Quotes from Timothy Lane

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

The fact that our relationships work as well as they do is a sure sign of grace

Conflict with others is one of God's mysterious, counterintuitive ways of rescuing us from ourselves. God uses it to get us where he wants to take us before we die. Because we don't usually think that trials can be used in such a positive way, this truth catches us by surprise. But it shouldn't.

It's inevitable. If you live with other sinners, you will have conflict. The closer you are to someone, the more potential there is for conflict. Relationships are costly, but so is avoiding them.

Much of the disappointment and heartache we experience is the result of our attempts to get something from relationships that we already have in Christ.

No human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. And surely, no sinner is ever going to be able to pull that off day after day in the all-encompassing relationship of marriage!

Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the "evil" around you.

We are fallen dreamers, who dream of better worlds than the one in which we live. But the dreams we envision are often more about our own agenda than they are about our Lord's. Though we may not be aware of it, we are often at odds with our wise and loving Lord. The change he is working on is not the change we dream about. We dream about change in it—a person or circumstance—but God is working in the midst of it to change us.

Even if he never does this, I am called to maintain an attitude of forgiveness toward the offender.

He had the theological dexterity of a gymnast, but he lived like a relational paraplegic.

Our sight is dimmed by the tyranny of the urgent, by the siren call of success, by the seductive beauty of physical things, by our inability to admit our own problems, and by the casual relationships within the body of Christ that we mistakenly call fellowship.

it. Many parents have successfully raised self-righteous little Pharisees. When they look at themselves, they do not see a sinner in desperate need, so they are not grateful for a Savior. Sadly, the same is true of many of their parents.