Quotes from Dallas Willard

Deciding to fill our minds with God is how we keep our hearts. To listen to his Word and nourish our whole beings with it is not a nice thing we might do occasionally. Our very lives depend upon it.

But—for good reasons rooted deeply in the nature of the person and of personal relationships—his preferred way is to speak, to communicate: thus the absolute centrality of scripture to our discipleship. And this, among other things, is the reason why an extensive use of solitude and silence is so basic for growth of the human spirit, for they form an appropriate context for listening and speaking to God.1

The eternal life of which Jesus speaks is not knowledge about God but an intimately interactive relationship with him.

The simple program of Christ for winning the whole world is to make each person he touches magnetic enough with love to draw others. FRANK LAUBACH, MAN OF PRAYER

the whole Bible—indeed, the whole of our life before God.

In particular, I had learned that intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of scripture on oneself through the week, in church or out, will not reorder one's mind and spirit—just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once and for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word.

The open secret of many "Bible-believing" churches is that only a very small percentage of their members study the Bible with even the degree of interest, intelligence or joy that they bring to bear upon their favorite newspaper or magazine.

When the prophet Samuel was a young boy, Eli the priest gave him unerring advice on listening for the voice of God. It is a simple but profound prayer: "Speak, LORD, for Your servant hears" (1 Sam. 3:9). When we get up out of bed in the morning, among our first thoughts should be this: Lord, speak to me. I'm listening. I want to hear your voice.

Prayer, it is rightly said, is the method of genuine theological research, the method of understanding what and who God is.

And we can't all just get along. Rather, we have to become the kinds of persons who can get along. As a major part of this, our epidermal responses have to be changed in such a way that the fire and the fight doesn't start almost immediately when we are "rubbed the wrong way." Solitude and silence give us a place to begin the necessary changes, though they are not a place to stop.

Consider a daily newspaper or television newscast and eliminate from it every report that presupposes a breaking of one of the Ten Commandments. Very little will be left.

Seek not to speak, but that you might have something to say.

If you bury yourself in Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life.

only humility leads to perfect death; only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud; in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.

We want to ask questions and not just make assertions.

If, by faith, you can now declare, "I have no lack," you will increasingly experience the Shepherd's sufficiency in your life.

I remember a time I went to him with a more personal problem: "Hey Dallas, my heart is breaking, I can't fix it, I don't understand it, and I'm sadder than I've ever been in my life." There was a long pause. With Dallas there's always a long pause. And then he said, "This will be a test of your joyful confidence in God.

The secret of the easy yoke, then, is to learn from Christ how to live our total lives, how to invest all our time and our energies of mind and body as he did. We must learn how to follow his preparations, the disciplines for life in God's rule that enabled him to receive his Father's constant and effective support while doing his will.

Train yourself to use each change of person or event to remind you to pray and to bless, so that mere change becomes a signal to turn your mind back to God.

Jesus went on to say to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go with peace in your heart." Here is God's rule in action.

the radiant sufficiency of the Shepherd provides the life without lack.

There is no indication anywhere in the Scriptures that Jesus was afraid to suffer and die. He was not trying to avoid the cross. He was overcoming Satan.

The land promised to them was one of incredible goodness—"flowing with milk and honey," as it is repeatedly described. But it still had to be conquered by careful, persistent, and intelligent human action, over a long period of time.

I would not be a pastor of a church that did not have a program of Bible memorization in it, because Bible memorization is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what they need. "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth" (Joshua 1:8). That's where we need it! In our mouth.