Wess Stafford Quotes

Every child you encounter is a divine appointment.

I have become convinced that if God stands a child before you, for even just a minute, it is a divine appointment.

Watch carefully the children around you. In precious moments you will catch a glimpse of your Savior’s face. Listen intently and you will hear his voice. Walk gently among them; his footprints are all around you. Embrace them, for you are embracing him. Respect them, because they are sometimes God’s agents – exactly the kind of instruments he needs. At such times, only a child will do.

Children are more than we think they are; they can do more than we think they can do. All they need is a vote of confidence from grownups, whom they will ultimately replace anyway. Their dream today will become the realities of tomorrow.

Joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are going to respond to life.

One changed child eventually changes a family. A changed family will influence change in its church. Enough changed churches will transform a community. Changed communities change regions. Changed regions will in time change an entire nation.

If God places a child before you, and you are too busy to wield either a positive or negative influence...you just did the later! You communicated that the child doesn't matter and isn't important.

If we nurture the dreams of children, the world will be blessed. If we destroy them, the world is doomed!

I’m convinced that one of the most powerful forces on earth is the prayer of a child.

Nurturing a child’s sense of personal worth and therefore hope and dreams for a wonderful future is perhaps the most important responsibility of every grownup in a child’s life.

Just know this: What you will do among children is as close to the heart of God and central to his kingdom as anything we could mention.

So why is a third of our world battling obesity and spending huge sums to burn off excess calories, while the other two-thirds yearn to get more of them?

I spend half my time comforting the afflicated, and the other half afflicting the comfortable.

It all begins, I maintain, with that powerful and underutilized thing called love. God's love for the individual is displayed by those people who reflect his love in their words and deeds. It ultimately gets understood and accepted by the child in poverty, and through that individual's love for others, the world gets changed.

...while God has done his part in creating a world capable of providing what we need, we have not done our part in the stewardship of it, in seeing that it gets to the end of the line, to the poorest and neediest--the children.

The ritual sacrifice of children has been taboo for thousands of years. Yet tragically it is practiced every day across our world. We sacrifice children on the altars of our most destructive sins. When the sickness of pornography has run to its most evil and destructive end, it takes the form of child pornography. When prostitution reaches its sickest, most depraved form, it becomes child prostitution.

But when adults speak up for the vulnerable and the weak, working and demanding that safety and respect prevail, God's little lambs are protected and nourished. They know they are not abandoned; they are loved. And the world becomes a little more like heaven as a result.

To be compassionate in this hurting world means it will cost you something.

I have become convinced that the more wealth a country accumulates, the more isolated and lonely its people become. The loneliest are usually the children and the elderly. Children learn what they live, and isolation in the ‘village’ is one of the most destructive messages we daily write on the tablets of their hearts.

A church begins to die when it says, ‘They were just children.

What’s your cause? Does it move you to tears? What is it that moves you passionately?

We absolutely must battle with every bit of determination we can muster to root out the harm that would warp the souls and spirits of children in our world.

There is nothing to be intimidated about - it's just another long run where a few more people show up and they happen to wear numbers.