22 Quotes by Zack Eswine

Like other issues of mental health, we don't talk about depression. If we do, we either whisper as if the subject is scandalous or rebuke it as if it's a sin. No wonder many of us don't seek help; for when we do, those who try to help only add to the shame of it all

These kinds of circumstances and bodily chemistry can steal the gifts of divine love too, as if all of God's love letters and picture albums are burning up in a fire just outside the door, a fire which we are helpless to stop. We sit there, helpless in the dark of divine absence, tied to this chair, present only to ash and wheeze, while all we hold dear seems lost forever. We even wonder if we're brought this all on ourselves. It's our fault. God is against us. We've forfeited God's help.

Apprenticeship assumes that knowing a trade not only comes by numbers and outlines but also by watching and inhabiting. Knowing is found in these forms, because teaching is. We teach not only by our words and assignments but also by the manner of our words and the ways we ourselves already embody the assignments we give.

To preach biblically means much more than to preach the truth of the Bible accurately. It also means to present that truth the way the biblical writers and speakers presented it.

We plead not ourselves, but the promises of Jesus; not our strengths but His; our weaknesses yes, but His mercies. Our way of fighting is to hide behind Jesus who fights for us. Our hope is not the absence of our regret, or misery or doubt or lament, but the presence of Jesus.

Some of you may be in great distress of mind, a distress out of which no fellow-creature can deliver you. You are poor nervous people at whom others often laugh. I can assure you that God will not laugh at you; he knows all about that sad complaint of yours, so I urge you to go to him, for the experience of many of us has taught us that, “the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

Patience says to your empty hands, “God is here.” Patience looks the worst in the face and says, “God will not leave you.

God is there and he is not silent. Divine voice whispers, cries out, sings. The divinity that once walked on Eden’s ground in the cool of the day now muddies his feet in the swamps of our making.

Second, God sometimes calls us to a congregation when we don’t yet have what it needs. Sometimes we can’t help a people until after we’ve been with them for a while, and being with them is the means God uses to teach us what he wants us to offer them. For.