There is no way I'm putting up 79 quotes in a blog post, so I'm going to split the book into 2 sections.
There is a section in the book called Intimacy and then there are 3 other sections in the book that I didn't get as many quotes from. So here are some of my favorites from the Intimacy section.
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"If you try to ignore it, if you think that you can live your life without love, you’re in even worse shape than the person who’s desperate to find it."
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"When love does not come to you, it breaks your heart, but when you do not give love away, it hardens your heart."
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"Our need to love, though rooted in God, is not limited to him. Love is not a limited commodity. Love expands as we give it away. Love dies when we do not."
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"Love is not about how many people we have used, but how much we have cherished one person. I’ve come to find over time that players are the ones who are most afraid. They are afraid to love, and so they make it a game. They’re terrified of loving deeply, and so they keep everything superficial. I think deep inside they wonder whether any woman could actually love them if she really knew who he was."
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"Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive."
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"When it comes to love, often we are our own worst enemies. When we’ve been hurt in the past, when we feel that love has betrayed us, we can easily become the enemies of love. To see if it’s real, we do everything we can to destroy it. We tell ourselves we’re testing it, but actually we’re resisting it."
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"The truth of the matter is that we’re uncomfortable with God. We’re disoriented by the way he loves. We want God to love us for an endless number of good reasons. At the same time, we find ourselves nervous before him because he sees right through us and knows everything that isn’t lovable. He tells us that he is our place of rest and acceptance and unconditional love, yet we cannot reconcile this love. We know who we are. We know all that is unlovely within us. We wonder how we have become worthy of such love, and that’s what worries us—we know we’re not. So we run. We run from God because he sees us best; we run from God to escape our own sense of unworthiness; we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to him, the more guilt and shame we will feel."
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"It is just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion. Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home. We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us. We run from the One our souls crave."
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"What in the world would happen if people actually began discovering the actual message of Jesus Christ—that love is unconditional? What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, in fact, waiting for us to earn his love, but that he was passionately pursuing us with his love? What would happen if the word got out that Jesus was offering his love freely and without condition? Would anyone actually choose to be a slave to ritual and legalism when he could have relationship and love? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. The reason religion works is that we believe in conditional love and doubt the existence of unconditional love."
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"What we have described as love has become something so superficial, something so thin and without substance, that pretty much anything qualifies as love. If we really knew love, if we knew deep, profound, unending love, maybe we wouldn’t love chocolate. While I’m sure God appreciates all these things (after all, he is the Creator of all that is good and perfect), creation is not the object of his affection. When it comes to love, you exist in a unique category. There are a lot of things that are on that list. He can re-create whatever he wants. You, however, are not on that list. You are unique and irreplaceable."
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"You are the object of God’s love."
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"This is the story of God: he pursues you with his love and pursues you with his love, and you have perhaps not said yes. And even if you reject his love, he pursues you ever still. It was not enough to send an angel or a prophet, for in issues of love, you must go yourself. And so God has come. This is the story of Jesus, that God has walked among us and he pursues us with his love. He is very familiar with rejection but is undeterred. And he is here even now, still pursuing you with his love."
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"There is only one reason for God to come himself, because in issues of love, you just can’t have someone else stand in for you."
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"Religion exists not because God loves us too little, but because we need love so much. In the end all religions misrepresent God. They either dictate requirements for love or simply become a requiem for love. I think many of us have rightly given up on God on this basis alone. We’ve been told that God is a reluctant lover and that his standards must be met before there can be any talk of love. This is lunacy. Love exists because God is love. Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts have found this love that we so desperately yearn for."
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"Jesus, it seems, is certain that the more you love God, the more you will love people."
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"The truth is, we were designed for relationship, and when our relationships don’t work, they affect how we see God, how we relate to God, and even whether we will believe in him."
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"Our need for relationship comes from the core of our being. It would be the greatest of tragedies to sacrifice others in the effort to find ourselves. Our souls crave to belong. The experience of love, though it emanates from God, is not limited to him. We are created for each other."
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"If God is at the core of something, if he exists at the hot, flaming center, what you’re going to find is love. Jesus knew this all too well. He warned us against the trappings of hypocrisy. When those who claim to represent him are unloving, those searching for God might conclude he is as well. The problem, of course, is that we are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be."
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"Honesty is the only context in which intimacy can develop."
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"Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I’m not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning."
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"There may be no greater proof of God than the power of community. There may be no greater gift than a place to belong. While it may seem that you’re selling out to admit you need people, the irony is that you’ll never really know yourself until you’re in a healthy community. We only truly come to know ourselves in the context of others. The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity."
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"The power of community is that is helps us understand ourselves. In a healthy community we come to know ourselves and find strength in that knowledge. In community we learn how to live a life beyond ourselves, we begin to discover our potential and our strengths, and we are best positioned to make out greatest contribution."
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"God can lead you through even the most painful tragedies if you ask him for his wisdom and allow him to help you make sense of your life."
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"He gambled everything on the power of love. That love was more powerful than hate. That love was more powerful than death. What was he thinking to die for us, to give himself for you and for me, knowing we might just kiss him on the face and then walk away? Love’s just crazy like that."
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Part 2 is coming.
Peace.
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