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I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.
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Richard Paul Evans (Grace)
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The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.
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Roderick Evans
“
If it's not exactly like you thought it would be, you think it's a failure. What about the spectrum of colors in between.
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Sara Evans (Softly and Tenderly (Songbird, #2))
“
God can inject hope into a absolutely hopeless situation.
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Mark Evans
“
The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.
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Richard Paul Evans
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I'm holding up, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.
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Sara Evans (Softly and Tenderly (Songbird, #2))
“
I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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In the end, we all lose it. Remember that. In the end, we own nothing.
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Richard Paul Evans (Miles to Go (The Walk, #2))
“
What are you afraid of?"
"The world."
"Relax. The world's in my pocket.
”
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Katy Evans (Manwhore +1 (Manwhore, #2))
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Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.
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Evan Esar
“
Her only shame was that she felt none.
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Nicholas Evans (The Horse Whisperer)
“
I’ve often said that those who say having a childlike faith means not asking questions haven’t met too many children.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the center.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
A lot of people think the hardest part about religious doubt is feeling isolated from God. It’s not. At least in my experience, the hardest part about doubt is feeling isolated from your community.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
While Christians tend to turn to Scripture to end a conversation, Jews turn to Scripture to start a conversation.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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Everyone who got to where they are had to begin where they were.
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Richard Paul Evans
“
Dignified or not, believable or not, ours is a God perpetually on bended knee, doing everything it takes to convince stubborn and petulant children that they are seen and loved. It is no more beneath God to speak to us using poetry, proverb, letters, and legend than it is for a mother to read storybooks to her daughter at bedtime. This is who God is. This is what God does.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Nothing heals the soul like chocolate," she said. "I just love chocolate. It's God's apology for broccoli.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (Finding Noel)
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Sometimes, when tragedy strikes, people give up hope that they can expect anything more from life, when the real quest is finding out what life expects from them.
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Richard Paul Evans (Miles to Go (The Walk, #2))
“
Evan always used to day that it wasn't that you couldn't see that you should be afraid of, but what was right in front of you, in plain sight.
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Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
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The Psalms are, in a sense, God’s way of holding space for us. They invite us to rejoice, wrestle, cry, complain, offer thanks, and shout obscenities before our Maker without self-consciousness and without fear.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
What if the very reason you were created was to be creative?
”
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Michelle Dennis Evans
“
No,' he said, 'you only have to live long enough to inspire others to do great things.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (Miles to Go (The Walk, #2))
“
You don’t need anyone, unless you want them
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Jenna Evans Welch (Love & Luck (Love & Gelato, #2))
“
We’ve been instructed to reject any trace of poetry, myth, hyperbole, or symbolism even when those literary forms are virtually shouting at us from the page via talking snakes and enchanted trees.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
There's no hurt so great that love can't heal it.
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Richard Paul Evans (The Gift)
“
When you play music you discover a part of yourself that you never knew existed.
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Bill Evans
“
Dwelling on him would make him a bigger part of my life than I want him to be.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (Miles to Go (The Walk, #2))
“
I'm in no rush to patch up these questions. God save me from the day when stories of violence, rape, and ethnic cleansing inspire within me anything other than revulsion. I don't want to become a person who is unbothered by these texts, and if Jesus is who he says he is, then I don't think he wants me to either. There are parts of the Bible that inspire, parts that perplex, and parts that leave you with an open wound. I'm still wrestling, and like Jacob, I will wrestle until I am blessed. God hasn't let go of me yet.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
The sound of a kiss is not as strong as that of a cannon, but its echo endures much longer.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (The Last Promise)
“
Evan Handler's unsparingly honest stories about life, love, and his own shortcomings are hilarious to read and oh, so easy (and fun!) to relate to. By the end you will be left with the surprising but unmistakable feelings of hope and redemption. It’s Only Temporary is truly an inspiration, particularly for anyone who's out there looking for love.
”
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Liz Tuccillo (He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys)
“
The sum of the day was truly greater than its parts.
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Richard Paul Evans (Miles to Go (The Walk, #2))
“
Fear. It is likely to be the most well played card of the enemy. Fear stops you from fully understanding what lies around you. Fear stops you from really getting to know someone. Fear takes joy away. Fear pushes you into a spiral of negativity and hopelessness. But once you overcome fear… On the other side of that fear is freedom.
