Quotes from January 2026

Week of 01-26-26 thru 02-01-26

• I no longer rush past moments, thinking there will always be more later. I know now that this is later. This is the season to savor—long walks, deep conversations, laughter that comes easily, stillness that feels like wisdom instead of emptiness. The real gift of time is perspective. You stop measuring life by what’s next and start measuring it by what’s meaningful. You ask better questions. You listen more carefully. You love with less fear and more presence.

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.

• As we fall away from the company of our brothers and sisters, as we grow distant from the voice of God through his Word, as we grow lackadaisical in speaking to God through prayer, Satan smiles, he laughs, he shouts for joy. Our sorrow is his pleasure.   “When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy. Corrie ten Boom.  We must resist him, and we can resist him, for Satan has no authority over those who are in Christ.

• “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness;he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Deut 32:10

• That’s why people across cultures describe creativity as inspiration, illumination, revelation, gift. It feels like reception, not manufacture.

Which brings me back to where I started. Does God talk to naked people?

I think He does. And sometimes He talks through the very neurological processes He designed. I’m not decoding the mystery of the Holy Spirit. He’s the only one who truly knows how He does this, but I imagine He works with our mental processes on some level. What do you think?

The repeatable rhythm is:

·                  Engage (focus, effort, loading)

·                  Release (silence, safety, boredom)

·                  Receive (insight, clarity)

·                  Shape (craft, editing, discipline)

Most writers get stuck in step one or try to jump straight to step four.

If you want more insight, schedule less noise. Protect boredom (hard, I know!). Stop reacting publicly. Let work ripen unseen.

• To put it another way, God has made it clear from the beginning what he desires from us. He’s drawn to our “low” attitudes — repentance, brokenness, selflessness, and a servant’s heart — and he fills the holes of our need with his presence. He wants unassuming hearts that love him, that take pleasure in submitting to him, that have no need of pretense, and that welcome his will for their lives, as numerous verses about his love for widows, orphans, the poor, the sick, the repentant, the desperate, and the brokenhearted testify. He has shown us what is good, said the prophet Micah: to walk humbly with our God.

A humble heart is like a God-magnet. When he hears the low signals imperceptible to everyone else in the natural kingdom, he comes running. He enthusiastically attaches himself to those who love him. He’ll fight vehemently to protect and care for his beloved. His tenderness surrounds them and his favor pours out on them. He never lets them down.

When we want to justify a certain level of independence from our Creator then we develop shades of truth and shadows of sin, relating to God in complex terms he never desired or authorized. We rationalize, justify ourselves, and build up walls of defensiveness. We cultivate nuances of pride and self-sufficiency, signals that may be noticed by other human beings but won’t attract the Presence we so deeply crave. We’re masters of subtle rebellion.

Week of 1-19-25 thru 01-25-26

• The Jewish Road. God’s faithfulness to Israel is not a side issue. It is evidence that He keeps His word. …make room for Jewish believers like me, who walk between worlds. I live in that tension every day. I know the language of the Church. I know her systems, her strengths, and her blind spots. I also know what it is to carry Jewish identity in a Western world that does not quite know what to do with it. I stand in Messiah, yet I remain Jewish. Those things are not opposed. They never were.

  What gives me hope is this: the same Messiah who tore down the dividing wall is still doing that work. Not by erasing difference, but by redeeming it. Unity does not require sameness. It requires truth, humility, and faithfulness.

  …The God who keeps covenant with Israel is the same God who grafted the nations in. If He can forget Israel, He can forget anyone. But He will not. He never has. My prayer is not that you would take a side, but that you would take God at His word.

  --Matt Davis, The Jewish Road

• Pain is not always punitive. Sometimes it is diagnostic.  . . .God may be using that discomfort to surface deeper wounds we have ignored. MinistryTransitions.com

  
  

• Why should we never give up hope? Because the living God, Christ in us, is alive and well.

The Hidden Work of God in Seasons of Unmaking — Ministry Transitions

The Quiet Work of Finishing Well: Margin, Influence, and Intentionality for a Leader’s Fourth Quarter — Ministry Transitions

•  You can switch vehicles without abandoning calling.

• I asked CHTGPT, Why does Jesus still have scars? It said,

1.       They prove His identity — the risen Lord is the crucified one.

2. They declare His love — scars that shout “you are worth dying for.”

3. They remind us of grace — salvation was bought at a great price.

4. They display His victory — death has been defeated forever.

• It’s easy to lose heart in a world where many things can and do go wrong. Life is difficult and there are struggles within and without, but we can take heart—the Lord is with us. He hears our cries for mercy. He knows our every need. He guides us, helps us, and strengthens us with His mighty right arm.  David Powlison

• Scribbled on the paper napkin:

·       God’s “with-ness”

·       What I lost in the fire

·       In my next life 

·       Before I go home

·       Our lives are shaped by what we pay attention to.

