Quotes from Brennan Manning

The Christ within who is our hope of glory is not a matter of theological debate or philosophical speculation. He is not a hobby, a part-time project, a good theme for a book, or a last resort when all human effort fails. He is our life, the most real fact about us. He is the power and wisdom of God dwelling within us.

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.

Faith will become vision, hope will become possession, but the love of Jesus Christ that is stronger than death endures forever. In the end, it is the only thing you can hang onto.

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.

The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God's loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.

I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, nor between Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.

In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is no neutral exchange.

By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.

The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence.

To lend each other a hand when we're falling, perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end.