and leaves you better, that is home. That's the place to stake your claim and build your life.”
― Philip Gulley

“Raw pain alarms. us. It reminds us that life isn't as orderly as we'd hoped. We demand that pain settle down before we shuffle it off to the quiet table. We want pain to stay in its own little section, want to keep it from spilling over into the other parts of life. Just like . lunch trays. Keep pain in its own little compartment.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“When I was in second grade, my teacher, Miss Maxwell, read from The Harmony Herald that one in every four children lived in China. I remember looking over the room, guessing which children they might be. I wasn't sure where China was, but suspected it was on bus route three. I recall being grateful I didn't live in China because I didn't care for Chinese food and couldn't speak the language.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“There are things we see with our eyes, sitting high and looking out. And there are things we see with our hearts, sitting still and looking in.”
― Phillip Gulley

“Sometimes what we think we need isn't what we need at all, and what gets thrown in for good measure is that which fills our hearts.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.”
― Philip Gulley

“When we’re young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know. It takes a wise man to realize just how much he doesn’t know.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“[C]hildren. . . like all living things, grow best in the loosened soil of relaxed oversight.”
― Philip Gulley

“In any crowd there is a malcontent or two, and the Easter crowd is no exception. Someone invariably demands I speak out against the Easter Bunny. I am captivated by a great number of subjects, but have never worked up the enthusiasm to preach against rabbits, real or mythic. These are the same people who complain about Santa at Christmas and want me to take a swipe at Halloween.”
― Philip Gulley, Porch Talk: Stories of Decency, Common Sense, and Other Endangered Species

“There is a moral sturdiness to (hardware store owner) Charley that isn't advertised or boasted about, but is obvious to all who know him and quickly discerned by those who don't. Our country has lately been afflicted with television preachers and pundits who focus on our families while neglecting theirs. How vainglorious these critics seem, how vacuous and shallow they appear when placed alongside a man of Charley's stature.”
― Philip Gulley, Porch Talk: Stories of Decency, Common Sense, and Other Endangered Species

“I have failed to be an appropriate model for Christian conduct many times. At significant points, when I should have led by example, I failed to embody the very principles I publicly affirm. I have been intolerant, greedy, slothful, and even dishonest. Were someone to say I was an example for how others should live, I would be flattered but would know their assessment was inaccurate. To say Jesus is 'only an example,' as if that were a small thing, underestimates not only the profound difficulty of serving such a role, but also discounts its rarity.”
― Philip Gulley, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus

“My life is a train of unfinished tasks, one railcar after another of half-finished efforts, with no caboose in sight.”
― Philip Gulley

“Two thousand years ago, a church elder named Peter wrote the recipe for community. “Above all else,” he wrote, “hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). That means when you love a person, you occasionally have to turn a blind eye toward their shortcomings.”
― Philip Gulley, Front Porch Tales: Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love

“When we’re young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“I was thinking about Leon and our affinity for busyness, when I happened upon a book called In Praise of Slowness, written by Carl Honoré. In that book he describes a New Yorker cartoon that illustrates our dilemma. Two little girls are standing at a school-bus stop, each clutching a personal planner. One says to the other, “Okay, I’ll move ballet back an hour, reschedule gymnastics, and cancel piano. You shift your violin lessons to Thursday and skip soccer practice. That gives us from 3:15 to 3:45 on Wednesday the sixteenth to play.” This, I suppose, is how the madness starts. Pay close attention to the words Honoré uses to describe this fast-life/slow-life dichotomy. “Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity…. It is seeking to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto—the right speed.”* Which of those lifestyles would you prefer?”
― Philip Gulley, Porch Talk: Stories of Decency, Common Sense, and Other Endangered Species

“If you have to choose between following money or following your heart, go with your heart. There are some choices we make that cannot be corrected. Squandering your life in a job that shrivels your soul isn’t one of them. Use your gifts. Follow your heart.”
― Philip Gulley, Front Porch Tales: Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love

“Community is a beautiful thing; sometimes it even heals us and makes us better than we would otherwise be.”
― Philip Gulley, Front Porch Tales: Warm Hearted Stories of Family, Faith, Laughter and Love