Larry Crabb Quotes:

We cannot count on God to arrange what happens in our lives in ways that will make us feel good.We can, however, count on God to patiently remove all the obstacles to our enjoyment of Him. He is committed to our joy, and we can depend on Him to give us enough of a taste of that joy and enough hope that the best is still ahead to keep us going in spite of how much pain continues to plague our hearts.

Topics: Pain, Heart, Giving, Shattered Dreams

God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.

source: - Larry Crabb (2012). “Shattered Dreams: God's Unexpected Path to Joy”, p.82, WaterBrook

Topics: Dream, Song, Children, Rubble, Always Working

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.

source: - Larry Crabb (2005). “Connecting: Healing Ourselves and Our Relationships”, p.112, Thomas Nelson Inc

Topics: Leadership, Echoes, Giving

The root of all our personal and emotional difficulties is a lack of togetherness... I therefore believe that the surest route to overcoming problems and becoming the people we were meant to be is reconnecting with God and with our community.

source: - Larry Crabb (2005). “Connecting: Healing Ourselves and Our Relationships”, p.30, Thomas Nelson Inc

Topics: Believe, Emotional, Roots, Togetherness, Reconnecting

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.

source: - Larry Crabb (2012). “Shattered Dreams: God's Unexpected Path to Joy”, p.31, WaterBrook

Topics: Christian, Understanding, Problem, Shattered Dreams

The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we'll shift our direction.

Topics: Commitment, Self, Style, Protecting Ourselves, Self Protection

The goal of our sanctification is that we place Christ on display in the way we love others.

Topics: Goal, Way, Christ

I find it much easier to counsel than to be counseled, to reach out to a friend in my small group who is feeling insercure than to reveal my own inseurity. The truth is we don't much like being dependent. We don't enjoy admitting how depeately we long for someone's kindness and involvement. It's so humbling.

Topics: Kindness, Long, Feelings

I assume the Spirit is always whispering, "Abba", to God's children, assuring them that they are safe in His care. And he is continually calling them to become what God saved them to be, solid people, indestructibly alive, hurting perhaps, but consumed with pleasing the Father.

source: - Larry Crabb (2007). “Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be”, p.24, Thomas Nelson Inc

Topics: Hurt, Children, Father, Abba

The core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things.

Topics: Passionate, Problem, Enough

It is the understanding of others and the awareness of their needs, that the ambassador of CHRIST should strive to cultivate

Topics: Understanding, Needs, Ambassadors

The marriage relationship is one of God's creations for building up people. It gives husbands and wives the chance to minister to an immortal human being in a uniquely intimate fashion. To enjoy the meaningfulness of marriage, then, requires a once-made but ongoing commitment of mutual ministry to our mates and the more we seize them, the more meaning our marriage will have.

Topics: Fashion, Husband, Commitment, God's Creation, Meaningfulness

A marriage bound together by commitments to exploit the other for filling one's own needs (and I fear that most marriages are built on such a basis) can legitimately be described as a "tic on a dog" relationship. Just as a hungry tic clamps on to a nourishing host in anticipation of a meal, so each partner unites with the other in the expectation of finding what his or her personal nature demands. The rather frustrating dilemma, of course, is that in such a marriage there are two tics and no dog!

source: - Larry Crabb (2009). “The Marriage Builder: A Blueprint for Couples and Counselors”, p.32, Harper Collins

Topics: Dog, Commitment, Two, Tics, Exploits

I hear Jesus telling us to stop negotiating with Him, to stop offering something we think we have in exchange for His blessings.

Topics: Jesus, Blessing, Thinking

We can't always make life work. But we can always draw near to God. There is a different way to approach our problems. There is a NEW WAY to live.

Topics: Different, Way, Problem

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.

Topics: Life Changing, Commitment, Self, Steadfast, Self Sufficiency

If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing.

source: - Larry Crabb, Lawrence James Crabb (1991). “Inside Out”, NavPress Publishing Group

Topics: Pain, Real, Struggle, Disillusioned, Real Change

We must come to the Bible with the purpose of self-exposure consciously in mind. I suspect not many people make more than a token stab in that direction. It's extremely hard work. It makes Bible study alternately convicting and reassuring, painful and soothing, puzzling and calming, and sometimes dull - but not for long if our purpose is to see ourselves better.

