Steve Coombs

“If we are made for friendship, then we will be missing something fundamental in our marriages and parenting if we try to do those without friends.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship

“Holy One,4 there is something I wanted to tell you but there have been errands to run, bills to pay, arrangements to make, meetings to attend, friends to entertain, washing to do . . . and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you, and mostly I forget what I’m about, or why. O God, don’t forget me, please, for the sake of Jesus Christ.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry

“relationship with God, as with any person, soon requires a contribution from us, which will largely consist of study. Calvin Miller well remarks: “Mystics without study are only spiritual romantics who want relationship without effort.”23”
― Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

“People who think that they are spiritually superior because they make a practice of a discipline such as fasting or silence or frugality are entirely missing the point. The need for extensive practice of a given discipline is an indication of our weakness, not our strength. We can even lay it down as a rule of thumb that if it is easy for us to engage in a certain discipline, we probably don’t need to practice it. The disciplines we need to practice are precisely the ones we are not “good at” and hence do not enjoy.”
― Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives