Our life unfolds as if God were showing us a slide show, and each slide is a little test. God says, “Can you forgive this?” If the answer is no, God simply moves the slide back for us to view again later.
— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 18
If there is anything that I hope you have learned from me is that God does speak to His children personally.
— Charlyne Steinkamp, Charlyne Cares, December 11, 2007
The heart expands not by taking more in, but by giving more away.
We can be generous people because we have been given generous gifts.
We’re greedy because we think there’s a limited supply.
There is an unlimited supply of the things our hearts really long for.
Live with expanding hearts.
— Pastor Ed Allen, December 2, 2007
God speaks to us in a thousand voices, each with the same clear message: “I love you. Please trust me on this one.”
— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 7
Why are we so safe in the things we pray? Who are we trying to keep from looking foolish? Us or Him?
— Beth Moore, Praying God’s Word Day by Day, p. 347
The one major thing God told me from the very beginning, when I had no clue where I was or where I was going, was obedience in the face of reason. I was to keep a short account with God, cleanse myself daily of anger, bitterness and resentment, and forgive even when I didn’t feel like it. Willingness was, and is, always the key.
— Testimonial in Your Father Knows Best: True Reports from Court of God Moving When People are Praying, compiled by Bob and Charlyne Steinkamp
The key thing to know about Martin Luther, I think, is that every event of his life — like every event in yours and mine — was part of the vining growth plan of ups and downs God had devised for him. God frightened him, pushed him, wound him round the Word. As with Noah and Hezekiah and Jonah and others, many of the downturns of Luther’s life happened toward the end, when you’d think he’d be past all that badness, past his humanness, a completely godly man, producing the fullest and most mellow fruit. But it’s God’s plan, not ours, after all, and we are not his equal. As Job points out, “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” — no one except God, of course, who can do the impossible and did it with me and goes around doing it all the time.
— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 42-43
Charlyne and I want you to “get on with your life.” You do that by loving Jesus more each day, praying more, growing in Him, and trusting God for your every need. We want you to be confident that God will bring about what He has promised.
— Bob Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen, p. 251-252
What matters most to me is that God had that son to begin with. And that he has other sons and daughters like me that he loves and doesn’t want to be parted from. That he loves his children as I love my own daughters, only more so, with a hot, knowing, parental love that says, “Be who you are, but love me back. Only love me back.”
— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 8
“Nothing your prodigal, or you, are involved in right now has God wringing His hands, searching for a solution. We only need to allow God to be God….
“Nothing that concerns you is too petty for God to resolve for you.”
— Robert E. Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen, p. 172-173