Quotes about Renewal

The part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but . . . what we are meant to be.

Lords of fire and earth and water, Lords of moon and wind and sky, Come now to the Old Man's daughter, Come from fathers long gone by. Bring blue from a distance eye. Lords of water, earth, and fire, Lords of wind and snow and rain, Give to my heart's desire. Life as all life comes with pain, But blue will come to us again.

I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert lines are simply the only way to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been without it.

Now we leave our tears for mirth. Now we sing, not death, but birth.

Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

As bread is the first need of the body, so forgiveness for the soul.

Dear friends, maybe you have never sincerely said it because you never thought it was needed; but say it now if you mean it. "Oh Christ, let me be filled with the Holy Spirit. I will give up anything and everything. Accept my surrender of all to You!

The manna of one day was corrupt when the next day came. I must every day have fresh grace from heaven, and I obtain it only in direct waiting upon God Himself. Begin each day by tarrying before God, and letting Him touch you. Take time to meet God.

The truth is this: Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.

There is but one way of being delivered from this life of self. We must follow Christ, set our hearts upon Him, listen to His teachings, give ourselves up every day, that He may be all to us, and by the power of Christ the denial of self will be a blessed, unceasing reality.

Peter utterly changed—the self-pleasing, the self-trusting, the self-seeking Peter, full of sin, continually getting into trouble, foolish and impetuous, now filled with the Spirit and the life of Jesus. Christ had done it for him by the Holy Spirit.

A vessel must be empty if it is to be filled, and if we are to be filled with the life of God we must be utterly empty of self.