Dan B. Allender Quotes

Christ never intended to cover up the dark side of life, but rather to illuminate a path through it.

So take seriously the story that God has given you to live. It’s time to read your own life, because your story is the one that could set us all ablaze.

The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced.

Healing comes when our story is raw, bone-deep and full of hunger for what only Jesus can offer.

Strength is found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found in surrender.

Most people want to grow, but the price of growth is pain.

Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat.

Bold love is courageously setting aside our personal agenda to move humbly into the world of others with their well-being in view, willing to risk further pain in our souls, in order to be an aroma of life to some and an aroma of death to others.

If we want to create a different future, we must have the courage to look at the past.

God wants us to relieve suffering, pursue justice, facilitate reconciliation, and free the heart to love, but He desires for us to do so in a way that reveals His Character. It is not enough just to do well for others or to do things well. We must do well in our unique way in order to reveal the vast creativity of a God who loves to bring change through the most unlikely channels.

Beginning with the first day of life outside the womb, every child is asking two core questions: 'Am I loved?' and 'Can I get my own way?' These two questions mark us throughout life, and the answers we receive set the course for how we live.

Reconciliation is not to be withheld when repentance—that is, deep, heart‐changing acknowledgement of sin and a radical redirection of life—takes place in the one being rebuked. Nor is reconciliation to be extended to someone who has not repented.

[Biblical counseling] Must insist that the image of God is central to developing a solid view of personality; that our sinfulness, not how we've been sinned against, is our biggest problem; that forgiveness, not wholeness, is our greatest need; that repentance, not insight, is the dynamic in all real change.

Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another’s glory or toward degrading each other.

Stories don't give answers, but they do offer perspective.

Every addiction is an attempt to slay hope.

To experience brokenness and humiliation all you have to do is lead.

Love cannot last without a foundation of forgiveness.

The desire for beauty, the hunger for union, the passion to be part of something greater than self, all arise out of our bent to worship.

Life is war, and marriage provides us with a close and intimate ally with whom we may wage this war. The battle requires bold love, forgiveness, confrontation, and repentance.

A leader - whether in the home, church, business, community, or government - has authority due to her role, but her positional power will not bring about good for individuals or organizations unless it is backed up by the capital of character.

Fasting from any nourishment, activity, involvement or pursuit—for any season—sets the stage for God to appear. Fasting is not a tool to pry wisdom out of God's hands or to force needed insight about a decision. Fasting is not a tool for gaining discipline or developing piety (whatever that might be). Instead, fasting is the bulimic act of ridding ourselves of our fullness to attune our senses to the mysteries that swirl in and around us."—Dan B. Allender, PhD

Courage never takes away fear; courage simply redistributes fear to get the job done.

The sole reason to serve as a Christian is Jesus, yet He is easily lost in the various activities that consume our days.

Buzyness, however, is moral laziness because it involves refusing to live with courage and intentionality.