Larry Crabb quotes

We cannot count on God to arrange what happens in our lives in ways that will make us feel good.We can, however, count on God to patiently remove all the obstacles to our enjoyment of Him. He is committed to our joy, and we can depend on Him to give us enough of a taste of that joy and enough hope that the best is still ahead to keep us going in spite of how much pain continues to plague our hearts.
-- Larry Crabb

#Pain #Heart #Giving

God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.
-- Larry Crabb

#Dream #Song #Children

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.
-- Larry Crabb

#Leadership #Echoes #Giving

When spiritual friends share their stories, the others listen without working. They rest. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to improve. A spiritual community feels undisturbed quiet as they listen, certainly burdened . . . but still resting in the knowledge that the life within, the passion for holiness, is indestructible. It needs only to be nourished and released.
-- Larry Crabb

#Spiritual #Passion #Community

The root of all our personal and emotional difficulties is a lack of togetherness... I therefore believe that the surest route to overcoming problems and becoming the people we were meant to be is reconnecting with God and with our community.
-- Larry Crabb

#Believe #Emotional #Roots

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.
-- Larry Crabb

#Christian #Understanding #Problem

The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we'll shift our direction.
-- Larry Crabb

#Commitment #Self #Style

The goal of our sanctification is that we place Christ on display in the way we love others.
-- Larry Crabb

#Goal #Way #Christ

I find it much easier to counsel than to be counseled, to reach out to a friend in my small group who is feeling insercure than to reveal my own inseurity. The truth is we don't much like being dependent. We don't enjoy admitting how depeately we long for someone's kindness and involvement. It's so humbling.
-- Larry Crabb

#Kindness #Long #Feelings

I assume the Spirit is always whispering, "Abba", to God's children, assuring them that they are safe in His care. And he is continually calling them to become what God saved them to be, solid people, indestructibly alive, hurting perhaps, but consumed with pleasing the Father.
-- Larry Crabb

#Hurt #Children #Father

The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things.
-- Larry Crabb

#Passionate #Problem #Enough

It is the understanding of others and the awareness of their needs, that the ambassador of CHRIST should strive to cultivate
-- Larry Crabb

#Understanding #Needs #Ambassadors

The marriage relationship is one of God's creations for building up people. It gives husbands and wives the chance to minister to an immortal human being in a uniquely intimate fashion. To enjoy the meaningfulness of marriage, then, requires a once-made but ongoing commitment of mutual ministry to our mates and the more we seize them, the more meaning our marriage will have.
-- Larry Crabb

#Fashion #Husband #Commitment

A marriage bound together by commitments to exploit the other for filling one's own needs (and I fear that most marriages are built on such a basis) can legitimately be described as a "tic on a dog" relationship. Just as a hungry tic clamps on to a nourishing host in anticipation of a meal, so each partner unites with the other in the expectation of finding what his or her personal nature demands. The rather frustrating dilemma, of course, is that in such a marriage there are two tics and no dog!
-- Larry Crabb

#Dog #Commitment #Two

In order to meaningfully repent of the ways in which we violate love, we must recognize them. We won’t recognize self-protective patterns of relating as sinful violations of love until we face the disappointment in our soul we’re determined never to experience again.
-- Larry Crabb

#Disappointment #Self #Order

I hear Jesus telling us to stop negotiating with Him, to stop offering something we think we have in exchange for His blessings.
-- Larry Crabb

#Jesus #Blessing #Thinking

We can't always make life work. But we can always draw near to God. There is a different way to approach our problems. There is a NEW WAY to live.
-- Larry Crabb

#Different #Way #Problem

There’s never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us. At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good. He never stops. It gives Him too much pleasure. God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end. He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles. At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.
-- Larry Crabb

#Blessing #Thinking #Giving

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.
-- Larry Crabb

#Life Changing #Commitment #Self

If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing.
-- Larry Crabb

#Pain #Real #Struggle

We must come to the Bible with the purpose of self-exposure consciously in mind. I suspect not many people make more than a token stab in that direction. It's extremely hard work. It makes Bible study alternately convicting and reassuring, painful and soothing, puzzling and calming, and sometimes dull - but not for long if our purpose is to see ourselves better.
-- Larry Crabb

#Hard Work #Self #Long

We have made a terrible mistake! For most of this century we have wrongly defined soul wounds as psychological disorders and delegated their treatment to trained specialists. Damaged psyches aren't the problem. The problem is disconnected souls. What we need is connection. What we need is a healing community.
-- Larry Crabb

#Mistake #Healing #Psych

I've practiced centering prayer. I've contemplatively prayed. I've prayed liturgically... I've benefited from each, and I still do. In ways you'll see, elements of each style are still with me.
-- Larry Crabb

#Prayer #Style #Elements

Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.
-- Larry Crabb

#Dream #Pain #Opportunity

We were designed to love and when we do, something good develops inside. We feel clean, rich, whole. Even better, we become less concerned with how we feel and more concerned with the lives of others.
-- Larry Crabb

#Rich #Feels #Lives Of Others