Debbie Phillips > Debbie's Quotes

“We are often at odds with our wise and loving Lord because the change he is working on is not the change we have dreamt about. We dream about change in it, while God is working in the midst of it to change us.”
― Timothy Lane, How People Change: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace, Leader's Guide

“The change most needed in our lives isn't change in our situations and relationships but in us. The thing God is most intent on rescuing us from is ourselves.”
― Timothy Lane, How People Change: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace, Leader's Guide

“Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.”
― Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for Everyday

“‎What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow.”
― Martin Luther

“Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God--
Naught else is worth believing.

Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.

I'll trust in God's unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!”
― Martin Luther

“Sometimes you are in the middle of your destiny before you even know it has begun.”
― Sarah Holman

“The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.”
― Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition

“Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.”
― Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

“It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intimate touch with Jesus. ....Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ nothing can shake.”
― Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

“God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.”
― Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

“In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms," full of sustaining and comfort and strength.

My Utmost for His Highest: Classic Edition”
― Oswald Chambers

“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.”
― C. H. Spurgeon

“Hope itself is like a star- not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“...if God teaches us victory in Christ Jesus day by day, we live in the constant awareness of His greatness and His sufficiency. Hard lessons are often long-lasting lessons. Never forget that God is far more interested in our getting to know the Deliverer than simply being delivered.”
― Beth Moore, Praying God's Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard."

(Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)”
― David McCullough

“Just that maybe … maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Losses do that. One life-loss can infect the whole of a life. Like a rash that wears through our days, our sight becomes peppered with black voids. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn’t: holes, lack, deficiency.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The whole of the life -- even the hard -- is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“If it were up to me..." and then the words pound, desperate and hard, "I'd write this story differently."...

"Just that maybe... maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds."

The words I choked out that dying, ending day, echo. Pierce. There's a reason I am not writing the story and God is. He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means.

I don't.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“They say time is money, but that's not true. Time is life. And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time... the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life...

God gives us time. And who has time for God?

Which makes no sense.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are