Quotes from Philip Gulley

Too many times we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be swept asunder.

In the end . . . . . . . Stand where we feel led. Stand straight, stand tall, and try to remember that other folks might be led to stand elsewhere.

Love, even that love which is imagined, is sometimes all we have to get us through.

Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow.

Wrinkled women lifting their faces, chasing their youth. Fat men sucking in bellies. Poor folks putting on airs. Sinners acting like saints. All of us keeping pace with our companions, stepping lively in this dance of deceit.

If you can go home to someone who loves you, if your children are proud of you, if you can keep your integrity, you've hit the jackpot. You don't need the state to call your number. It's already been called.

The leaves of our blessed lives fall to the ground and if we're wise like my grandfather, we gather them in a pile and keep them safe lest the winds of forgetfulness blow them away.

We just never know. We think we do. We think we have life figured out, and in our arrogance we become hard. But life has a way of humbling us, of softening us.

I ran across the following thought that I JUST LOVE & I thought of you...... I do not know where we will sit at the final banquet, but I suspect who will sit beside us - on our right will sit the person whom we have harmed the most. On our left will sit the person who has done the greatest evil to us. We will be seated between grace received and grace required.

When love takes you by the hand and leaves you better, that is home. That's the place to stake your claim and build your life.

Raw pain alarms. us. It reminds us that life isn't as orderly as we'd hoped. We demand that pain settle down before we shuffle it off to the quiet table. We want pain to stay in its own little section, want to keep it from spilling over into the other parts of life. Just like . lunch trays. Keep pain in its own little compartment.

There's danger in thinking joy is a matter of location. If we can't find joy where we are, we probably won't find it anywhere.

When I was in second grade, my teacher, Miss Maxwell, read from The Harmony Herald that one in every four children lived in China. I remember looking over the room, guessing which children they might be. I wasn't sure where China was, but suspected it was on bus route three. I recall being grateful I didn't live in China because I didn't care for Chinese food and couldn't speak the language.

Sometimes what we think we need isn't what we need at all, and what gets thrown in for good measure is that which fills our hearts.

I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.

C]hildren. . . like all living things, grow best in the loosened soil of relaxed oversight.

When we're young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know. It takes a wise man to realize just how much he doesn't know.

My life is a train of unfinished tasks, one railcar after another of half-finished efforts, with no caboose in sight.

In any crowd there is a malcontent or two, and the Easter crowd is no exception. Someone invariably demands I speak out against the Easter Bunny. I am captivated by a great number of subjects, but have never worked up the enthusiasm to preach against rabbits, real or mythic. These are the same people who complain about Santa at Christmas and want me to take a swipe at Halloween.

There is a moral sturdiness to (hardware store owner) Charley that isn't advertised or boasted about, but is obvious to all who know him and quickly discerned by those who don't. Our country has lately been afflicted with television preachers and pundits who focus on our families while neglecting theirs. How vainglorious these critics seem, how vacuous and shallow they appear when placed alongside a man of Charley's stature.

Two thousand years ago, a church elder named Peter wrote the recipe for community. "Above all else," he wrote, "hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). That means when you love a person, you occasionally have to turn a blind eye toward their shortcomings.

When we're young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know.

We are not to worship the Bible; we are to worship the One the Bible reveals.

If you have to choose between following money or following your heart, go with your heart. There are some choices we make that cannot be corrected. Squandering your life in a job that shrivels your soul isn't one of them. Use your gifts. Follow your heart.