Quotes from Edward T. Welch

When you erode the fear of death with the knowledge that you already died [in Christ], you will find yourself moving toward a simple, bold obedience.

Part of the depressive syndrome is that you are immensely loyal to your interpretation of yourself and your world. If God says you are forgiven in Christ, you create new rules that mandate contrition, penance, and self-loathing. If God says he loves you, you insist it is impossible. There it is: your system is higher than God's.

It is as if we want to believe the lie. Perhaps we blame ourselves because in a strange way it helps us feel as if we have more control. If we are responsible for whatever went wrong, for whatever hurt us, we might be able to figure out how to keep it from happening again.

Our goal is to love people more than need them. We are overflowing pitchers, not leaky cups.

Joy is not the opposite of depression. It is deeper than depression. Therefore, you can experience both. Depression is the relentless rain. Joy is the rock. Whether depression is present or not, you can stand on joy.

Depression ... involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature's part ... to fill up the empty space. But for all intents and purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead.

The reason Scripture doesn't give clear guidelines for assigning responsibility is that it is not essential for us to know precise causes. This is good news: you don't have to know the exact cause of suffering in order to find hope and comfort.

Fear of man is always part of a triad that includes unbelief and disobedience.

Your future includes manna. It will come. There is no sense devising future scenarios now because God will do more than you anticipate.

Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated. Or, to strengthen the language, You are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.

Love breaks the hold of individualism; it builds new communities out of the ashes of broken and fragmented relationships.

When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.

You feel like an outcast. You don't belong.      You feel naked. While everyone else is walking around with their clothes on, you feel exposed and vulnerable. You are seen, and what others see is not pretty.      You feel unclean. Something is wrong with you. You are dirty. Even worse, you are contaminated. There is a difference between being a bit muddy and harboring a deadly, contagious virus.

If our failure to consistently worship the true God is the key feature of sin, we are sinners all.

Shame is life-dominating and stubborn. Once entrenched in your heart and mind, it is a squatter that refuses to leave.

I have a new philosophy. I only dread one day at a time. —Charlie Brown

The gospel is only available to people who know they are unclean.

Scripture is about suffering. It has given comfort to millions. It has spawned hundreds of wonderful books that highlight God's gentle care and Scripture's probing insights. You can be assured of this: God really does speak in our suffering, and we have good reason to believe that the words he says are good and powerful enough to lighten our pain.

Have you ever thought about Jesus' physical appearance? If you think about the paintings, he was a relatively handsome Dutchman. But if you think about a prophetic description, "he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). To put it diplomatically, he didn't look like much, and sleepless nights filled with prayer vigils probably didn't help.

You will either fear God or other people. There are no other alternatives.

Joy is not the opposite of suffering. If it were, a person practiced in joy could crowd out pain because one couldn't exist with the other. Instead, joy can actually be a companion to suffering.

If you want Jesus, you must be willing to accept the honor that goes with the relationship. Your royal status—ascribed to you, not achieved—has been unveiled.

When psychological needs, rather than sin, are seen as our primary problem, not only is our self-understanding affected, but the gospel itself is changed.

Yet weakness—or neediness—is a valuable asset in God's community. Jesus introduced a new era in which weakness is the new strength. Anything that reminds us that we are dependent on God and other people is a good thing. Otherwise, we trick ourselves into thinking that we are self-sufficient, and arrogance is sure to follow. We need help, and God has given us his Spirit and each other to provide it.