Quotes from Rene Gutteridge

Yes, I pray and go to church and read my Bible. But sometimes I shake my fist at God. It's not the picture of peace I realize, and I certainly make no claims of wearing the armor of God. I'm lucky if I can get the underwear of decency on, all right?

It was the strangest feeling, to be convicted but not condemned. God had torn him down but then had slowly built him back up. He had crushed him and then restored him. The more honest Clay became, the more God revealed to him the condition of his heart—a heart born into darkness, a heart that had trusted in the ways of the world.

But in the darkness of her room he was reminded that helplessness was often a portal to God, because rarely did the fragile, self-serving human pray for things in his complete control.

The selfish thing to do was to play to everyone's needs to feel accepted. The unselfish thing to do was to be the person God created me to be, to serve him and people, to speak the truth, even when the truth wasn't going to make me popular.

We need people, Juliet, to show us our selfishness, to extract the ugliness that reveals itself in our hearts.

remember that God uses conflict to stretch and mold us, and oftentimes he won't deliver us out of the fire. Instead, he wants us to walk through it. You can pray all you want, but sometimes, conflict is just going to happen.