”
”
J. Evan Johnson
“
Jesus did not simply die to save us from our sins; Jesus lived to save us from our sins. His life and teachings show us the way to liberation. But you can't fit all that on a bumper sticker. So we try to boil it down to a formula. Four steps. The "Romans Road." John 3:16. And yet the gospel itself, in its eternal scope and scandalous particularity, defies reduction.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
There’s a great episode of The Office in which this strategy lands Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute in a lake during a sales trip, Michael shouting, “The machine knows!” as he follows the GPS instructions and drives his SUV off the road into the water. I’ve watched a lot of good people drive their lives, their families, their churches, their communities, even their countries into a lake, shouting, “The Bible knows!” all the way down.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Bible stories don’t have to mean just one thing. Despite what you may have heard from a pastor or Sunday school teacher along the way, faithful engagement with Scripture isn’t about uncovering a singular, moralistic point to every text and then sticking to it. Rather, the very nature of the biblical text invites us to consider the possibilities.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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Mari Evans
“
Let your dissent fuel you, your anger inspire you, your rage convey you, and your fury strike a chilling fear onto the spines of your enemies.
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Evan Meekins (The Black Banner)
“
How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible?
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks. For those who count the Bible as sacred, interpretation is not a matter of whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose. We’re all selective. We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
When you get to be my age, you realize that age has nothing to do with what you can accomplish—if you’ve go it, you’ve go it. Why wait until you grow up? And then once you’re all grown-up, why stop? Or at least that’s my motto.
”
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Jenna Evans Welch (Love & Luck (Love & Gelato, #2))
“
Shards of glass slip down the wall and into the sink. IT pulls away from me, puzzled. I reach in and wrap my fingers around a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans's neck. He freezes. I push just hard enough to raise one drop of blood. He raises his arms over his head. My hand quivers. I want to insert the glass all the way through his throat, I want to hear him scream. I look up. I see the stubble on his chin, a fleck of white in the corner of his mouth. His lips are paralyzed. He cannot speak. That's good enough.
Me: "I said no.
”
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Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
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It struck me that such analyses had it backward. It’s the American public for whom the Iraq War is often no more real than a video game. Five years into this war, I am not always confident most Americans fully appreciate the caliber of the people fighting for them, the sacrifices they have made, and the sacrifices they continue to make. After the Vietnam War ended, the onus of shame largely fell on the veterans. This time around, if shame is to be had when the Iraq conflict ends - and all indications are there will be plenty of it - the veterans are the last people in America to deserve it. When it comes to apportioning shame my vote goes to the American people who sent them to war in a surge of emotion but quickly lost the will to either win it or end it. The young troops I profiled in Generation Kill, as well as the other men and women in uniform I’ve encountered in combat zones throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, are among the finest people of their generation. We misuse them at our own peril.
”
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Evan Wright (Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War)
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The point is, if you pay attention to the women, a more complex history of Israel's conquests emerges. Their stories invite the reader to consider the human cost of violence and patriarchy, and in that sense prove instructive to all who wish to work for a better world.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
It is a shame, the amount of people who are turned off by the name of Jesus simply because of the mouths that say that name...
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J. Evan Johnson
“
Life is just packed full of memories, the more memories you create, the richer your life becomes !
J Moulds
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Tom Evans (When Kids Could Play Outside)
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Under the right circumstances, a tiny spark can grow into an inferno that can overcome an entire city. So can an idea.
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Richard Paul Evans (Lost December)
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Believe. Believe in your destiny and the star from which it shines. Believe you have been sent from God as an arrow shot from His own bow.
It is the single universal trait that the great of this earth have all shared, while the shadows are fraught with ghosts who roam the winds with mournful wails of regret on their lips.
Believe as if your life depended on it... for indeed it does.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (The Locket (The Locket, #1))
“
Evan Handler is a man who’s looked into the abyss and laughed. His book, It’s Only Temporary, made me laugh along with him. He covers love, lust, showbiz, triumph, and despair – and he manages to be both funny and inspiring about all of it. It’s an important book that I think can help to spread goodness around the world. Something we desperately need.
