Thomas Ferguson

“But an authentic relationship with Christ also takes us into the depths — the shadows, the strongholds and the darkness deep within our own souls that must be purged. Surrendering to this inward and downward journey is difficult and painful.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church, Updated and Expanded Edition: A Strategy for Discipleship That Actually Changes Lives

“And that essential mistake that mankind has enshrined is the fiction of an independent self—a self over all, over nature, over groups that we marginalize, over the partners and children we crazily try to control, over the neighbors with whom we compete, over the planet we disrespect. That is our potentially fatal error. We will awaken, or we will hand down misery for generations. We will learn, or we will destroy. This world does not belong to us. We belong to one another.”
― Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God … Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice … However, we often turn a deaf ear — through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church, Updated and Expanded Edition: A Strategy for Discipleship That Actually Changes Lives

“hardly anyone knows what vainglory is anymore. If anything, people use the word “vain” or “vanity” today to mean being conceited or puffed up about yourself (usually in an unjustified way) — roughly speaking, it’s a form of pride equivalent to having an inflated sense of your worth or importance.”
― Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice