Quotes from Dan B. Allender

If you are a leader, it is not possible to be at peace with all and friends with everyone.

If you lead, you will eventually serve with Judas or Peter.

The cost for the recipient of God's grace is nothing, and no price could be higher for arrogant people to pay.

Every addiction is an attempt to slay hope.

It is God's design to use reluctant servants to usher in glory.

The more you openly name your struggles, the less people can use your silence as a back door to blackmail you, to sabotage your leadership, or to subvert relationships within the organization.

What originally led us to serve others by leading them seldom remains our North Star.

Christ never intended to cover up the dark side of life, but rather to illuminate a path through it.

Strength is found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found in surrender.

So take seriously the story that God has given you to live. It's time to read your own life, because your story is the one that could set us all ablaze.

Love cannot last without a foundation of forgiveness.

Most people want to grow, but the price of growth is pain.

Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another's glory or toward degrading each other.

Life is war, and marriage provides us with a close and intimate ally with whom we may wage this war. The battle requires bold love, forgiveness, confrontation, and repentance.

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

A reluctant leader is highly suspicious of people who work to accumulate and hoard power.

The shattering [of shalom] moves us from a place of shalom to a place that is harsh and unrelenting. The shattering brings us a keen awareness that we are alone and in danger. We are on our own.

Desire lies at the heart of who God made us to be, who we are at our core. Desire is both our greatest frailty and the mark of our highest beauty. Our desire completes us as we become One with our Lover, and it separates us from Him and brings death as it wars against His will.

you can be assured that the inciting events call for you to sacrifice your comfort and ease in order for your story to move forward. It's easy to ignore such inciting events...It's easy to flee your story.

But if we honestly name the passionate desires of our heart, and if we risk seeing those desires come to be, the plot of our life story will begin to move with greater intentionality. Yet the only way we can keep walking on that path is to allow our self moments to rest and celebrate the temporary climax of a story in denouement.

A new story begins the moment an old one ends. But a denouement is a respite that calls us to stop the journey for a brief interlude - to eat, drink, sing, dance and tell our story to others.

The reluctant leader doesn't merely give accolades to others. It is her true joy to see others awaken to their potential and exceed their greatest dreams. It is the hope of every good teacher to have students who take their work further than the teacher was able to do. To be surpassed is the ideal. To be replaced is the goal, not a sign of failure.

The only parameter that is to guide our Sabbath is delight. Will this be merely a break or a joy? Will this lead my heart to wonder or routine? Will I be more grateful or just happy that I got something done?

It is not presumptuous to ask, 'What is it that you see in me that brings you delight?