”
”
Lance Armstrong (It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life)
“
Of course, the fact that a single biblical text can mean many things doesn’t mean it can mean anything. Slave traders justified the exploitation of black people by claiming the curse on Noah’s son Ham rendered all Africans subhuman. Many Puritans and pioneers appealed to the stories of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to support attacks on indigenous populations. More recently, I’ve heard Christians shrug off sins committed by American politicians because King David assaulted women too. Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Contrary to what many of us are told, Israel’s origin stories weren’t designed to answer scientific, twenty-first-century questions about the beginning of the universe or the biological evolution of human beings, but rather were meant to answer then-pressing, ancient questions about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
What I love about the Bible is that the story isn't over. There are still prophets in our midst. There are still dragons and beasts. It might not look like it, but the Resistance is winning. The light is breaking through.
So listen to the weirdos. Listen to the voices crying from the wilderness. They are pointing us to a new King and a better kingdom.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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Learn with your Mind, Love with your Heart, and Write with your Soul.
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A. Willow Evans
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I have found the more fantastic the setting, the more truthful the confessions.
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S. Usher Evans
“
You can't move forward while staring out the rear view mirror
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Senica Evans
“
I once heard it said that everyone needs love-and if they're denied, they'll find it, or a reasonable substitute somewhere.
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Richard Paul Evans (The Gift)
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Your mind is just like a parachute ! if you don't open it, it won't work !
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Tom Evans (When Kids Could Play Outside)
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The truest of loves transcends even the greatest of insecurities.
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”
Solange nicole
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Some people aren't meant to fight. They're meant to pick up the pieces.
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Richard Paul Evans (Battle of the Ampere (Michael Vey, #3))
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Find the beauty and the stories that inspire you and those around you. They will add tremendous value to your work and everyone else’s.
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Evan Thomsen (Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want)
“
Like it or not, you can’t be a Christian on your own. Following Jesus is a group activity, and from the beginning, it’s been a messy one; it’s been an incarnated one.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
A lament is an act of worship, a faith statement of trust, in the face of difficulty. It's a wonderfully honest way to acknowledge our trouble to God as we also acknowledge our hope is in him.
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Linda Evans Shepherd (The God You Need to Know: Discover His Story, Experience His Love)
“
If he's ever loved, if he's even been loved. if he even wants to be. But don't we all want to? Even when you think you don't want to,there's this feeling of waiting in the back of your head. Of waiting for that to happen. To know what it's like and to be swept away.
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Katy Evans (Womanizer (Manwhore, #4))
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It is your heart behind the action that allows you to prosper, not the action yourself. You can give away all your possessions, time, and energy, but if you do it to look good, to look pious, to look holy, you have already lost.
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J. Evan Johnson
“
This is why it’s especially important for those of us who come to the Bible from positions of relative social, economic, and racial privilege to read its stories alongside people from marginalized communities, past and present, who are often more practiced at tracing that crimson thread of justice through its pages.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
For most of my life I have thought of grace as a hope of a bright tomorrow in spite of the darkness of today--and this is true. In this way we are all like Pamela, walking a road to grace--hoping for mercy. What we fail to realize is that grace is more than our destination, it is the journey itself, manifested in each breath and with each step we take. Grace surrounds us, whirls about us like the wind, falls on us like rain. Grace sustains us on our journeys, no matter how perilous they may be and, make no mistake, they are all perilous. We need not hope for grace, we merely need to open our eyes to its abundance. Grace is all around us, not just in the hopeful future but in the miracle of now.
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Richard Paul Evans (The Road to Grace (The Walk, #3))
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The kingdom, Jesus taught, is right here--present yet hidden, immanent yet transcendent. It is at hand--among us and beyond us, now and not-yet. The kingdom of heaven, he said, belongs to the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for God. It advances not through power and might, but through missions of mercy, kindness, and humility. In this kingdom, many who are last will be first and many who are first will be last. The rich don't usually get it, Jesus said, but children always do. This is a kingdom whose savior arrives not on a warhorse, but a donkey, not through triumph and conquest, but through death and resurrection. This kingdom is the only kingdom that will last.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
A bit of information, kept in the dark is a secret. That same bit of information put to the light becomes truth...even if it's a lie.
