Transformation always takes time, but time does not always bring transformation. Transformation into something greater takes a pilgrimage.
When you are connected with God and other people in life, you have a healthy soul.
I don’t think I’m really listening unless I’m willing to be changed by the other person.
Questions are your pickaxes. Good questions are what open people up, open new doors, and create opportunities.
When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.
We are often pursuing the renewal of our circumstances, but God is pursuing the renewal of our entire identity.
One cannot change another person, though the temptation to try is always there. Change must come from within the self, for one’s own reasons. Differentiation in the other may be stimulated by one’s own efforts to differentiate a self, but the other cannot be encouraged, prodded, or advised in this respect. The impetus must come solely from within the self.
Unless we get to know our neighbors beyond their labels, we cannot make the most of our spiritual conversations with them.
When our personalities are on autopilot they lull us into a half-sleeping state in which we find ourselves trapped in the same habitual, repetitious patterns of mindless reactivity we’ve been caught up in since childhood.
All of us would like to believe that we could accomplish one brave, selfless act for God and for His kingdom. But it takes greater courage to faithfully accomplish the daily, thankless tasks of everyday life for Him—being a father to our children, a good husband to our wives, building His temple one laborious block at a time.”