• R.C. Sproul’s gravestone says simply, “He was a kind man redeemed by a kinder Savior.”

• Oh God, gather me now to be with you as you are with me.

Soothe my tiredness; quiet my fretfulness; curb my aimlessness; relieve my compulsiveness; let me be easy for a moment.

—a prayer by Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace

 Abraham Lincoln on criticism: “I do the best I know how, the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

• 10 favorite lines from Dallas Willard (because that’s all I’m able to grasp at one time. :)

1.    Jesus came to show us what life can be.

2.    Wisdom is the ability to see things as they are.

3.    Eternal life is not just a duration; it’s a quality of life.

4.    Faith is more than a belief; it is the whole person responding to the call of God.

5.    There’s no personal development without the pursuit of God.

6.    Prayer is not about getting something, but about being with someone.

7.    Goodness is the foundation of a genuine life.

8.    Living with intention creates a purposeful life.

9.    God’s desire is for us to flourish.

10.  Compassion is a hallmark of true faith.

*Dallas Willard story, 10/1998

If a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America. CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Why pray? He does not deny that the worst things will happen finally to all of us, as indeed he must have had a strong suspicion they were soon to happen to him. He does not try to minimize them. He does not try to explain them away as God's will or God's judgment or God's method of testing our spiritual fiber. He simply tells the Philippians that in spite of them—even in the thick of them—they are to keep in constant touch with the One who unimaginably transcends the worst things as he also unimaginably transcends the best. 

 "In everything," Paul says, they are to keep on praying. Come Hell or high water, they are to keep on asking, keep on thanking, above all keep on making themselves known. He does not promise them that as a result they will be delivered from the worst things any more than Jesus himself was delivered from them. What he promises them instead is that "the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  

The worst things will surely happen no matter what—that is to be understood—but beyond all our power to understand, he writes, we will have peace both in heart and in mind. We are as sure to be in trouble as the sparks fly upward, but we will also be "in Christ," as he puts it. Ultimately not even sorrow, loss, death can get at us there

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• The good life—the best life we can lead on this side of glory—is a humble life, for no virtue is more beautiful than humility and no vice is more ugly than pride. The best gift we can give to those we love, those we lead, and those we interact with is a deep humility born out of a right assessment of who we are, who God is, and what he has accomplished on our behalf. It is only through humility that we can live with deep dependence upon God and great love for others. It is only through humility that we can be faithful imitators of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Welch—Humility

• The Fruit of Kindness. What Is the Fruit of Kindness?

Kindness is not simply being nice.  . . .While we should be grateful for common grace, kindness goes far beyond letting someone into traffic and biting our tongues. Kindness has depth and glory. And it certainly is not free.

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 Week of 1-12-25 thru 01-19-26

• (why obey?) Because You asked me to.

• “The gospel is the gospel of the happy God. God Himself is full of joy, and He invites us to share in it.” Charles Spurgeon

• “The ‘real’ world has little room for a God of sparrows and children.” Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

• (on death)  You said your last good-byes.

• O God, bring it into the light. Amen. Every time I have prayed for things to be brought into the light, soon after that prayer I almost always discern an arrow: something that comforts, something that proves true, a tiny next step, or a small movement in the direction of hope or clarity. Sometimes what I experience is a reminder that God is with me even in the midst of my unknowing. All I know is we can’t confront what we don’t know exists . . .We can’t deal with a thing if the thing stays in the shadows. Bring it into the light isn’t a demand to know everything. It’s a spiritual practice of trust. ---EPFreeman

•  In his final public address, David Powlison shared, “My deepest hope for you is that in both your personal life and your ministry to others, you would be unafraid to be publicly weak as the doorway to the strength of God himself.”

• Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’  CS Lewis

• “In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, ‘you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly say to every group of Christian friends, ‘you have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.’ The friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of all the others.”

• On leadership:  Chaos theory; managing change.   (Isnt’ this the only place that our faith will grow?) Caution: We act as if our vision/project/goal is the cinema movie attraction and all those who must support it are the movie extras. What if that’s not the case? How should we treat/communicate/help those around us? God is writing His story. He might be using us/our project to accomplish a piece of it. But so is He using "the extras."
  

• The concepts of ‘calling’ and ‘purpose’ can be overcomplicated because we forget that our calling has already been granted to us in Christ. The ways we manifest it in our everyday lives vary. It really is as simple as this. Do the best you can in this world and as you’re going, love God and give Him away to people. No matter what you’re doing. When we create and thrive for the good of others, you’re participating in God’s redemptive work of making the world better. Whether you’re a janitor or a teacher, whether you write symphonies or work on a manufacturing line, whether you build cars or cure cancer... this is our goal, to create beauty out of chaos and thrive. Dreaming is an incredible privilege. It is a stewardship of the opportunities God has put in front of us.
  

• Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. Galatians 6:4-5 MSG

  
  

• Consider this: If you're the smartest person in the room, you might be in the wrong room.

•   (From Oprah) I have a holiday wish for you. When my mother died, Wintley Phipps sang "Precious Lord" to her over FaceTime. And then when my father was very ill and we knew he was about to pass, he came and sang "Precious Lord" in the backyard. On both occasions, he said, "I wish you no fear, just peace." That has become a mantra for me that I use to bless myself and others. So I wish for you no fear in your life, no fear in your decision making, no fear in moving forward or making changes, no fear in your relationships, no fear in doing what it takes to live your best life daily. No fear, just peace. No fear, just peace. Have a wonderful holiday. Be blessed.'

• Write something that matters.

• 9 Things to Write Down Before You Forget 2025

Some unexpected ways to hold on to what was good about this year.

1.    That One Really Great Day

2.    The Mistake You Never Want to Make

3.    What Younger You Would Like About Present You

4.    The Go-To Recipe of the Year

5.    A Secret You’ve Been Keeping from Yourself

6.    That One Quote

7.    The Most Unexpected Compliment You Got

8.    Your Ridiculous Niche

9.    The Tiny Promise to Yourself

• ·       On Grief. It was a long time before I came to the realization that it is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives us himself separate experience of individual stripping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when he took it all. This grief this sorrow is total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will accept it and by accepting it I find in my hands something to offer and so I give it back to him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me. Elisabeth Eliot

  
  

• "They who ask, "why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries" forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." Nate Saint

  
  

• All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them. Hudson Taylor
  

• Distance and a straight line have no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere. Thomas Mann

  
  

• (About 5 missionaries killed in Ecuador in 1956) Some decades later some who participated in the attack spoke of the strange presence beyond the human beings who were killed and dying on the beach that day. Duani among others described strange lights above the trees “foreigners “dressed in white cloth and the sound of chanting, which is how the way Duani described singing. Were they angels? God only knows in the agony of their dying moments in the pain of those last shallow breaths, what flashed through the five Americans minds? God only knows that as well. All that the brave widows and families and the rest of us down through the decades can know for sure is that when they passed through that thin veil separating this life from eternal life, those five missionaries next enormous, exultant breath was in the actual presence of God. They had gained what they could not lose.

  
  

• He chooses for you a way you know not, that you may be compelled into a thousand conversations with Him which will make the journey forever memorable—to Him and to you.

  
  

• I read somewhere that anyone who is not confused is very badly informed.

  
  

• Truth is that none of us knows the will of God for his life. I say for his life — for the promise is “as thou go step-by-step I will open up the way before you.“ He gives us enough light for today, enough strength for one day at a time, enough manna, our daily bread.“ Wherever you are, be all there, live life to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God. Above all she herself was the message. (speaking of Elisabeth Elliot)

  
  

• It does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies and whether it becomes between you and God, or whether it presses you nearer his heart. Hudson Taylor 

  
  

• In 1699, Reverend Henry wrote fondly about his father Philip who often said, “he is no fool who parts with that which he cannot keep, when he is sure to be recompensed with that which is which he cannot lose

  
  

• On writing. On life. Of course, that’s easier said than done. I used to say that I wrote because I loved writing. Now, I would say that I write because I love life, and that writing down my thoughts and observations is a way of teaching myself a new lesson on the art of living. If you don’t know what you think about something, write it down. Test it. See how it looks on the page. Feel what comes up as your own thoughts glare back at you. Do you want to hit the delete button, backspacing a few dashes towards the truth? Or do you want to keep going? This is the gift of any creative act. What we make reveals our deepest thoughts and beliefs, allowing us to hold them up to the light. Only then can we actually see.  Jeff Goins

Church in the Field—Lyrics Bruce Carroll

The sky was one vast ceiling that vaulted out in morn

Of starry stained glass windows and sunsets and of dawn.

An out of doors cathedral, day by day revealed

I remember church in the field.

The rain fell like a sacrament on the altar of the soil

Mixed from sweat that fell from hands content with honest toil.

The faith of spring saw harvest, that seeds and earth would heal

I remember church in the field

There were blazing colors, there were lovely smells

I encountered passions my poetry can’t tell

Mere religion hadn’t tamed me yet, my reverence was all real.

I remember church in the field. 