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J. Evan Johnson
“
It's one thing to say so in a prayer, but it's a whole other thing to match those prayers in obedience.
”
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Linda Evans Shepherd (Called to Pray: Astounding Stories of Answered Prayer)
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And if our lives are but a single flash in the dark hollow of eternity, then if, but for the briefest of moments, we shine - then how brilliantly our light has burned. And as starlight knows no boundary of space or time, so too, our illumination will shine forth throughout all eternity, for darkness has no power to quell such light. And this is a lesson we must all learn and take to heart - that all light is eternal and all love is light. And it must forever be so.
”
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Richard Paul Evans
“
Less than three weeks earlier, NASA had put the first man on the moon, an awe-inspiring testament to technological ingenuity. Conversely, the number one song in the country was Zager and Evans’s “In the Year 2525,” which imagined a dystopian future where you “ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies / Everything you think, do, and say / Is in the pill you took today.” It would prove to be a more trenchant observation about the present moment than anyone would’ve thought.
”
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Tom O'Neill (Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties)
“
So in considering the writings of Paul, the question is not, Are head coverings good or bad? The question is, in that context, Did head coverings help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? The question is not, Should Christians eat meat? but rather, in that context, Did eating meat help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? And as we consider the application of Paul’s teachings in our various contexts today, the question is not, Should women be allowed to preach? but Do women preachers help or hurt the advancement of the gospel and the preservation of unity? Paul was smart enough to know the answers to these questions would vary from church to church and person to person, so surely he was smart enough to also know they would vary from culture to culture and century to century. Was Paul a man of his time? Of course. But that’s exactly the point. God meets us where we are, as we are. The Spirit shows up in the thick of it.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
I like how Dallas Willard put it: “We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it,” he said, “or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
If the Bible’s texts of terror compel us to face with fresh horror and resolve the ongoing oppression and exploitation of women, then perhaps these stories do not trouble us in vain. Perhaps we can use them for some good.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure-or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's where you will find success.
”
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Richard Paul Evans (The Four Doors)
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It should come as no surprise to any writer that all this emotional suffering produced some quality literature. Jewish scribes got to work, pulling together centuries of oral and written material and adding reflections of their own as they wrestled through this national crisis of faith. If the people of Israel no longer had their own land, their own king, or their own temple, what did they have? They had their stories. They had their songs. They had their traditions and laws.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
A lot of self-help methods are based on mental discipline or on working through emotional issues. What these approaches lack in an awareness of how the body is an integral part of the equation. The health of your body influences what you experience in your mind. There is no split. If you can engage your whole spirit in the pursuit of fitness--not just your intellect, not just your emotions-- but instead everything inside you that is truly you, you'll discover what it is to be a whole person.
”
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David Patchell-Evans (The Real Sexy, Smart and Strong: 30 Tips to Boost Confidence, Get Fit and Feel Great, Inside and Out)
“
How can we expect to be happy when we have no peace of mind, when our mind is constantly jumping from the present to the past? When your mind is constantly running and filled with anxiety and fear, where is the freedom? You are stuck in the prison of your mind, stuck in thoughts and feelings from yesterday, from five years ago. There comes a time when everyone has to stop, look deep, breathe and let go.
”
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Evan Sutter (Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World)
“
Indeed, in Scripture, no two people encounter Jesus in exactly the same way. Not once does anyone pray the “Sinner’s Prayer” or ask Jesus into their heart. The good news is good for the whole world, certainly, but what makes it good varies from person to person and community to community. Liberation from sin looks different for the rich young ruler than it does for the woman caught in adultery. The good news that Jesus is the Messiah has a different impact on John the Baptist, a Jewish prophet, than it does the Ethiopian eunuch, a Gentile and outsider. Salvation means one thing for Mary Magdalene, first to witness the resurrection, and another to the thief who died next to Jesus on a cross. The gospel is like a mosaic of stories, each one part of a larger story, yet beautiful and truthful on its own. There’s no formula, no blueprint.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Love and desire...they aren't the same but they go hand in hand. To say you love someone is to say you have the desire for good things for them, that you desire to DO good things for them. One of the worst things the enemy does is change the definition of love in the minds of a people.
