Ty Simmons > Ty's Quotes

“We have to deal with fear because it is possible that it will make us miss the best parts of life.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“Our confidence comes from believing God can do anything , then stepping back and letting Him.”
― Jennie Allen, Nothing to Prove: Why We Can Stop Trying So Hard

“We fall apart when we look at our fears and inadequacies and compare ourselves to every other runner. But fix your eyes on a God like Jesus, and you will not quit. You will not shrink back. Not from others, and not from yourself. Risk something. Step out and fail. Be the fool. Build a life that needs our God.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“Every moment is granted for purposes we can’t see. Every breath is issued for eternal things left undone. We brush against people in check-out lines who will live forever in heaven or hell, and we contain God. Try to tell me your life is insignificant. Try to tell me that anything about this life is insignificant.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“We can do one of two things with suffering: we can absorb it and let it change us, or we can let it crush us. Suffering will change you, or it will crush you.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“So if we know no place, no job, no marriage, no child is going to fulfill us perfectly, we can make the choice to quit fighting for happiness in all of it and start to fight for God’s glory in it.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“He will take this hell on earth and someday show us how hell was building heaven.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“Every sin, at its root, is based in something we do not fully believe about God.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Great people don’t do great things; God does great things through surrendered people.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Unless there is some craving for God and some distaste for sin in us, we should question if we are believers.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“if we know no place, no job, no marriage, no child is going to fulfill us perfectly, we can make the choice to quit fighting for happiness in all of it and start to fight for God’s glory in it.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“Because of grace we have nothing to prove. Our confidence is in the security and power God gives us, not in ourselves. To know that you are absolutely treasured, unconditionally, changes you in this way. You feel free, and you want to run with a God who would love you like that. To know that we do not measure up and that we don’t have to because of Jesus, because of grace, means that life gets a whole lot more fun.”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“IF I FIND IN MYSELF A DESIRE WHICH NO EXPERIENCE IN THIS WORLD CAN SATISFY, THE MOST PROBABLE EXPLANATION IS THAT I WAS MADE FOR ANOTHER WORLD. C. S. LEWIS”
― Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More

“Humility is a grateful and spontaneous awareness that life is a gift, and it is manifested as an ungrudging and unhypocritical acknowledgment of absolute dependence upon God.”
― Jennie Allen, Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts

“If I were your enemy, this is what I would do: Make you believe you need permission to lead. Make you believe you are helpless. Make you believe you are insignificant. Make you believe that God wants your decorum and behavior.”
― Jennie Allen, Nothing to Prove: Why We Can Stop Trying So Hard

“As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”5”
― Jennie Allen, Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts

“Theologian Tim Keller says if you love anything more than God, even though you believe in God, if there is anything in your life that is more important to your own identity or significance than God, then that is a false god and it is a power in your life.5 And you can usually tell that something here has become an idol because you have an extreme reaction when it is threatened.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Comparison robs us of the joy of obedience.”
― Jennie Allen, Made for This: 40 Days to Living Your Purpose

“The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Yet God clearly says first and foremost, “Have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Nothing here shall compare to me in your heart. Everything should so pale in comparison to me that it is as if you hated it. With our minutes and days and decades, we build houses and savings accounts and busy calendars full of activity. And in some deeper way, we build our reputations and friendships and invest in our kids and careers. We are looking for this life to matter. No, we are actually looking for ourselves to matter. So we keep so busy, so distracted, so in love with everything but our invisible, patient, jealous God. Christ said, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). This covers literally everything.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“He began by listing all the ways we grow or know God: prayer, studying Scripture, church, worship, experiences, suffering, confession, community, and on and on. Then he said, “But obviously each of these is unpredictable . . . many people who study the Bible never find God. Many people who go to church never really know him. The only exercise that works 100 percent of the time to draw one close to the real God is risk.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“ultimately faith in Christ is what will separate those who belong to God from those who do not.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“We need different eyes, a different mind. One that lifts us above the seen and our short time here, above the fears that invade our lives, above the snapshots in our scrapbooks.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Christ never intended those who walked with him to feel comfortable and safe. This was meant to be a risk-it-all pursuit.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“It is too easy in this country for blessings to become rights, for stuff and money to become what calls the shots in our lives. And before we know it, God’s gifts have replaced God himself.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Evil never wants to be noticed, I should mention here. It sneaks in and hijacks our minds, and we barely notice anything’s amiss.”
― Jennie Allen, Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts

“Pretending to be good halts God’s movement in our life.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“Sometimes we bolt because we hate to repent. It feels like death to confess. But when God calls us to something that feels backward, it is usually his path to our freedom. The path out of shame is to see our sin and turn from it toward our God.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“It is the fight for control that has us all tied up, while it’s really an illusion anyway. We control because we are afraid of what may happen if we let go. Do we really think we are better captains of our lives than a God who sees everything and deeply loves us? So we pursue our scrapbook dreams, distracted, too busy to see he’s already with us and has our steps planned. The days and pictures and people he puts in our scrapbooks are seemingly chaotic but perfectly planned.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“God is home to us. He is where we were made to be. He is what we were made for. We just forget all that while we are trying to be good and independent.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul