Quote

The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.

Brennan Manning

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Brennan Manning
Age: 75 †
Born: 1937
Born: April 27
Died: 2013
Died: April 12
Author
Catholic Priest
Theologian
New York City
New York
Richard Francis Xavier Manning
Sorrow
Lies
Approach
Sinned
Lying
Absorption
Fear
Sufficiency
Self
Refusal
Life
Anguish
Failed

More quotes by Brennan Manning

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Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.
Brennan Manning
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The way you are with others every day, regardless of their status, is the true test of faith.
Brennan Manning
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Ruthless trust ultimately comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise.
Brennan Manning
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Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.
Brennan Manning
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Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.
Brennan Manning
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May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is the Father, Son and Spirit.
Brennan Manning
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There is the you that people see and then there is the rest of you. Take some time and craft a picture of the rest of you. This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.
Brennan Manning
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Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as Abba, I belong to you. . . . Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.
Brennan Manning
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The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.
Brennan Manning
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Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.
Brennan Manning
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When being is divorced from doing, pious thoughts become an adequate substitute for washing dirty feet.
Brennan Manning
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God is a kooky God who can scarcely bear to be without us.
Brennan Manning
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The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us.
Brennan Manning
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Rome is burning, Jesus says. Drop your fiddle, change your life and come to Me. Let go of the good days that never were - a regimented church you never attended, traditional virtues you never practiced, legalistic obedience you never honored, and a sterile orthodoxy you never accepted. The old era is done. The decisive inbreak of God has happened.
Brennan Manning
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Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life--be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others...I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba's child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused
Brennan Manning
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The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.
Brennan Manning
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One of my realizations in such an earthy atmosphere was that many of the burning theological issues in the church were neither burning nor theological.
Brennan Manning
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When absolute control and rigid obedience pose as love within the family and the local faith-community , we produce trained cowards rather than Christian persons.
Brennan Manning
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To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Brennan Manning
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Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming.
Brennan Manning