Quotes from Dan Allender

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God.

Every emotion, though horizontally provoked, nevertheless reflects something about the vertical dimension: our relationship with God.

Poetry reaches to the realm beyond the world of sight and sound to reveal what our senses long to see and hear. It is the language not so much of the sublime, but of the truly real.

all evaluations eventually boil down to this: Am I moving toward God or away from Him? Am I turning toward God with awe and gratitude, or away from Him toward false gods of my own making?

Righteous anger invites change. It can envision what the other might look like if the arrogance controlling the heart was pierced. Anger is a surgical weapon, designed to destroy ugliness and restore beauty. In the hands of one who is trained in love and who can envision beauty, the knife of righteous anger is a weapon for restoration.

emotions are not amoral—they vocalize the inner working of our souls and are as tainted as any other portion of our personality.

The reason we don't want to feel is that feeling exposes the tragedy of our world and the darkness of our hearts.

We are not machines that can be repaired through a series of steps—we are relational beings who are transformed by the mystery of relationship.

Tension is living in the gap between certainty and uncertainty. We always begin with what we know, and are irresistibly drawn to what we don't know. We are inveterately curious. We are wired to grow, and all growth stretches us beyond our comfort level. Comfort is the absence of tension; growth requires a swim in murky, dangerous waters... Tension is the medium which we breathe everyday.

We often don't know our own stories because we doubt their existence, dismiss their importance, or we're distracted.

change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God. Only face to face with our deepest ruling passions is there hope of redeeming the fabric of our inner world.

Godly despair cries out for perspective but allows the hollowness of loss to move the heart to seek God.

The route to facing what we feel is not by devaluing the darkness of what we feel, but by valuing the deep structure of why we don't want to feel. Once we face why feeling is so hard, then we can move beyond what we feel to the deeper energy within us that keeps us from grappling honestly with our emotions. Then we will not only feel more deeply, but—more importantly—we will feel our feelings in a way that exposes our struggle with God.

if we view difficult emotions as problems to be solved, we will end up looking for answers that will work rather than pursuing relationship with God, regardless of immediate outcome. A determination to resolve our emotional struggles inevitably subordinates God as a servant of our healing rather than a Person to be praised.

The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced.

Hope waits but does not sit. It strains with eager anticipation to see what may be coming on the horizon. Hope does not pacify; it does not make us docile and mediocre. Instead, it draws us to greater risk and perseverance