”
”
J. Evan Johnson
“
This understanding of themselves as a people who wrestle with God and emerge from that wrestling with both a limp and a blessing informs how Jews engage with Scripture, and it ought to inform how Christians engage Scripture too, for we share a common family of origin, the same spiritual DNA. The biblical scholars I love to read don’t go to the holy text looking for ammunition with which to win an argument or trite truisms with which to escape the day’s sorrows, they go looking for a blessing, a better way of engaging life and the world, and they don’t expect to escape that search unscathed.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Psychologists say the best way to handle children at this stage of development is not to answer their questions directly but instead to tell them a story. As pediatrician Alan Greene explained, “After conversing with thousands of children, I’ve decided that what they really mean is, ‘That’s interesting to me. Let’s talk about that together. Tell me more, please?’ Questions are a child’s way of expressing love and trust. They are a child’s way of starting a conversation. So instead of simply insisting over and over again that the object of my son’s attention is, in fact, an elephant, I might tell him about how, in India, elephants are symbols of good luck, or about how some say elephants have the best memories of all the animals. I might tell him about the time I saw an elephant spin a basketball on the tip of his trunk, or about how once there was an elephant named Horton who heard a Who. I might tell him that once upon a time, there was an elephant and four blind men; each man felt a different part of the elephant’s body: the ears, the tail, the side, and the tusk . . .
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
“
Why did you come out when you knew how your family would react?” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his waist. I brushed my lips the length of Lock’s neck.
“Because I didn’t want to hide. I hated acting like I was someone I wasn’t.”
“I never did thank you for that sub.”
Lock laughed. “Adan, you’ve thanked me a hundred times over.”
“I don’t recall.”
“Every time we’re together, or when you kiss me, it’s a constant reminder of how we met, and I wouldn’t exchange that for anything.
”
”
Shaye Evans (Seduction Squad (Seduction Squad book 1))
“
The groundbreaking writing of Brené Brown has inspired millions to pursue what Brown calls “wholehearted living,” a posture of resilience and compassion that begins with the conviction that “yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.
”
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Rachel Held Evans (Wholehearted Faith)
“
You must assertively hold yourself to a standard in which you keep yourself in line but don't tear others down. Holding yourself to a standard in an aggressive manner imposes your will on others, essentially tearing them down. And if you take the aggressive approach but to a weak standard, not only are y...ou tearing others down, you are being hypocritical.
”
”
J. Evan Johnson
“
Leadership, he was discovering, had its ups and downs—kind of like the bowsprit on a swelling sea.
”
”
Michael Robert Evans (68 Knots)
“
Everything you need in the world is yours, all you need to do is to just go get it.
”
”
Evans Biya
“
Never give up, GOD is not done with you yet.
”
”
Evans Biya
“
Getting into action generates inspiration. Don’t cop out waiting for inspiration to get you back into action. It won’t! Before I take a hike, I leave you with this thought: It’s not a compliment when someone tells you you’re a survivor. It’s bullshit. We’re all survivors till we die. Get out there, go for it, don’t be afraid. Be a winner—that’s what it’s all about.
”
”
Robert Evans (The Kid Stays In The Picture: A Hollywood Life)
“
Jesus invites us into a story that is bigger than ourselves, bigger than our culture, bigger even than our imaginations, and yet we get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of our particular moment and place in time. We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect the gift of that. May we never lose our love for telling the tale.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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we're looking for a planeet on the strength of a song. it's crazy I know, but its the only chance we have to do something useful." ...Evan Wilson said gravely "I think you're as crazy as Heinrich Schliemann - and you know what happened to him!"
"What" ...
"you don't know what happened to him?" she asked her blue eyes widening in astonishment."Ever read Homer's Iliad, Captain?" ...
"I don't know what translation you read Doctor, but there was no Heinrich Schliemann in mine - or in the Odyssey."
"That depends on how you look at it." smiling she settled back into her chair and went on,"Heinrich Schliemann was from Earth, pre-federation days, and he read Homer too. No, not just read him, believed him. So he set out at his own expense-mind you, I doubt he could have found anyone else to fund such a crazy endeavor - to find Troy, a city that most of the educated people of his time considered pure invention on Homer's part."
"And?"
