Catherine Marshall Quotes

Of course you'll encounter trouble. But behold a God of power who can take any evil and turn it into a door of hope.

God is the only one who can make the valley of trouble a door of hope.

When the dream in our heart is one that God has planted there, a strange happiness flowers into us. At that moment all of the spiritual resources of the universe are released to help us. Our praying is then at one with the will of God and becomes a channel for the Creator's always joyous, triumphant purposes for us and our world.

If your every human plan and calculation has miscarried, if, one by one, human props have been knocked out, and doors have shut in your face, take heart. God is trying to get a message through to you, and the message is: "Stop depending on inadequate human resources. Let me handle the matter.".

Those who never rebelled against God or at some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all.

The cross stands as the final symbol that no evil exists that God cannot turn into a blessing. He is the living Alchemist who can take the dregs from the slag-heaps of life - disappointment, frustration, sorrow, disease, death, economic loss, heartache - and transform the dregs into gold.

I learned that true forgiveness includes total self-acceptance. And out of acceptance wounds are healed and happiness is possible again.

God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking.

My father always told us that if we will let God, He can use even our disappointements, even our annoyances to bring us a blessing. There's a practical way to start the process too: by thanking HIm for whatever happens, no matter how disagreeable it seems.

Once we recognize our need for Jesus, then the building of our faith begins. It is a daily, moment-by-moment life of absolute dependence upon Him for everything

The purpose of all prayer is to find God's will and to make that our prayer

Whence comes this idea that if what we are doing is fun, it can't be God's will? The God who made giraffes, a baby's fingernails, a puppy's tail, a crooknecked squash, the bobwhite's call, and a young girl's giggle, has a sense of humor. Make no mistake about that.

Acceptance says, True, this is my situation at the moment. I'll look unblinkingly at the reality of it. But I'll also open my hands to accept willingly whatever a loving Father sends me.

Satan cannot create anything new, cannot create anything at all. He must steal what God has created. Thus he twists love and God's wonderful gift of sex into lust and sadism and myriad perversions. He disfigures the heart's deep desire to worship God and persuades us to bow before lesser gods of lust or money or power.

When you heart is ablaze with the love of God, when you love other people - especially the ripsnorting sinners - so much that you dare to tell them about Jesus with no apologies, then never fear, there will be results.

The unfolding of our friendship with the Father will be a never-ending revelation strretching on into eternity

Often God has to shut a door in our face, so that He can subsequently open the door through which He wants us to go.

Evil is real - and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where we stand, how we're going to live our lives. We can try to persuade ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn't so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it , and say it's none of our business. Or we can work on God's side, listen for His orders on strategy against the evil, no matter how horrible it is, and know that He can transform it.

Truth could never be wholly contained in words. All of us know it: At the same moment the mouth is speaking one thing, the heart is saying another.

The only time I ever find my dealings with God less than clear-cut is when I'm not being honest with Him. The fuzziness is always on my side, not His.

No matter how little you have, you can always give some of it away.

I believe the old cliché, 'God helps those who help themselves,' is not only misleading but often dead wrong. My most spectacular answers to prayers have come when I was so helpless, so out of control as to be able to do nothing at all for myself.

So once I shut down my privilege of disliking anyone I choose and holding myself aloof if I could manage it, greater understanding, growing compassion came to me.

Our prayers must not be efforts to bend God to our will but to yield ourselves to His.

One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying.