Quotes from Larry Crabb

The real power in helping somebody to be transformed is not to do something to them but to join with them.

The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things.

I've practiced centering prayer. I've contemplatively prayed. I've prayed liturgically... I've benefited from each, and I still do. In ways you'll see, elements of each style are still with me.

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.

The central truth that serves as the platform for Christian marriage — and for all Christian relationships — is that in Christ we are at every moment eternally loved and genuinely significant.

In order to compete with sin's appeal, holy desire, the longing to live a Christlike life that displays the relational beauty of Christ to others, must be rooted in faith. And that faith exists only when it is lodged in the certainty that soon it will give way to an incomparable experience of joy that will forever destroy the appeal of sin.

I once heard worship defined as celebrating the availability of God.

The Christian always has reason to celebrate. When we fail, celebrate His grace. When we are blessed, celebrate His mercy. When others reject us, celebrate His love.

And life (or God) seems to reply, "Get ready! The other shoe is going to drop. When? I want to surprise you.

It is regrettable that many Christian psychologists talk more about such things as unconscious motivation and emotional damage than they do about sin and responsibility.

When you can't figure Me out, you will give up the illusion of predictability and control and discover the joy and freedom of hope.

If I understand accountability, but not acceptability, I will live under pressure to behave well in order to be accepted. If I understand acceptability, but not accountability, I may become casually indifferent to sinful living. When I understand first my acceptability and then my accountability, I will be constrained to please the One who died for me, fearful that I might grieve Him, not wanting to, because I love Him.

every personal or behavioral problem one might wish to change (for example, bad temper, perverted sexual desires, depression, anxiety, overeating) results ultimately from violations of the command to love.

Debo renunciar a mi fascinación por mí mismo ante el beneficio de una preocupación más compatible con la naturaleza del objetivo de Dios. No estoy yo en el centro. Sino Dios. Existo por él y no existe él por mí.

Confession designed to restore lost blessings is a management technique, it is not repentance.

You're coming to Him not to get Him to enter your world and change things to make you happy and give your life meaning and provide you with the blessings you want. You're now entering His world wanting to bring Him glory, to become a source of joy to your Papa, willing to endure whatever suffering is required to make that happen.

That level of honesty is reserved for the counseling office. Church is too often a place of pretense and therefore a place without hope. When brokenness is disdained, where the real story is never told, the power of God is not felt. Where brokenness is invited and received with grace, the gospel comes alive with hope.

First, the word she used that we translate kindness is the Hebrew hesed. It's a word that refers to a strongly bonded relationship where one party continues to be faithfully involved with another because it is the character of the first party to do so.

we are motivated to meet our needs for significance and security in ways we unconsciously believe will work.

The Bible is a love story that begins with a divorce. Everything from the third chapter of Genesis through the end of Revelation is the story of a betrayed lover wooing us back into His arms so we can enjoy the love of family forever.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth" (1 John 1:8). It seems God leads us through failure toward maturity, rather than doing whatever is needed for us to move past ongoing failure.

We try to reach the heart of God without listening to the Word of God.

People experience the life-changing force of healing relationships when something powerful comes out of one and touches something good in another.