Morgan Lawrence’s Reviews > Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People > Status Update

“Perhaps that’s why God made eternity last so long— He knew it would take a while to explain what he was doing. Before you decide why things have happened in your past or are happening now, wait for God to whisper the reasons to you. It will be worth the wait.”

"Jesus tells us to bring what we have to Him, and He will make something amazing out of it. Karl just keeps bringing what he's got to Jesus. I think we should do the same; just keep bringing whatever you have to God and let Him decide what He'll do with it."

"When I think about Karl's fateful dive, I think about how his body followed his head. He looked down to wave at the girls, and his body went where his eyes were looking. This is how we're all wired. Where we turn our head is where we'll land with our lives. It happens all the time with careers or relationships or possessions. It doesn't matter whether it's comparison or distraction or escape that turns our heads--what we look at will be the difference between a great dive and a big disaster. Most of us won't break our necks when we look or leap wrong, but we may do something equally crippling in a different way.

We need to be careful where our minds dwell. Many of us dwell on what other people are thinking of us. It's easy to do. But we can be so busy trying to get the approval of others that we forget who Jesus said we are. Here's the problem: when we're busy getting our validation from the people around us, we stop looking for it from God. You'll know this is happening to you when you go with what's popular rather than what's eternal, when you settle for what feels good right now rather than opting for what will make a good and lasting impact a decade from now. If we let our heads turn toward the shallow waters offered by wrong relationships, the rest of our lives will follow where our heads have gone. When we do, we'll crater instead of create, and we'll drown in the places where we ought to be swimming.

"When we dream up something where the outcome seems uncertain and we don't hear God's voice, what if God isn't saying anything to us because He's already said it? Like my time with Adam flying into the lake, I can picture God sitting beside each of us, not confused or afraid but confident we have all the information we need. We may not have had experience with all the circumstances we're presently facing, but He's allowed us to experience a lifetime of other things to prepare us for what is coming next."

“People don’t grow where they’re planted; they grow where they’re loved.”