I’ve read many books. In the last year, I’ve reread many of the books which impacted me the most—as I’ve been writing about those books in my new book. And, this year I’ve been reading new books.
Here are a few quotes from old books and new books. Quotes for you to read and think about. Quotes for us all as we continue this life of learning and growing.
The new technologies that were supposed to connect the world and bring us all closer together have, in some ways, done the opposite. Instead of creating a global village, it’s broken us into millions of little lonely islands.
—Drew Dyck, Just Show Up: How Small Acts of Faithfulness Change Everything (A Guide for Exhausted Christians)
The gospel—the Jesus story—is global good news for a world wracked by incessant wars, recurring natural disasters, rampant poverty and disease, and intractable conflicts between ethnic groups. The gospel presents a God who has taken a direct interest in the miseries afflicting His creation and has gone so far as to enter the scene Himself to set things right.
—Russell Board, 40 Days With Paul: Encountering The Risen Savior
But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.
—Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life
For the first time in history, there are geniuses armed with limitless funds, mountains of data, powerful algorithms, and a profound understanding of human psychology. Their sole purpose is to steal as much of your time as possible.
—Drew Dyck, Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science
Feelings are important in many areas but completely unreliable in matters of faith.
—Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society
The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.
—Henri J.M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again either.
—Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
We all need the pendulum swing of snatching spaces of solitude and serving tables of sociability. In fact, the more plugged in and connected we are, the more we need to unplug and disconnect. A world of presence needs a time of absence.
—Leonard Sweet, The Bad Habits of Jesus: Showing Us the Way to Live Right in a World Gone Wrong
Never lose the awe and wonder of having a personal God get personally involved in your life.
—Calvin Miller, The Words of Christ: An Everyday Journey With Jesus
We bless others naturally through our strengths. But we bless others supernaturally through our weaknesses.
—Leonard Sweet, I Am a Follower: The Way, Truth, and Life of Following Jesus
Say what you want about the world, how things are falling apart, that the news is bleak, the weather horrible, the state of the nation in economic decline. Ugliness is news because it does not happen all the time. Goodness is not news because it gushes all around us daily, minute by minute.
—Christopher de Vinck
Things That Matter Most: Essays on Home, Friendship, and Love
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
—Ephesians 4:29, NIV
