Quotes About Perspective

Though I believe math is a tool of the Enemy, I learned enough to know that to accurately find the sum, you add up all the parts.

Tell me more about that. Tell me how your thoughts progressed in this. I appreciate your experience with this. I'm listening. I hear what you are saying. I would love to learn from you. I care about how you feel and your perspective here. I understand that. I identify with that. What do you think of __________? I hadn't thought of it in that way. Thank you for that angle. Let me think about that a bit before I respond. Thanks for your transparency.

Learning to discern what is eternal and what is simply a product of our own context is actually harder work than accepting any interpretation on its face.

Some useful statements to pocket to create safe spaces for discussion: Tell me more about that. Tell me how your thoughts progressed in this. I appreciate your experience with this. I'm listening. I hear what you are saying. I would love to learn from you. I care about how you feel and your perspective here. I understand that. I identify with

that. What do you think of __________? I hadn't thought of it in that way. Thank you for that angle. Let me think about that a bit before I respond. Thanks for your transparency.

There is a biblical benchmark I now use. We will refer to this criterion for every hard question, big idea, topic, assessment of our own obedience, every "should" or "should not" and "will" or "will not" we ascribe to God, every theological sound bite. Here it is: If it isn't also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn't true.

I may just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I'm part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception.

Theology is either true everywhere or it isn't true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long.

Mostly good is enough. Mostly good produces healthy kids who know they are valued and either forget the other parts or turn them into funny stories.

Theology very naturally follows belief, but belief very rarely follows judgment.

Excess has impaired perspective in America.

I can't believe anyone would voluntarily run 26 miles. Sometimes I sit on the couch cross-legged because I don't feel like walking to the bathroom.

Some people are destined to be deep thinkers. I am not one of those people.

As I examine my life through this book, I can't help but wonder if my mother was right. Maybe I really was what I ate. And maybe if she'd let me eat a little more sugar, I'd have come out sweeter.

When I hug her, I notice she's still wearing yesterday's false eyelashes. Mom? You know those come off with a little makeup remover and a cotton pad?" I'm not taking them off." Why not?" I spent $180 on that makeup job and I refuse to wash my face until I get my money's worth.

Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle.

What you choose to focus on becomes your reality.

What other people think of you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

We are so unbelievably blessed to have all the things we have, all the opportunities and ideas and people and tasks and interests and experiences and responsibilities - choosing to freak out about it all, rather than enjoying the living of our lives, is like throwing pearls before swine. Such a waste of such a glorious gift.

What you tell yourself on a daily basis is more powerful than you know.

Comparison is the fastest way to take all the fun out of life.

Life is an illusion created by your perception, and it can be changed the moment you choose to change it.

As Albert Einstein so aptly noted, "The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

Watching someone else totally go for it can be incredibly upsetting to the person who's spent a lifetime building a case for why they themselves can't