Topics: Hard Work, Self, Long

We have made a terrible mistake! For most of this century we have wrongly defined soul wounds as psychological disorders and delegated their treatment to trained specialists. Damaged psyches aren't the problem. The problem is disconnected souls. What we need is connection. What we need is a healing community.

Topics: Mistake, Healing, Psych, Psychological Disorders, Disconnected

I've practiced centering prayer. I've contemplatively prayed. I've prayed liturgically... I've benefited from each, and I still do. In ways you'll see, elements of each style are still with me.

Topics: Prayer, Style, Elements, Centering Prayer, Centering

Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.

Topics: Dream, Pain, Opportunity, Desire For God, Shattered Dreams

We were designed to love and when we do, something good develops inside. We feel clean, rich, whole. Even better, we become less concerned with how we feel and more concerned with the lives of others.

source: - Larry Crabb (2014). “Inside Out”, p.95, Tyndale House

Topics: Rich, Feels, Lives Of Others

Following Christ is a wild adventure full or risk, frustration, excitement, and setbacks. It is not an evening stroll in a planned community along a well-manicured path.

Topics: Adventure, Frustration, Following Christ

The real power in helping somebody to be transformed is not to do something to them but to join with them.

Topics: Real, Helping, Transformed

There’s never a moment in all our lives, from the day we trusted Christ till the day we see Him, when God is not longing to bless us. At every moment, in every circumstance, God is doing us good. He never stops. It gives Him too much pleasure. God is not waiting to bless us after our troubles end. He is blessing us right now, in and through those troubles. At this exact moment, He is giving us what He thinks is good.

Topics: Thinking, Blessing, Giving

When spiritual friends share their stories, the others listen without working. They rest. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to improve. A spiritual community feels undisturbed quiet as they listen, certainly burdened . . . but still resting in the knowledge that the life within, the passion for holiness, is indestructible. It needs only to be nourished and released.

source: - Larry Crabb (2007). “Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be”, p.94, Thomas Nelson

Topics: Spiritual, Passion, Community, Spiritual Community

When hints of sadness creep into our soul, we must not flee into happy or distracting thoughts. Pondering the sadness until it becomes overwhelming can lead us to deep change in the direction of our being from self-preservation to grateful worship.

source: - Larry Crabb, Lawrence James Crabb (1991). “Inside Out”, NavPress Publishing Group

Topics: Grateful, Sadness, Self

Many of us place top priority not on becoming Christ like in the middle of our problems but on finding happiness.... I must firmly and consciously by an act of my will reject the goal of becoming happy and adopt the goal of becoming more like the Lord.

source: - Lawrence J. Crabb, Larry Crabb (1977). “Effective Biblical Counseling”, p.20, Zondervan

Topics: Goal, Priorities, Finding Happiness, Christ Like

Godly people... nobly endure hard things. They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level in heaven. Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but deeply throbbing ache within them drives them not to compalint, but to anticipation and further yieldedness.

Topics: Meaningful, Godly, People

Led by myself and two colleagues, the course offers a newly developed model of spiritual direction that draws on both the age-old wisdom of the church and more recent perspectives. I call it the Passion/Wisdom Model of Spiritual Direction, and I see it as offering the opportunity for our interior worlds and supernatural reality to meet.

Topics: Spiritual Direction, Old Wisdom

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

source: - Larry Crabb, Lawrence J. Crabb (2007). “The Papa Prayer: The Prayer You've Never Prayed”, p.27, Thomas Nelson Inc

Topics: Centering Prayer, Contemplative Prayer, Centering

The degree to which we openly express our feelings should be governed, not by fear of reprisal, but by our commitment to loving others.

Topics: Reprisal

Men who as boys felt neglected by their dads often remain distant from their children. The sins of fathers are passed on to children, often through the dynamic of self-protection. It hurts to be neglected, and it creates questions about our value to others. So to avoid feeling the sting of further rejection, we refuse to give that part of ourselves we fear might once again be received with indifference.

source: - Larry Crabb, Lawrence James Crabb (1991). “Inside Out”, NavPress Publishing Group

Topics: Self Protection, Sins Of The Father