Doug > Doug's Quotes

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
― Martin Luther

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“I'm of the opinion that many Christians are in deep denial about the reality of there being 'real' Evil in this world. Evil that cannot be reasoned with; is reprobate, incorrigible, determined, un-appeasable, violent, murderous, and unrelenting. I find this denial shocking in that the Bible clearly shows that in the end this battle is all about Good vs. Evil. This is a very real and present danger to the leaders and people of Israel. They know the truth and are not in any denial about it!!! It's harsh, yes! However, it is Real and a danger to those in Israel. This is not my first rodeo!!! Combat brings me no joy!!! But, God has His holy warriors who risk their lives so others can have the luxury to live in denial!!! Israeli's have no such luxury!!!”
― R. Alan Woods

“There are three people one can never reason with: a drunk, a crazy person, and a fool.”
― R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is The Destination: A Photo Journal

“It’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your “I” is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary “I.” No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.”
― Richard Rohr

“Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.”
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.

'But how?' we ask.

Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'

There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“There is a widespread sense of loss here, if not always of God, then at least of meaning.”
― Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

“Joy blossoms in our hearts not as we try harder and harder to grow, but as we see more clearly the depth of our sin and understand more fully our helplessness.”
― Barbara Duguid, Extravagant Grace: God's Glory Displayed in Our Weakness

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
― Francis Bacon

“It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.”
― John Guare, Landscape of the Body

“I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.”
― William P. Young, The Shack

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson

“Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet)!”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”
― Santa Teresa de Jesús

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most human beings live only for the gratification of it. ARISTOTLE”
― Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.”
― Walter Scott, Marmion

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
― Julian of Norwich

“The state we find ourselves in is sinful quite independent of guilt. ”
― Franz Kafka

“calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.”
― Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life

“Calling is not only a matter of being and doing what we are but also of becoming what we are not yet but are called by God to be.”
― Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“What the heart most wants the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find valuable, and the will finds doable. It is all-important, then, that preaching move the heart to stop trusting and loving other things more than God.”
― Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage." ~Samuel Johnson”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“Love without sacrifice is like theft”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“Action expresses priorities.”
― Mahatma Gandhi