Top 92 Emily P. Freeman Quotes
#1. It's no wonder we are so messed up when it comes to walking with God. In nearly every aspect of our existence, good performance equals good reward. Except not with him. A good thing turns bad when we perform to earn God's acceptance rather than simply receive it like a gift.
Emily P. Freeman
#2. Just because it doesn't make sense 'to me' doesn't mean it doesn't make sense 'at all'.
Emily P. Freeman
#3. The number one reason we don't believe things that are true is because they don't always feel true.
Emily P. Freeman
#4. Let disappointment do its deep work
remind you that your true desire is found, not in God's ways or God's will or God's blessings, but in God himself.
Emily P. Freeman
#6. Sometimes that's what prayer is
simply inviting God to join us where we actually are, not because He isn't already here but because inviting Him reminds us it's true.
Emily P. Freeman
#7. Let's dig deep, not to create meaning where there isn't any, but to see Christ, our companion, where he actually is, not where we wish he was.
Emily P. Freeman
#8. Are you trying to be who Jesus wants you to be? Or do you trust him to bring out who he has already created you to be? It is vital to recognize the difference between these two questions because one leads to death, the other leads to life.
Emily P. Freeman
#9. I can't prevent storms from coming, but I can decide not to invent my own.
Emily P. Freeman
#10. God is already carrying your load. Why do you insist on carrying it too?
Emily P. Freeman
#11. Maybe you're wondering what it actually means to live a graceful life. We've got many chapters ahead to figure out what that might look like for you ...
Emily P. Freeman
#12. ...for those of us who never do these things at all, there can be a great sense of shame that washes over us for not being a good enough Christian.
Emily P. Freeman
#13. It's bold, rash, and embarrassing, Martha talking to God this way. But her honesty paved the way for Jesus to speak to her.
Emily P. Freeman
#14. But Tuesday teaches me that part of living well in ordinary time is letting this day be good. Letting this day be a gift. Letting this day be filled with plenty. And if it all goes wrong and my work turns to dust? This is my kind reminder that outcomes are beyond the scope of my job description.
Emily P. Freeman
#15. To accept the lively, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing.
Emily P. Freeman
#16. You miss the living because you are waiting for perfect, and so you let goodness and blessings pass you right on by.
Emily P. Freeman
#17. What gives moments meaning is not the moments themselves but the presence of Christ with us in the midst of them.
Emily P. Freeman
#18. Some girls look to fill the emptiness with their rebellious ways and get into trouble. Other girls try hard to fill the emptiness with good things and get praise. But both girls are reaching for something we'll never find outside of God.
Emily P. Freeman
#19. What if you began to see your art as something other than your idea? What if it was less lofty and more necessary to your daily rhythm? What if your art is part of a bigger picture, part of a daily grace God has in mind for someone else?
Emily P. Freeman
#20. You think to yourself that if anyone knew who you really were, what you've really done, they would never accept you.
Emily P. Freeman
#21. God gives us the courage to face those fears and then invites us to move toward him in the midst of them.
Emily P. Freeman
#22. We have an enemy who would do anything to keep us distracted from Jesus.
Emily P. Freeman
#23. The question I constantly asked myself was this: What am I supposed to do?
Emily P. Freeman
#24. The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn't an obstacle, it's an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it's a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.
Emily P. Freeman
#25. We all believe somewhere deep inside that we should be better, be doing more, be someone other than who we currently are ... we feel as if we aren't good enough.
Emily P. Freeman
#26. If I am trying to please God, it is difficult to trust God. But when I trust God, pleasing him is automatic.
Emily P. Freeman
#27. Picture a girl with her arms full of small packages, too many to hold all at once. When they topple and fall all around her, she stoops down and scoops them all back up, literally re-collecting all the gifts that are already hers. To set your mind is to recollect truth that already belongs to you.
Emily P. Freeman
#28. The voice of the Dreamer often pushes us to escape. When we listen to her voice, our dreams are held captive. We dream things shaped by heaven but twisted by the world, things of escape and vacation and eternal lounging.
Emily P. Freeman
#29. Attention, success, and comparison hold my soul hostage and refuse to negotiate until they get what they want. Spoiler alert: They want everything. And they are never satisfied. They will never let you go.
Emily P. Freeman
#30. I choose to believe God rather than my feelings. I choose to believe I am acceptable even though I feel unacceptable.
