God promised to make you free. He never promised to make you independent.
Interpretation
True freedom does not equate to complete independence; rather, it emphasizes the importance of reliance on others and the divine.
This quote highlights the distinction between being free and being independent. Freedom can be understood as liberation from constraints, but independence suggests a self-sufficient state. The quote implies that while God grants the ability to be free, there is an inherent need for interdependence and community. The interconnectedness of human relationships is essential, and recognizing this balance can lead to a more enriched and supported life.
In practice
During a motivational speech addressing the importance of community.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
The ultimate goal of theology isn't knowledge, but worship. If our learning and knowledge of God do not lead to the joyful praise of God, we have failed. We learn only that we might laud, which is to say that theology without doxology is idolatry. The only theology worth studying is a theology that can be sung!
Rights are best guarded when each person and group guards for others those rights they wish guarded for themselves.
Pride is the parent of destruction; pride eats the mind and the heart and the soul alive.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
When wealth is centralized, the people are dispersed. When wealth is distributed, the people are brought together.
An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.
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