426 Quotes by Brennan Manning

When belonging to an elite group eclipses the love of God, when I draw life and meaning from any source other than my belovedness, I am spiritually dead. When God gets relegated to second place behind any bauble or trinket, I have swapped the pearl of great price for painted fragments of glass.

The more guilt and shame that we have buried within ourselves, the more compelled we feel to seek relief through sin.

Each moment of our existence, we are either growing into more or retreating into less.

God’s grace always precedes his call.

A life of praying means death to every identity that does not come from God.

All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If He wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is His concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.

In days long ago when there were no spiritual directors or brilliant commentaries on Scripture, fidelity to God’s will was the whole of spirituality.

Wrong thinking about God and people often begins with a debased image of ourselves.