Emily P. Freeman
#32. Are you allowing your own expectations to hinder you from freely expressing yourself? Is your idea of the right way keeping you from your best way? Are you too distracted to show up? Are you living like a programmer instead of a poet?
Emily P. Freeman
#33. Whether it's creating a chapter of a book or a quiet conversation, trying to do too many things at once is one of my biggest obstacles to living artfully.
Emily P. Freeman
#34. When we listen to the voice of the Dreamer and hide behind our somedays, we miss out on the gifts of today.
Emily P. Freeman
#35. I don't want to live my life in such a hurry that I'm always closing the fridge door with my foot and scribbling out birthday cards in my car at the last minute. I want to make bread, or at least find the time to toast it.
Emily P. Freeman
#36. I looked to my boyfriend to satisfy my Godbreathed longing for acceptance. I had my first glimpse of what it might feel like to be loved in a romantic way. It didn't take long for me to become addicted to that feeling.
Emily P. Freeman
#37. We were made to build, to co-create, to bring glory to God with the work of our hands, to move into the world as unique reflections of Christ. But we were not made to fill rooms, stadiums, or bank accounts. We were not made to fill our souls with worth we construct with our hands.
Emily P. Freeman
#38. Discontentment shows up when we focus on what we can't have rather than what we do have.
Emily P. Freeman
#39. To be able to look ahead while also celebrating now is a delicate kind of art, to imagine what could be without discounting what is.
Emily P. Freeman
#40. But I didn't understand the middle-of-a-Tuesday Jesus. I only knew him as a when-I-get-to-heaven Jesus. He was my ticket and not much else.
Emily P. Freeman
#41. You have a longing to be understood, but still feel the need to protect yourself.
Emily P. Freeman
#42. These hiding places may have been helping you cope, but they are not who you are.
These good girl voices challenge your identity.
Emily P. Freeman
#43. Many people acknowledge they can never be perfect. They say, I'm not perfect, so what's the point? I'm not even gonna try.
Emily P. Freeman
#44. When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to be tough and untouchable, but really I was squishy and sensitive.
Emily P. Freeman
#46. Like you, I'm figuring out how to walk with Christ into my day, into Target, into church, into the kitchen, and most importantly, into the lives of other people. Christ doesn't stop being relevant just because I'm standing at my sink, cleaning out my closet, meeting over coffee, driving to the bank.
Emily P. Freeman
#47. And so the meaning of our lives is not dependent upon what we make of it but of what he is making of us.
Emily P. Freeman
#48. Jesus came to save me from myself. He came to save me from self-effort. He didn't just die for my sin to give me forgiveness; he rose again to give me life.
Emily P. Freeman
#49. The story of redemtion and healing is that Jesus came to exchange my not-good-enough with his better-than-I-could-ever-imagine. He came to trade my life for His, my weak for His strong, my ashes for His beauty. He longs for each of us to recieve the gift of Himself.
Emily P. Freeman
#50. This is also a book abut God, about what it means
and what it doesn't mean
to believe.
Emily P. Freeman
#51. He (God) never promises that our families will be safe. Not in the way we think. He does promise his presence, though.
Emily P. Freeman
#52. We teach them when they're babies that they're the center of the world, and they spend the rest of their lives realizing they're not.
Emily P. Freeman
#53. Being a good girl is more about what you believe on the inside that how you behave on the outside. That means whether you've messed up big or you've messed up little, we all mess up.
Emily P. Freeman
#54. It isn't about what we are supposed to 'do'; it is about what we choose to 'believe'.
Emily P. Freeman
#55. That's what service does. It points us to Jesus, not to ourselves.
Emily P. Freeman
#56. God does not ask us to carry burdens. He does not ask us to save the world. He does not ask us to come up with a plan. He simply asks us to 'come'.
Emily P. Freeman
#57. My part is not feeding five thousand men. My part is giving my lunch to Jesus.
Emily P. Freeman
#58. Weigh the cost your yes will have on your spirit, your soul, and your body. You may have to search for your brave yes, but you will have to fight for your strong no.
Emily P. Freeman
#59. Even though I may feel unsafe and unacceptable, I am accepted in Christ.
Emily P. Freeman
#60. Pursuing desire is only toxic when we demand our desires be satisfied on our terms and in our timing. As recipients of the new heart of the Spirit, our deepest desire, when honestly realized, will always lead us to God.
