450 Quotes by Ann Voskamp

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions - joy transcends all other emotions.

Jesus is not merely useful; He's ultimately beautiful. When I see Jesus as merely useful, it's tempting to want to make Him move my world. When I see He's beautiful, it's the heart that's moved, and this begins to change my world. When Jesus is only useful, He's a gadget or pill to make life better. But when Jesus is seen as truly beautiful, He's a joy that makes us live better...love better.

I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.

Awe ignites joy because it makes us bend the knee.

He does have surprising, secret purposes. I open a Bible, and His plans, startling, lie there barefaced. It’s hard to believe it, when I read it, and I have to come back to it many times, feel long across those words, make sure they are real. His love letter forever silences any doubts: “His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7 NEB).

From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story.

Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.

They say time is money, but that's not true. Time is life. And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time... the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life...God gives us time. And who has time for God?Which makes no sense.

On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and effort to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.