Ann Voskamp’s book The Broken Way wrecked me … in a good way! Ann shows us how Jesus steps into our brokenness, and how He then prepared us to take His love into other people’s brokenness. It’s a fantastic book, so you really should check out my book review by clicking here.
“I am not the mistakes I have made; I am the righteousness He has made. I am not the plans I have failed; I am the perfectness He has finished. I am not the wrongs I have done; I am the faultlessness He has been. I am not the sins I have chosen; I am chosen by the Beloved, regardless of my sins. In Christ, I am chosen, accepted, justified, anointed, sealed, forgiven, redeemed, complete, free, Christ’s friend, God’s child, Spirit’s home.”
“You’ve got to give your gifts or they may become your idols.”
“The thread of your life becomes a tapestry of abundant colors only if it ties itself to other lives. The only way to strengthen the fabric of society is to let the threads of your life break away to let Christ, who is in us, weave around other threads. … The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks.”
“We will be known for our actual fruits, not the intentions of our imaginations.”
“Don’t we all have to unlearn fear before we can truly learn to love?”
“Jesus comes to give you freely through His passion what every other god forces you to try to get through performance.”
“Compassion says there will only be abundance for me when there is abundance for you.”
“Instead of flexing His muscle, Jesus surrendered His muscle to the nail. Instead of leveraging His position, He leveraged Himself out on a Cross. He made sacrifice His default position. Instead of stonewalling people with His authoritative power, He laid down His authority, lay down in a tomb, lay in a suffering death till the stone was rolled away.”
“The focus of God’s people is not to create explanations for suffering, but to create communities around suffering, co-suffering communities to absorb suffering and see it transform into cruciform grace.”
“Suffering is not a problem that needs a solution as much as it’s an experience that needs compassion.”
“Faith is confidence in the kindness of God, no matter the confusion of circumstances.”
You can read other quotes I’ve shared from The Broken Way here and here.
“Sometimes our deepest suffering is that voice in our head. And maybe that’s exactly the point—the enemy of your soul wants nothing more at the end of the day than to make you and all your offered years feel like so much wasted effort. …
Craig T. Owens 