"And he found it. Next time you're on earth, stop by the Troy Museum. the artifacts are magnificent, and every one of them was found on the strength of a song.
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Janet Kagan (Uhura's Song (Star Trek: The Original Series #21))
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I like to ensure that I have music and art all around me. My personal favorite is old maps. What I love about old maps is that they are both beautiful and imperfect. These imperfections represent that some of the most talented in history were still very wrong (early cartography was very difficult). As the majority of my work is analysis and advisory, I find it a valuable reminder that my knowledge is limited. No matter how much data or insight I have, I can never fully “map out” any business. Yet, despite the incompleteness of these early cartographers, so much was learned of the world. So much done and accomplished. Therefore, these maps, or art pieces, serve as something to inspire both humility and achievement. This simple environmental factor helps my productivity and the overall quality of my work. Again, it’s like adding positive dice to my hand that are rolled each day.
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Evan Thomsen (Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want)
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Questions are a child’s way of expressing love and trust. They are a child’s way of starting a conversation. So instead of simply insisting over and over again that the object of my son’s attention is, in fact, an elephant, I might tell him about how, in India, elephants are symbols of good luck, or about how some say elephants have the best memories of all the animals. I might tell him about the time I saw an elephant spin a basketball on the tip of his trunk, or about how once there was an elephant named Horton who heard a Who. I might tell him that once upon a time, there was an elephant and four blind men; each man felt a different part of the elephant’s body: the ears, the tail, the side, and the tusk . . . Sometimes, as I’m doing this, my son will crawl into my lap, put his head on my chest, and just listen to the story, his questions quieted, his body relaxed. And I realize this is all he wanted to begin with—to be near me, to hear the familiar cadence of my voice, to know he’s safe and not alone.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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What makes the Bible’s miracle stories so compelling is the idea that God cares about people’s suffering, not simply their “spiritual blindness” or “spiritual poverty” but also their actual blindness and actual poverty. The apostle Paul insisted to the Corinthian church that the physical resurrection of Jesus, as witnessed by more than five hundred people, portends the resurrection of all who have died, all who have suffered, and that without it “our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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Many modern readers assume teachings about wives submitting to their husbands appear exclusively in the pages of Scripture and thus reflect uniquely “biblical” views about women’s roles in the home. But to the people who first heard these letters read aloud in their churches, the words of Peter and Paul would have struck them as both familiar and strange, a sort of Christian remix on familiar Greco-Roman philosophy that positioned the male head of house as the rightful ruler over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves. By instructing men to love their wives and respect their slaves, and by telling everyone to “submit to one another” with Jesus as the ultimate head of house, the apostles offer correctives to cultural norms without upending them. They challenge new believers to reconsider their relationships with one another now that, in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female” (Galatians 3:28). The plot thickens when we pay attention to some of the recurring characters in the Epistles and see a progression toward more freedom and autonomy for slaves like Onesimus and women like Nympha, Priscilla, Junia, and Lydia.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks. For those who count the Bible as sacred, interpretation is not a matter of whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose. We’re all selective. We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free? If you are looking for Bible verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to honor and celebrate women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, there are plenty. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, there are plenty more. If you are looking for an outdated and irrelevant ancient text, that’s exactly what you will see. If you are looking for truth, that’s exactly what you will find. This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not, What does this say? but, What am I looking for? I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we’ve been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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I don't care about the good grades in school, All I want is to do what I want to do because I know that at the end of our journey in this world, We will end up the same. Yes! you might get a good job if you focus on your studies but remember, We will end up the same at the "very end". It's just like the Rich and the Poor and the Uneducated and Educated person, All will end up to death. You might say that you will have a better life and a tons of money in the future if you finish your studies, Oh! I will say yes if that's how you mean or understand the value of your life. But remember, The only thing that can make everyone happy is to live.
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Evan Ricafort
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Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the laws of the Torah, “but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The life and teachings of Jesus, then, embody all that these laws were intended to be. Jesus is what the living, breathing will of God looks like. This includes compassion for the poor, esteem for women, healing for the sick, and solidarity with the suffering. It means breaking bread with outcasts and embracing little children. It means choosing forgiveness over retribution, the cross over revenge, and cooking breakfast for the friend who betrayed you. As Elton Trueblood put it, “The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)