Quotes from Linda Dillow

Too often in our lives, accomplishment and doing overshadow growth and becoming. We frantically scurry around, trying to paint the picture with our activities, but our being must be settled before our doing. George MacDonald said it well: "He thought to gain a thing by a doing, when the very thing desired was a being."8

All the hurt, fear, and rejection you have ever felt is what the Lord Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane.

No one can fulfill your purpose but you. And God's plan for you and His plan for me embrace far more than the events or circumstances that happen to us. They also embrace what God wants us to be and do and what He desires to do in and through us.

God created our inmost being and fashioned us in our mother's womb so that we might be equipped to fulfill the plan that He set out for us even before we were born. Who you are is not a biological accident. What you are is not a circumstantial accident. God planned both for you.

Despite its evils, bitterness holds many of us captive. Forgiveness is the only escape route out of this prison.

Our perspective is of utmost importance to God: where our hope is, where our treasure is, and what we are doing with the riches God has given us.

forgiveness is not a feeling but a secret choice of the heart.

God cares about where your heart is, where your treasure is.

If your treasure is on earth, your heart will be on earth also, and therefore material things will rule you.

Going beyond forgiveness is sometimes more difficult than the initial act of forgiving.

Are you going to judge God by the circumstances you don't understand or judge the circumstances in the light of the character of God?

The words of Scripture are plain: God hates greed. It's ugly. It breeds other sins. It consumes and controls us. We can't get rid of greed with a halfhearted wish or a token prayer. We must wholeheartedly come before the Lord and beg Him to remove this wretched leech with her long-reaching tentacles.

Contentment is essentially a matter of accepting from God's hand what He sends because we know that He is good and therefore it is good."5

Worry and anxiety give a small thing a big shadow, and this shadow creates problems, not just in the soul and spirit, but in the body.

Instead of being anxious, we are to fix our focus on God and His righteousness.

We commit sin when we worry. We do not trust God when we worry. We do not receive answers to prayer when we worry, because we are not trusting.

It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It's when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the future to Him and to mind the present.

Never allow yourself to complain about anything — not even the weather. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else. Never compare your lot with another's. Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise. Never dwell on tomorrow — remember that [tomorrow] is God's, not ours.1

Let's look at one such creative counterpart described many years ago in the book of Proverbs. There are many outstanding, godly women mentioned throughout the Bible, but this woman received special praise: Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all (Proverbs 31:29). Who was this woman who did more than Deborah, the military adviser, or Ruth, the woman of constancy, or Esther, the queen who risked her life for her people? She was a wife and mother like you and me!

I want to be a woman of focus. I don't want to live by default, but by design.

Ella's focus was eternal, and her focus led to an internal contentment.

Not only are many neighborhood conflicts characterized by this insult-for-insult relationship, but many marriages, unfortunately, fall into the same trap. In the chapter on unconditional acceptance, I suggested an exercise in which you divide a sheet of paper into 2 columns and then note your mate's weaknesses in the right-hand column.

I encourage you to do this exercise. Do it now. Get out a piece of paper and make your (2) columns. List your husband's faults and as many of your wrong responses as you can think of. You'll be surprised that your responses are as bad or worse than his faults. After you have finished, confess your wrong attitudes to God and burn the paper. Definitely do not show it to your husband. This exercise is for your benefit - to help you get the plank out of your own eye!

Do you build up or do you destroy? What do you communicate to your husband when he walks in the door after work? Genuine encouragement, or dissatisfaction? Does your face light up when he talks to you, or does he see sneers and a lack of trust? A man can have everything outside of the home, but if the sincere respect of his wife and children is missing, he can be totally emasculated.