Emily P. Freeman
#61. There is something about hearing a man say he wants to spend the rest of his life with you that has a way of stunning a girl's heart no matter how much she expects it.
Emily P. Freeman
#62. The deepest need of my soul isn't a personal organizer or an empty inbox. The deepest need of my soul is Christ.
Emily P. Freeman
#63. Rather than admitting you don't know what to do next, you fake it in public and feel lost when you're alone.
Emily P. Freeman
#64. The voice of the Dreamer convinced me that 'later' would always be better than 'now', that 'someday' is where life will really happen and high school is just something we have to get through before we can live our real lives.
Emily P. Freeman
#65. I can't imagine anything more dangerous to the enemy of our hearts than people who know who they are.
Emily P. Freeman
#66. What if I began to believe that the critique isn't just an unwelcome part of the art-making process but might actually make the art better?
Emily P. Freeman
#67. When we open our hands and take that which is offered to us, we are not only receiving the thing offered, but we are receiving the person.
Emily P. Freeman
#68. There is no activity that is somehow more Christian than another. God looks at the heart, and that is the good part that Mary knew. he simply asks us to come as we are and to be willing, open to receive whatever he might have for us this day. That is what it means to live a graceful life.
Emily P. Freeman
#69. I want to encourage you today: needy is a beautiful place to be. When we recognize our need, we will finally look around for something (or someone) to fill it.
Emily P. Freeman
#70. Because I care so much about what you think, my hiding has everything to do with you. I desperately want to manage your opinion of me. Nearly anything I do is to convince you I am good.
Emily P. Freeman
#71. They just need to sit on a bench with someone else so they know they're not alone. I know this because it's what I need too.
Emily P. Freeman
#72. Either way, the result is you depending on yourself to do life right. Either way, God isn't even in the room.
Emily P. Freeman
#74. I don't remember anything about that summer because I existed in a lonely fog of memories, longing, and rejection.
Emily P. Freeman
#75. In my own life I've found it to be true that when I hold on to the wrong things, the wrong things hold on to me.
Emily P. Freeman
#76. True belief is movement toward God even in the midst of confusion or frustration or fear.
Emily P. Freeman
#77. Our gifts are not from God to us, but from God through us to the world. - Janice Elsheimer, The Creative Call
Emily P. Freeman
#78. Even if we aren't having sex with out boyfriends, it's still easy to find our identify in them in an unhealthy way.
Emily P. Freeman
#79. When we believe that God expects us to try hard to become who Jesus wants us to be, we will live in that blurry, frustrating land of Should Be rather than trust in The One Who Is.
Emily P. Freeman
#80. I don't believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.
Emily P. Freeman
#81. Worship, not work, flows out of the hearts of those who believe.
Emily P. Freeman
#82. What connections and experiences have I missed because I'm either remembering a former embarrassment or fearing a new one?
Emily P. Freeman
#83. Bear, believe, hope, endure. May it be so in us. May it be so in me.
Emily P. Freeman
#84. But understand that the reason it is so difficult to extend forgiveness to those who have failed us is because we are unable to receive forgiveness for our own failures.
Emily P. Freeman
#85. Maybe those things bringing you joy do so because they are one of the many ways in which God wants to declare his glory through you.
Emily P. Freeman
#86. God sees you. Not because of what you have done or not done but because you are loved.
Emily P. Freeman
#88. We often say things like, "Jesus died so I didn't have to, " but it's actually much worse. The truth is, Jesus died and so did I. But the worse morphs into better when we remember that Jesus didn't stay dead. And neither do we. Let the dying moments remind us where to find the living.
Emily P. Freeman
#89. Your childhood dream delights God. I don't say that because every secret dream will come true. But having a dream is evidence of a person who is fully alive. Having a dream is a reflection of the image of God.
Emily P. Freeman
#90. Jesus does not turn away from the world, but turns to face it. Jesus came down. He turns toward. He makes his face to shine upon. He shows compassion. He sits with. His with-ness is so important that every time we say his name, we declare it - Immanuel, God with us.
Emily P. Freeman
#91. Being his workmanship doesn't mean we are all poets. It means we are all poems, individual created works of a creative God. And this poetry comes out uniquely through us as we worship, think, love, pray, rest, work, and exist.
Emily P. Freeman
#92. We may call it "people pleasing," but it is entirely self-serving because it is really all about keeping myself comfortable. Boiled down, it could be more accurately called "me pleasing.
Emily P. Freeman
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