Quotes about Acceptance

In church, the rules of the lifeboat don't apply. Church is the refuge where the Kingdom of God is emulated, not mocked.

I made a single decision early on. I decided I wouldn't judge my kids. No matter what they told me, I wouldn't judge them. I might have to discipline them, but I wouldn't make them feel like lesser people for their mistakes. And because of that, they learned to trust me with their deepest thoughts... We taught them the basics early. But the older they got, the more I listened without judgment as they figured out how to apply wisdom in their own lives. And they've turned out well.

After a tragedy, I think God gives us a period of numbing as a kind of grace. Perhaps he knows our small minds, given so easily to false hope, couldn't handle the full brunt of reality.

We will never feel loved until we drop the act, until we're willing to show our true selves to the people around us.

It's not that bad, Don. Don't worry. It's just that for some reason, you are letting this girl name you." "What do you mean, name me?" "Well, you are letting her decide your value, you know. Your value has to come from God. And God wants you to receive His love and to love yourself too.

God allows us to face the tension whether we like it or not.

God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.

Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them. If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say.

I get this feeling sometimes that after the world ends, when God destroys all our buildings and our flags, we will wish we had seen everybody as equal, that we had eaten dinner with prostitutes, held them in our arms, opened up spare rooms for them, and loved them and learned from them.

In the churches I used to go to, I felt like I didn't fit in... I was accepted but not understood. There was room at the table for me, but I was not part of the family.

I liked the idea of loving people just to love them, not to get them to come to church.

An amazing things happens when we are honest and vulnerable. We allow people to know and love us. We also allow people to reject us, and that can sometimes hurt. But the truth is, they would have rejected us anyway. It's just that it would have taken a little more time.