Quotes about Growth

Here is invariably a spiritual fact: Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness.

Many Christians are unaware how drastically the cross must work so that ultimately their natural power for living may be denied.

Every true spiritual experience means that we have discovered a certain fact in Christ and have entered into that. Anything that is not from Him in this way is an experience that is going to evaporate very soon.

How joyful to be together, alone as when we first were joined in our little house by the river long ago, except that now we know each other, as we did not then; and now instead of two stories fumbling to meet, we belong to one story that the two, joining, made. And now we touch each other with the tenderness of mortals, who know themselves

When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.

I've come down from the sky like some damned ghost, delayed too long…To the abandoned fields the trees returned and grew. They stand and grow. Time comes To them, time goes, the trees Stand; the only place They go is where they are. Those wholly patient ones… They do no wrong, and they Are beautiful. What more Could we have thought to ask?... I stand and wait for light to open the dark night. I stand and wait for prayer to come and find me here.

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture the book widens and deepens with our years.

Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging.

Pain is weakness leaving your body

But time does heal. Not like we think it does, not like we would—from the front—but more from the back or side or someplace we can't see it coming. It bubbles up beneath and rises all around.

I guess sometimes it's got to hurt before it can get better." I nodded. "Hearts are like that.