1
We look around us and we find ourselves confused as to why the world has fallen into such deep darkness. And standing in this descending darkness, what we need to realize is that the farther we move from God, the darker everything gets. And no light of man can illuminate that kind of darkness.Craig D. Lounsbrough
2
We ask, ‘Why the need for God?’ Maybe the better question is ‘Why the need not to need Him?’ And could it be that that question in fact evidences our need for Him?Craig D. Lounsbrough
3
You are not made in ‘your image’. You are, in fact, made in ‘God’s image’. Therefore, which one are you looking for when you look in the mirror?Craig D. Lounsbrough
4
If I’ve prayed, I never have to worry about being the first one to show up.Craig D. Lounsbrough
5
Tragedy descends, and in the carnage our enraged cynicism screams ‘If there was a God, He would not have allowed this! ’ And somehow we’ve conveniently forgotten that once upon a time He allowed us to tell Him to go away, and once upon that time we allowed ourselves to take Him up on that offer.Craig D. Lounsbrough
6
God’s absence in the carnage is due to one single rather unnerving fact; that at some time past He honored our request that He leave. And if we are not brutally honest with ourselves regarding that choice, it is we ourselves who have set the stage for the next tragedy.Craig D. Lounsbrough
7
The world is shaken by major events, but it is ‘transformed’ by slight subtleties. And while we may be far too small to create even one major event, we are just the right size to craft a thousand subtleties.Craig D. Lounsbrough
8
At the moment that everything goes dark, the sunset in front of us becomes the whole story. But if we find courage enough to wait until tomorrow morning, we will suddenly come to understand that in reality yesterday’s sunset was only half of the story.Craig D. Lounsbrough
9
In the end, if we don't have God we don't have anything other than an end.Craig D. Lounsbrough
10
Tomorrow’ is the thing that’s always coming but never arrives. ‘Today’ is the thing that’s already here and never leaves. And because that’s the case, I would much prefer to invest in today than sit around waiting for an arrival that’s not arriving.Craig D. Lounsbrough
11
The darkness that follows a sunset is never so dark that it can change the inevitability of a sunrise.Craig D. Lounsbrough
12
Ethics are the things that say, 'Don’t stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It’s okay because we’ve shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we’ve chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I’m having a really hard time getting back up.Craig D. Lounsbrough
13
Faith is rare because fear is rampant. For faith will demand that I step into places that fear itself fears to go.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Forgiveness allows the burdens that we carry to become the histories that we forget.Craig D. Lounsbrough
15
To be careless in making decisions is to naively believe that a single decision impacts nothing more than that single decision, for a single decision can spawn a thousand others that were entirely unnecessary or it can bring peace to a thousand places we never knew existed.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to stand back up, we are using wisdom to overcome cowardice.Craig D. Lounsbrough
17
I can arrogantly brag that the doors I choose in life open wide and grant me unobstructed passage. But the widest doors tend to lead to the worst places.Craig D. Lounsbrough
18
Imagination envisions what could be. Reality states what is. And when my journey is shaped by one of these at the exclusion of the other, I will eventually wake up on some road facing the ‘reality’ that I’m far more lost than I could have ‘imagined’.Craig D. Lounsbrough
19
A compass calibrated by my greed is a rather shrewd way to legitimize my agenda. However, true north on a compass such as this is a straight line to the edge of a really big cliff.Craig D. Lounsbrough
20
It’s not that I’ve been invited to the hole I’m standing in. It’s that I accepted the invitation.Craig D. Lounsbrough
21
Things becomes invisible at the very moment I refuse to grant them importance. And while I am utterly ashamed to admit it, many of the most important things in my life are invisible.Craig D. Lounsbrough
22
If there’s one thing that’s irrefutably absurd, it’s believing that we can separate intelligence from wisdom and still have it be intelligence.Craig D. Lounsbrough
23
Too often, opinion is a lens polished by the grit of bias. And as I stare through my own lens, I might ask how much polish can the grit of bias actually create?Craig D. Lounsbrough
24
I must never equate the degree of pain as evidencing the incorrectness of a decision, for if I do I will default on some of the most critical decisions I should have ever made.Craig D. Lounsbrough
25
In case you’re short on definitions, here’s one. Insanity: ‘Destroying the very things that sustain us.’ And if we’re so short-sighted so as to make such preposterous choices, then it’s not all that preposterous to believe that shortly our end will be in sight.Craig D. Lounsbrough
26
I'm in a hole because at some point I found a shovel and started digging. Maybe I should trade my shovels for ladders and start climbing.Craig D. Lounsbrough
27
So, there’s this hornet’s nest. And there’s this long stick. And then there’s me. How I walk away from all of this will depend on whether I realize that some things go together and some things don’t no matter how hard you try.Craig D. Lounsbrough
28
If you can get others to believe that your random guesses are actual answers, they’ll never guess that you never understood the question in the first place.Craig D. Lounsbrough
29
Impulsivity is something akin to spontaneously jumping out of an airplane and not realizing that you forgot something until about five seconds before impact.Craig D. Lounsbrough
31
Things that are truly great need nothing from me, and to somehow think that they do speaks to my utter lack of greatness.Craig D. Lounsbrough
