Quotes by Counselors - Page 12

We would prefer all gain and no loss in life, yet that would gain us nothing more than great loss.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Today’s ashes are tomorrow’s soil.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If you haven’t figured it out yet, an absolutely certain way to lose something as quickly as possible is to forget the privilege you have to possess it in the first place.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To abandon the child ‘within’ means that the adult ‘without’ will be an adult in name only. And frankly, I can only name a handful of things that are that tragic.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I have attached anything to sacrifice other than loss, I have at some level assumed a pay-off. And if I’ve assumed a pay-off, I’m only assuming a sacrifice.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We will find it increasingly difficult to believe that we've been set free from sin, from the law's power to condemn, and that God's smile is resting upon us if we continually give ourselves over to what we know we should avoid. Sin strips our faith, and it leads to ultimate deadness in our lives.
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick
Forgiving others simply means that you refuse to be a prisoner of a past that you can't change, and shackled to decisions that you didn't make.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
It‘s utterly astounding that every time I get knocked down God’s mercy compassionately raises me to my feet; His grace thoroughly brushes off every trace of assorted filth I accumulated in the fall, His word precisely recalibrates my direction to insure the success of a journey resumed, and once all of that is completed He gently leans over and whispers, “How about another run?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can hide a lot of stuff until God shows up, for when God shows up nothing is hidden, which includes both our embarrassment and His forgiveness.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To forgive is to refuse to contaminate the future with the errors of the past.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Forgiveness means that you will not allow a temporary event to have “forever” repercussions.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
As it peaks over the horizon, does not a sunrise whisper the opportunity to try again. And if the day passes and our efforts were stunted by the bane of our insecurities or blunted by the challenges of life, does not a sunset invite us to rest before it whispers the same message the next morning?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I tend to walk around convinced that any amount of forgiveness that I could extend could never possibly compensate for the offenses that I’ve had to endure. Yet, maybe the greater offense is that I’ve got that backwards.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Abuse and respect are diametric opposites: You do not respect someone whom you abuse, and you do not abuse someone whom you respect.
Lundy Bancroft
reconciling grace, saving grace of Jesus"[In regards to struggles and potential in relationship],..we are sinner with capacity to to do great damage to ourselves and our relationships. We need God's grace to save us from ourselves. But we are also God's children, which means that we have great hope and potential-- not hope that rests on our gifts, experience, or track record, but hope that rests in Christ. Because he is in us and we are in him, it is right to say that our potential IS Christ. We are well aware that we are smack-dab in the middle of God's process of sanctification. And because this is true, we will struggle again. Selfishness, pride, an unforgiving spirit, irritation, and impatience will certainly return. But we are neither afraid nor hopeless. We have experienced what God can do in the middle of the mess. This side of heaven, relationships and ministry are always shaped in the forge of struggle. None of us get to relate to perfect people or avoid the effects of the fall on the work we attempt to do. Yet amid the mess, we find the highest joys of relationship and ministry.
Timothy S. Lane
Every good relationship we have is a gift of God's grace. Left to ourselves, nothing good would happen. Our problem has everything to do with sin and our potential has everything to do with Christ. Sin always draws towards self-interest. It is possible that even in our most altruistic moments are driven by what we get out of them
Timothy S. Lane
If you look for God in your relationships, you will always find things to be thankful for. When God reigns in our hearts, peace reigns in our relationships. This work will only be complete in heaven but there is much we can enjoy now.
Timothy S. Lane
In God's plan, our quest for personal identity is meant to drive us back to him as Creator so that we find our meaning and purpose in him.When we live out a sense of who we are IN CHRIST we live our lives based on all we have been given by Christ. This keeps us from seeking to get those things from the people and situations around us. Much of the disappointments and heartache we experience is the result of our attempts to get something from relationships that we already have in Christ.
Timothy S. Lane
There are two ways of thinking. One is living life based on fear. The other is trusting. Letting go and allowing trust to control our lives takes mental gymnastics.
David W. Earle
In order for a person to be able to “turn our lives and our wills” over requires something very difficult for a spiritually wounded person to accomplish - Trust. Yet, to accomplish this step, trust of the spirit must be present.
David W. Earle
When you wear a mask, you are not real.
David W. Earle
Honoring your word is the fiber from which trust is built.
David W. Earle
Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.
David W. Earle
People who are unwilling to talk about deep personal issues do not trust their own emotions.
David W. Earle
The strange part about a person’s lack of trust is that it often comes from not trusting themselves.
David W. Earle
Why does not the stunning evidence of the last miracle grant me confidence in the next crisis? Because my immaturity does not permit such a faith, my desperate prayer is that God would grant me a robust faith sufficient to trust Him not for one crisis, but for an eternity of miracles.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too often the spotlight that highlights our successes burns out quickly, while the spotlight that scrutinizes our failures is a long-life bulb.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.
Hugh Prather
When we leave this life, we only get to take two things: the love we received and the lessons we learned.
David W. Earle
Life is a learning experience and this is a very peaceful method of accepting the reality you face…”What will I learn?
