John Flavel Quotes

Oh that I was lowly in heart! Honor and dishonor, good report and evil report would then be alike, and prove a furtherance to me in my Christian cause.

God, as I may say, is forced to break men's hearts, before he can make them willing to cry to him, or be willing that he should have any concerns with them; the rest shut their eyes, stop their ears, withdraw their hearts, or say unto God, Be gone.

It is God's will to bless us, but not necessarily on our terms. Sometimes what we think would be a wonderful blessing would not bless us at all.

The most common way Jesus comes into our lives is through a broken heart.

When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.

Why shouldn’t we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God’s purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, “Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.” If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?

He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart.

When you climb a ladder and arrive on the sixth step and you think that is the highest, then you cannot come to the seventh. So the technique is to abandon the sixth in order for the seventh step to be possible. And this is our practice, to release our views. The practice of nonattachment to views is at the heart of the Buddhist practice of meditation.

Strive to see God in all things without exception. Do not smother yourself...If you start smothering yourself with a host of cares and longings and wishes ... you will be disabling yourself from serving God with all your heart.

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.

Do not entertain the notion that you ought to advance in your prayer. If you do, you will only find you have put on the brake instead of the acceleration. All real progress in spiritual things comes gently, imperceptibly, and is the work of God. Our crude efforts spoil it. Know yourself for the childish, limited and dependent soul you are. Remember that the only growth which matters happens without our knowledge and that trying to stretch ourselves is both dangerous and silly. Think of the Infinite Goodness, never of your own state.

Wherever you go, God is with you - watching over you, protecting you, and providing the truth you need for every situation. The question is, will you open your heart to His Word, apply it to your life, and allow God to change you so that He can use you in ways far greater than you can imagine?

When you surrender and stop resisting and stop trying to change that which you can't change, but be in the moment, be fully open to the blessings you've already received and those that are yet to come and stand in that space of gratitude ... and look at where you are and how far you've come and what you've accomplished - when you can claim THAT and SEE that, the literal vibration of your life will change.

What Christ does in us and through us will always be 'exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.'

And keep as few things as possible, so that you don't have to fear for them. Give them up without a struggle-because otherwise the humiliation will poison your heart. They will take them away from you in a fight, and trying to hold onto your property will only leave you with a bloodied mouth ... But by owning things and trembling about their fate aren't you forfeiting the rare opportunity of observing and understanding?

I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, and I myself have been abandoned by those whom I begged to stay.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

The moment God put a dream in your heart, the moment the promise took root, God not only started it, but He set a completion date.

Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.

Afflictions make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and beat more.

Who knows what will happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

God has promised to every single one of us that even in our hardest times, if we would just hang on long enough, the blessing will come.

I pray that God would open the mouth in me and the heart in you and that he would be the teacher in the midst of us who may in us speak and hear.

We can't escape from the world anymore; we can't escape from the mind. We need to enter surrender while we are in the world. That seems to be the path that is effective in the world that we live in now.

God cannot catch us. Unless we stay in the unconscious room. Of our hearts.