32
If I simply look at the map that I’ve so tediously created, it will explain why I’m laying at the bottom of this cliff looking up.Craig D. Lounsbrough
33
Truth even in the most whispered tones will always roar.Craig D. Lounsbrough
35
Looking back, I now realize that I left home in search of all the things that were right in the very place I left.Craig D. Lounsbrough
36
Once faith dies, the death of hope follows hard on its heels.Craig D. Lounsbrough
37
Strength other than that received from God is just hype manufactured by men.Craig D. Lounsbrough
38
I ask, ‘Is the cup half-empty or half-full?’ And when I ask that question, I am amazed at how many people have no cup.Craig D. Lounsbrough
39
Hope is not some thin thing that is subject to the winds of fate, but it is crafted hard by the hands of God.Craig D. Lounsbrough
40
Hope is not some thin thing that is subject to the winds of fate. Rather, it is something crafted hard by the hands of God.Craig D. Lounsbrough
41
With God, the impossible is not an obstacle but an invitation.Craig D. Lounsbrough
42
Easter is a marvelous affirmation of the genius of our design, but it is likewise the blunt acknowledgement that left to its own devices, the genius of our design will result in the destruction of our lives.Craig D. Lounsbrough
43
Despite all of our incessant tinkering, we can’t manufacture the things we most desperately need. And if perchance we do, they will never be more than pathetically emaciated facsimiles that will leave us emaciated. And until we finally realize that we can only ‘find’ these things, we will never sense any compulsion to ‘find’ God.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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My fear of endings too often blocks my hope of beginnings.Craig D. Lounsbrough
45
Any dream that I am absolutely confident I can achieve should immediately be discarded for the simple reason that it is simply too small.Craig D. Lounsbrough
46
The hands of man can manufacture many things both penetratingly brilliant and utterly astounding. Yet, despite their amazing dexterity and profound skill they cannot manufacture hope. Such a masterpiece as that is left for the hands of God and a manger crafted by those hands.Craig D. Lounsbrough
47
The message of Christmas is a message of hope when all other such messages created by men can do nothing more than be hopeful.Craig D. Lounsbrough
48
There was a moment when any hope within me froze solid and I was finally emptied of all energy to fight the cold. And at the very point of that very surrender, when I became convinced that I must bow to a world that would be forever frigid, God cupped the hands of my soul and poured in the warmth of Christmas.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Where there is no hope, there is Christmas. And where there is no Christmas, there is no hope.Craig D. Lounsbrough
50
In my desperation, I have finally discovered that the only way that I can begin to fill the gaping hole within me is to be thankful for what’s there, and not angry for what’s not.Craig D. Lounsbrough
51
If I have never had, or worse yet, I have lost the conviction that life (despite all of the blows it wields and the savagery that it spawns) is nonetheless an incalculable privilege, I will have in that single loss forfeited the whole of my life and effectively wiped out any hope that I can or will do anything other than exist.Craig D. Lounsbrough
52
The strewn and tangled wreckage that litters our lives is the precious raw material from which great beginnings are forged.Craig D. Lounsbrough
53
The worst of it is that while we continue to sink deeper into the muck and mire that we’ve created, in the very descent itself we ignorantly declare that in reality we are rising. And until desperation has crippled us sufficiently to confess the lie that we are lifting ourselves out of this mess, and until the panic of utter hopelessness has driven us to completely surrender all of the pathetic contrivances that we’ve fashioned that have put us there, we will never realize that God has readied solid ground that stands but a single step away .Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Darkness should never be an excuse to quit, for with God, darkness is the exact stuff that light was built for.Craig D. Lounsbrough
55
Ignorance is avoiding that which stands in front of me out of the misplaced hope that it will put what I’m ignoring behind me. Instead, it’s most certain to drop it on top of me.Craig D. Lounsbrough
56
Fairness is not something to which we are entitled. Rather, it is something for which we hope.Craig D. Lounsbrough
57
My goals exceed the reach of my energies, but my God exceeds the reach of my goals.Craig D. Lounsbrough
58
Underneath the chaos there stirs a great plan. And it will be birthed only if I give it permission to do so because I have exercised the faith that it’s there.Craig D. Lounsbrough
59
The greatest prayers that I could ever utter come from the heart. And when I pray that way, I rarely need to open my mouth. Therefore, maybe I should think about talking less.Craig D. Lounsbrough
60
It is when I am cold, alone, bitterly forlorn and shuttered from all hope that you will see who I truly am. And my goal is that at those most precarious of moments, what you will see is Jesus holding you through my tears.Craig D. Lounsbrough
61
If I scan the expanse of my heart and find it empty of everything except emptiness, it is because I ‘poured’ the whole of my passion into something other than God. And anything other than God will always be too ‘poor’ to be able to ‘pour’ back anything that can fill that kind of emptiness.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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True peace cannot be found in a ‘place’. Rather, it is found in a Person who can be with you in any ‘place’.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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If I am not at 'peace', then I can be altogether confident that I've placed a larger 'piece' of myself in the hands of someone other than God.Craig D. Lounsbrough