I prayed there without thinking; I worshipped from no cue

Flashing summer thunderstorms and wild roses fresh with dew.

And to mysteries and music, always just concealed

I remember church in the field.

• Discontent never made a rough path smoother, a heavy burden lighter, a bitter cup less bitter, a dark way brighter, a sore sorrow less sore. It only makes matters worse. —J.R. Miller

  
  

• C.S. Lewis once said, “He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.”
  

• One must go on working silently, trusting the result to the future. Vincent van Gogh
  

•   Now I have something to say. I belong to God. He is faithful. His words are true.

Week of 1-4-25 thru 01-11-26

• "With your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye. then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side. And fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus and live." (1-10-26, Rest in peace my friend, Robert Wolgemuth)
  

• Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find the bread.” D. Thambryrajah Niles

• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

•   "Holy Week offers the template. On Good Friday Jesus absorbed the worst of what Earth has to offer, a convergence of evil and death in an event of profound injustice. Easter Sunday gave a sure and certain sign of contradiction, demonstrating that nothing can withstand the healing force of a loving God. We live out our days, though, on Holy Saturday, aware of the redemptive power of suffering while awaiting the restoration power of creation made new."

• Only the obedient believe.

• Every rejection is a gift. A chance to learn and to do it better next time. An opportunity to figure out how to bounce, not break. Don't waste them.

  
  

• A pure heart is pure of good and evil; it belongs entirely and undivided to Christ; it looks only to him, who goes on ahead. Those alone will see God who in this life have looked only to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Their hearts are free of defiling images; they are not pulled back and forth by the various wishes and intentions of their own. Their hearts are fully absorbed in seeing God. They will see God whose hearts mirror the image of Jesus Christ.   “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8

  
  

• People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people will cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway. --Mother Theresa

• Great minds discuss ideas;

Average minds discuss events;

Small minds discuss people.    --Eleanor Roosevelt

• He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all.   

Week of 12-28-25 thru 01-03-26

• The Christmas blues hit me early this year, right around 10 p.m. on the 24th in church . . .  when I got home, I got out a fresh jar of dill pickles, which I find can be good at interrupting the blues if caught in its early stages. --Garrison Keillor  

• Lots and lots of types of days ahead. What will it take to trust the Lord and love each other?

• Perhaps praise is the greatest weapon we have in protecting ourselves against the fear we naturally feel in the face of overwhelming evil. Just as God gives us a peace that passes all understanding when we pray, perhaps He gives us a courage that passes all understanding when we praise.  --Eugene Peterson on Revelation 7

• Hell is filled with people thinking: “I deserve to be in heaven.” And raging. Heaven is filled with people thinking: “I deserve to be in hell.” And dancing.  —Dane Ortlund

• And when you live from “enough,” happiness lingers. It deepens. It isn’t swept away by the next shiny thing.  It is, simply, yours.

• The Bible is one thing that always has and always will be true. The story of Jesus was written and verified by eyewitnesses, kept for us through thousands of years of social upheaval, calamity, and war. It has proven true and is the one sure thing we can cling to when everything else is up in the air.  

  Perhaps AI will inadvertently drive us back to the Bible. To church, where we can truly know each other, unmediated by screens and rumors. To God, who upholds all things by his power, and for now, still holds open the door of forgiveness and hope.

  God has a very long history of taking what was meant for evil and turning it to good. This is what we should pray for, especially when we are tempted to give in to feelings of helplessness and fear. I don’t know what will happen to us now that all trust is lost and we must continuously question what’s real. But I do know this: We can still know what’s true.

  All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal. (Psalms 119:160)

• The mightiest lesson to be learned in this world is to let God have His way. Your brain is not big enough to comprehend the mysteries of Divine Providence; but your heart may trust Him enough to say, “I will submit!” —Theodore Cuyler

• To understand the Gospel of Mark, you have to read the end of Peter’s story in 2 Peter.

• Anyone who has walked with God will tell you He makes you wait. The Jews had waited a long time for their promised messiah. They hadn't heard from God, not a word, for 400 years then a voice from the general direction of the wilderness says He's coming. The long list of names in the gospel of Matthew doesn't make sense to us, but for them, it made perfect sense. Messiah was here.  True & Beautiful Things about the Bible

• New Year Self-Discovery Questionnaire:

·       Learning: What skill or topic am I willing to look bad at while learning this year?

·       Connection: Who is the one person I want to get to know better?

·       Focus: What will I say no to every week this year to protect what matters most?

·       Courage: What is the one conversation that would most change my trajectory?

·       Creativity: What is one thing I will create and share even if it’s not perfect?

·       Curiosity: What is a tiny experiment I will run this year?