David W. Earle
I will not find myself, nor will I obtain any precarious morsel of life in giving all of life to myself. If I am ever to find these things, I must first be willing to give these things away at the very moment that I come into possession of them.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To forget is to blithely toss aside the hard lessons that were hard won by others before us, thereby needlessly dooming us to endure the hard lessons that are likely to be forgotten by those who will follow us. And it is altogether reasonable that in order to avoid this repetitive trouncing, God graciously granted us memories.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
It would do me well to realize that the path that has led me to where I am was mapped by those who taught me and paved by what they taught me. Therefore, if God is not my teacher and His truth is not my topic I will find myself where I don’t want to be, having trod a path I didn’t want to take.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes consequences are building blocks fashioned of granite when successes are shaped of clay.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Instead of the weight that sinks us, consequences are often the life preserver that saves us.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
A consequence may be the very thing that saves us because it was the only thing loud enough to get our attention.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are about the hurried business of living life while missing it in the very process of living it.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can't change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and a stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future was the past was not.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The issue is becoming so absorbed in positioning ourselves ahead of everyone else that life becomes nothing more than an endless strategy.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
You will find it hard to hear from God until you let go your rights and your agenda.
John Eldredge
Prayer is such an intimate act, a place of vulnerability. It is, hopefully, when we are our least guarded, our most honest selves. And this is good, of course; this is as it ought to be. When we come to God, we certainly want to come as honestly and openly as we can; we want to be our truest selves before him. Prayer lets us be in a place of need.
John Eldredge
When we soak our soul in the grace of the Gospel, we'll find our desire to spend time with Him in prayer changing. We'll begin to carry on a nonstop conversation with Him in our heart because we know that He loves to hear our voice. Then, when we are faced with a difficult decision, we will be comfortable running to Him. "Lord, I need wisdom." "Lord, I know You're here. Help me to see You. Give me grace!" That'll be our heart's frequent cry. Because the Holy Spirit loves to make Jesus grand in our eyes, He'll nurture, train, and remind us of His gracious condescension.
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick
My prayer is that God would continue to love me enough to refuse to answer the prayers I'm praying that I shouldn't be praying.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Prayer is knowing that what I ask for is always far bigger than what I could ever articulate, but it is never too big for God to understand nor is it ever too vast for Him to deliver.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Prayer is one action where I lay aside my abilities to immerse myself wholly in God’s capabilities. And the liberation found in such an action is less about being engaged with God and more about being freed from myself.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I am indeed my own god, I’d better start praying to myself to get myself out of myself.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are created for adventure, and if we cannot find one, we start blowing things out of proportion so it feels like we have one.
John Eldredge
In the deepest darkness God tenderly grasps my hand and whispers that darkness is nothing more than a place that He is preparing for the arrival of light.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Don't get me wrong. A good marriage, adequate financial resources, even a clean home and well-behaved children do bring some measure of happiness. However, temporal blessings, as wonderful as they may be, are only a taste of the real thing. They cannot sustain inner happiness any more than eating a scrumptious meal keeps tomorrow's hunger at bay.
Leslie Vernick
Owen: depressed people don't have the energy to kill themselves. that's what mr clark saidOwen: he said it's not when people are depressed that you have to worry about them. it's when someone depressed suddenly has energy. that means they decided to kill themselves. to actOwen: and that makes them happy
Albert Borris
I can feel the hurt. There's something good about it. Mostly it makes me stop remembering.
Albert Borris
Today I acknowledge that I am not in position to judge what mistakes anyone is making or what lessons anyone needs to learn. I don’t know how far someone has come or when that person will have a breakthrough, I simply don’t know what other people should be doing. But when I think I do know, I clearly am not doing what I should be doing, which is taking responsibility for my own life.
Hugh Prather
Talk like an ambassador (Eph 4:29-30). 1)Consider the person ("only what is helpful for building others up")2) Consider the problem ("according to their needs")3) Consider the process ("that it may benefit those who listen")
Timothy S. Lane
Embracing doubt is sometimes threatening, as we fear losing our faith if we explore our doubts. Following that thought, if one loses one’s faith, then as some religions dictate, that individual cannot enter heaven. Since heaven is the reward of an earthly existence, doubt becomes the enemy of this reward.
David W. Earle
Rigid traditions capture soulsprisons of spiritual thoughtman’s religion has captured a god grown too small and very weak.
David W. Earle
Other people feel love when we listen without judging and accept them without demanding change. We all desperately require these basic needs. When we can do this for another, we are indeed that person’s angel.
David W. Earle
Faith is the resplendent key that liberates me from the impregnable confines meticulously constructed from the raw material of my disbelief.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
My fear of standing alone often pressures me to stand with a rather unsavory group that embraces a rather unsettling belief system which leaves me wondering why I left the promises of God for the company of people.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
My first mistake is to humanize God. My second mistake is to hold those wretched human characteristics up against all of the majestic things that I sense God should be. The blatant discrepancy which is certain to ensue then allows me to not only justify my rejection of Him, it grants me unbridled permission to discount His existence altogether. And that third and final mistake is without a doubt the most costly of all.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
There is that gnawing feeling that we are far more than what we believe ourselves to be. Maybe it’s time to believe the gnawing.
Craig D. Lounsbrough