64
In the absence of faith, our dreams will move from feasible aspirations to implausible fantasy.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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It’s not a lack of opportunity around me. Rather, it’s a lack of faith within me.Craig D. Lounsbrough
66
With God, the fear of failure is slain cold by success that is already hot on the way.Craig D. Lounsbrough
67
I must not imagine what is ‘not’ as a means of escaping what ‘is’. Rather, I must understand what ‘is’ and imagine how I can make it what it is ‘not’.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Faith is the most unexercised muscle known to man.Craig D. Lounsbrough
69
Maybe the truth of it all is that we’re just too fearful to give our faith enough running room to realize that this precariously thin path that led us to the end of this life is dwarfed to obscurity by the infinitely vast byway that begins immediately on the other side.Craig D. Lounsbrough
70
Rather than being incensed by the nature of the bruise, maybe we should be inspired by the possibilities in the bruise.Craig D. Lounsbrough
71
Most often, what I don’t know will have a vastly greater bearing on my life that what I do know.Craig D. Lounsbrough
72
God’s genius is as wide as the cosmos, while by comparison our intelligence can find room on the head of a pin.Craig D. Lounsbrough
73
Intelligence and wisdom are certainly compatible, however they are rarely seen in each other’s company.Craig D. Lounsbrough
74
Common sense is one of the most unused commodities available to man.Craig D. Lounsbrough
75
To think that we grasp the fullness of life is to say that by holding a mere drop of water in our hands we are able to understand the immensity of the ocean.Craig D. Lounsbrough
76
Do I make up some ‘god’ in my mind, or do I make up my mind to know God?Craig D. Lounsbrough
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The common theme of common sense is that it’s commonly rejected as uncommonly demanding.Craig D. Lounsbrough
78
I want to ‘think’ that I have all the answers. But if I ‘think’, I soon realize that what I thought to be answers were guesses. And if I ‘think’ yet again, I begin to realize that since God has all the answers He never hands me a guess.Craig D. Lounsbrough
79
I hold in my hand a million ideas and more. But if I am puzzled as to why they have never leapt out of my hand and been birthed into the realities they were crafted to be, it is likely because the other hand has withheld the sacrifice that is necessary to birth an idea.Craig D. Lounsbrough
80
The road to success is paved with the hot asphalt of failure.Craig D. Lounsbrough
81
I yearn not for the easy path, but for the right path. Â For 'easy' and 'right' are rarely compatible.Craig D. Lounsbrough
82
The father who has selflessly poured himself into the life of his children may leave no other monument than that of his children. But as for a life well lived, no other monument is necessary.Craig D. Lounsbrough
83
It’s not about inviting great things into our lives. Rather, it’s about accepting the invitation of great things to step out of our lives.Craig D. Lounsbrough
84
The world screams, ‘Stay down, it’s safer.’ My soul screams, ‘So is being dead.Craig D. Lounsbrough
85
Despite the voices of the culture that would scream otherwise, victory is irreparably tied to the surrender of self. And that explains why so few are truly victorious.Craig D. Lounsbrough
86
My definition of success is not based on achieving the impossible, but rather surviving the probable. And with a threshold that horribly low, simple survival cannot help but become my highest aspiration.Craig D. Lounsbrough
87
Far too often the ‘things’ that men define as success do little more than successfully destroy the lives of the very men who achieve those ‘things.’ And while I must admit that there is an authentic element of success in all of that, it’s the kind of success that I would much prefer to successfully avoid.Craig D. Lounsbrough
88
Authentic love is deciding to live on a one-way street where all the arrows point down the street and not a single one of them point back up to where I’m standing.Craig D. Lounsbrough
89
As I contemplate a relationship with God, I find that I’m afraid to ride on the coattails of the infinite. But what I fear more than that is spending my life in the coat closet.Craig D. Lounsbrough
90
It’s not about describing someone as that’s typically an attempt to make whatever they are comfortable for whoever we are. Instead, we may wish to skip the agenda of the description and embrace the wonder of the person.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Real relationships are the product of time spent, which is why so many of us have so few of them.Craig D. Lounsbrough
92
Vulnerability creates unimaginable space to build each other up, as much as it creates ample room to tear each other down.Craig D. Lounsbrough
93
Betrayal is advancing myself at the expense of the one who I committed myself to advance.Craig D. Lounsbrough
94
I cannot live without you. For to attempt to do so would be to rob both of us of each other, and that is thievery of the greatest sort.Craig D. Lounsbrough
95
What rubs off on me is hard to rub off. So, I’d better figure out what I rubbing up against.Craig D. Lounsbrough
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Ignorance might be bliss, but it also has teeth.Craig D. Lounsbrough
97
A life that chooses not to grow is a life that died long before it ever lived.Craig D. Lounsbrough
98
To spin the tale with great flourish but never live the tale is the power of vision strangled to fiction by the fiction of fear.Craig D. Lounsbrough
99
Too often we make it more about what stands before us, and we miss all that stands within us.Craig D. Lounsbrough
100
Ignorance is my refusal to think outside the box of my fears.Craig D. Lounsbrough