All Quotes By Tag: Fear
“A fear-based faith distorts a lot of things, but what it distorts the most is the reflection we see in the mirror. Fear has a way of reflecting ugliness and distorted realities–lies with the appearance of truth–and gives us the false impression that fear tells the truth while concealing the reality that fear is a liar. It may be a good liar because it mixes fact with fiction, but it’s a liar nonetheless. The reflections of fear must never be trusted, no matter how many nuggets of truth may be mixed in those ugly waters.”
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“When we use up all our energy in keeping our inner lives above water, we have no strength left to look beyond our struggles – no strength left to love others. There is only one solution: to turn away from our anxieties, and toward Jesus and our brothers and sisters. If we do this, we will find that he is not so unmerciful that we need live in constant fear and self-circling. God is a God of love, and he gives hope and new life to all who seek him.”
“That is the truth, my boy. All we have left of our ancestors’ great covenant with the Everlasting, who brought them out of nothingness, is darkness and wrath. With every day that passes, Horeb’s wrath feeds on our sins. He demands justice and righteousness. He watches us, impatiently. He knows our past, but he also knows the future that awaits us. He sees that we are advancing into darkness. In his impatience, he rumbles to shake us our of our torpor. But all he obtains in return is fear, even though what he wants is a little courage and dignity!”
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“Drawing identity from any area other than the source of life is a spiritual death sentence, and worse, it’s contagious, because it gives birth to tribalism. However, when we return to our central identity of image-bearers designed to receive love from and reflect love to others, we are naturally invited to shed all of the unloving, fear-based tribal behaviors that come from loyalty to the label.”
“As long as we are caving in to the vicious cycle of always trying harder in hopes that one day we won’t feel like such an outsider, we are not being obedient to the scriptural principle of living at peace wit ourselves. Instead, we’re living in turmoil, and that’s not the life Jesus invites us to live. We are invited to live at peace.At peace with our neighbors.At peace with our enemies.At peace with God. At peace with ourselves. And that critical last part means we must be affirming–and not just to others who are different. We need to affirm that place inside us that desperately wants to hear that we are good, that we are beautiful, and that the ways in which we are different are gifts to be celebrated.”
“Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren’t so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.”
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“I’m not all that certain that we can handle magnificence. And I wonder if that’s why we take great things and diminish them through our small stories and weak renderings.”
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“Frankly, I’m not all that certain that I would die for me, which makes God’s choice to do so both confusing and beautiful.”
“People fear God, retribution, karma, the devil, when really it is only each other they have to fear.”
“Like all who search for truth out of fear, I desperately wanted someone else to tell me exactly what to do.”
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“God has placed Himself squarely within the confines of my confines so that within my reach there lays the very thing that I need to break me out of those confines. Therefore, if I remain confined, it may be because I don’t understand that I’m confined. And if I don’t understand that I’m confined, I can be certain that I don’t understand my need for God. And that is likely the greatest confinement of all.”
“(Life) it was a little bit nearer than God, but no less powerful and terrible. Yes, it was something, perhaps, that one did not wish to understand because one feared it, something to which one paid tribute lest it should feel offended and seize one, body and soul.”
“The mind knows the truth when your heart denies what it feels. When you don’t feel safe to let people in it is because you’re not ready to deal with the pain of honesty.”
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“Only courageous hearts can endure the bitterness of truth.”
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