Rob Bell Quotes

Because sometimes you need a biologist, and sometimes you need a poet. Sometimes you need a scientist, and sometimes you need a song.

The peace we are offered is not a peace that is free from tragedy, illness, bankruptcy, divorce, depression, or heartache. It is peace rooted in the trust that the life Jesus gives us is deeper, wider, stronger, and more enduring than whatever our current circumstances are, because all we see is not all there is and the last word about us and our struggle has not yet been spoken.

If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.

Are you breathing? Are you here? Did you just take a breath? Are you about to take another? Do you have a habit of regularly doing this? Gift. Gift. Gift. Whatever else has happened in your life — failure, pain, heartache, abuse, loss — the first thing that can be said about you is that you have received a gift.

all of life matters, all work is holy, all moments sacred, all encounters with others encounters with the divine.

When you’re fighting, it’s absolutely crucial to keep remembering that they’re trying to figure it out just like you are.

Whatever those things are that make you feel fully alive and like the universe is ultimately a good place and you are not alone, I need a faith that doesn’t deny these moments but embraces them.

"Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, "God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts."

The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.

The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, "Me too.

"As we experience this love, there is a temptation at times to become hostile to our earlier understandings, feeling embarrassed that we were so "simple" or "naive," or "brainwashed" or whatever terms arise when we haven't come to terms with our own story. These past understandings aren't to be denied or dismissed; they're to be embraced. Those experiences belong. Love demands that they belong. That's where we were at that point in our life and God met us there. Those moments were necessary for us to arrive here, at this place at this time, as we are. Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new."

When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god.

I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me.

We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.

Jesus didn’t talk about a God who wants to burn this place down and take us somewhere else; he talked about the renewing of this place, the only home we’ve ever had. Central to the story of the Bible is the affirmation of trees and seas and rocks and air and soil and blood and sweat and skin and all the materiality and diversity and creativity that we know to be central to our life in this world. Jesus talked about a coming time when God would restore and renew and reconcile and redeem and make things right, and he invites us to anticipate that day by doing our part to bring heaven to earth, here, now, today.

Whenever you create anything, you take a risk. And that includes your life. It may work out, it may not. It may be well received, it may not be. . . .
It's always a risk to take action. It might not work, it might blow up in your face, you might lose money, you might fail. No one may get it.

But that's not the only risk. There's another risk: the risk of not trying it.

How is not trying a risk? You risk settling and continuing in the same direction in the same way, wondering about other paths and possibilities, believing that this is as good as it gets while discontent gnaws away at your soul.

At any moment in the day, you can only do one thing at a time. And the more intentional you are about knowing what your 1 is, the more present you will be.