Dan B. Allender Quotes & Sayings

Strength is found in weakness. Control is found in dependency. Power is found in surrender. — Dan B. Allender

Idealism may get us into the fray, but it is the loss of all we cherish that begins to form in us a heart capable of leading others reluctantly and humbly. — Dan B. Allender

Most people want to grow, but the price of growth is pain. — Dan B. Allender

If you are a leader, it is not possible to be at peace with all and friends with everyone. — Dan B. Allender

Because of the way God has made us, it is impossible finally and completely to deaden the soul. The soul will resurrect, in spite of the cruelty used to destroy it. It will pop up and then be slain again, return and be shoved down through contempt. The power to destroy the soul is not in the hands of Satan, another human being, or even oneself. Nevertheless, when we manage to deaden our soul, even temporarily, we open the door to terrible consequences. — Dan B. Allender

The damage done through abuse is awful and heinous, but minor compared to the dynamics that distort the victim's relationship with God and rob her of the joy of loving and being loved by others. — Dan B. Allender

Disillusionment takes us to the question: what does it profit a man if he gains this world and loses himself? And disillusionment exposes that while we were supposedly serving the kingdom, we somehow became the king, and when we thought we were following Jesus, we inexplicably made him a servant of our dreams. The only real tragedy is the leader who never allows disillusionment to wear him to a nub and expose the godlessness of his busyness. — Dan B. Allender

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

For most leaders, humility comes only by wounds suffered from foolish falls. — Dan B. Allender

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

But the part of ourselves we hate the most is our longing to be wanted and enjoyed. — Dan B. Allender

Elizabeth Turnage is a woman of grit and grace who lives into the stories of those who join her in this odd journey of seeking God. She honors the complexity of life without ever losing sight of the simple glory of the cross. Her grasp of the mundane and miraculous and their interplay gives a depth and honesty to her story that tugs at the heart and gives us hope our story can matter. Her book will be a clarion call to bring our broken, holy, troubled, and glorious life to the author of all stories: Jesus. — Dan B. Allender

The reluctant leader doesn't merely give accolades to others. It is her true joy to see others awaken to their potential and exceed their greatest dreams. It is the hope of every good teacher to have students who take their work further than the teacher was able to do. To be surpassed is the ideal. To be replaced is the goal, not a sign of failure. — Dan B. Allender

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 — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

If you lead, you will eventually serve with Judas or Peter. — Dan B. Allender

Hope waits but does not sit. It strains with eager anticipation to see what may be coming on the horizon. Hope does not pacify; it does not make us docile and mediocre. Instead, it draws us to greater risk and perseverance — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced. — Dan B. Allender

Love cannot last without a foundation of forgiveness. — Dan B. Allender

Self-doubt is common when our efforts fail to bring results. Failure is a rock in our shoe that nags us until we find relief. At first, failure to achieve our desired end will elicit careful scrutiny (What can I do better?) and resumed commitment (How can I try harder?). Success may be achieved - straight As, an athletic scholarship, perfect Sunday school attendance - but the real goal - a happy family, an end to the abuse, or relief from the pain - is always out of reach. — Dan B. Allender

Courage never takes away fear; courage simply redistributes fear to get the job done. — Dan B. Allender

Every addiction is an attempt to slay hope. — Dan B. Allender

It is God's design to use reluctant servants to usher in glory. — Dan B. Allender

The absence of tumult, more than its presence, is an enemy of the soul. God meets you in your weakness, not in your strength. He comforts those who mourn, not those who live above desperation. He reveals Himself more often in darkness than in the happy moments of life. — Dan B. Allender

What originally led us to serve others by leading them seldom remains our North Star. — Dan B. Allender

The cost for the recipient of God's grace is nothing, and no price could be higher for arrogant people to pay. — Dan B. Allender

A simple person must be encouraged to see the Christian life as a war, not only with the world, the devil, and the flesh, but with God Himself. — Dan B. Allender

A reluctant leader is highly suspicious of people who work to accumulate and hoard power. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

How do we hold the paradox of giving up our life in order to find it? I believe Chesterton is saying that the more we open our heart to both heartache and hope, the more we can look death in the face and say, "Where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). We must love all that bears the mark of life: the sound of an owl finch and its call that sounds like the meowing of a kitten. We must love Bach, Ethiopian berbere, and the smell of freshly baked bread. Life is teeming with goodness. We must also experience death and powerlessness, but darkness will not win. Life and love will have the final word. — Dan B. Allender

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

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

To experience brokenness and humiliation all you have to do is lead. — Dan B. Allender

The more we walk the path first while becoming last and least in our organizations, the more we become like the Alpha and Omega whom we long to serve. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

To dream alone is fantasy if it doesn't move the heart to act. — Dan B. Allender

I know without a question you love me and you know I love you, but I am unwilling to let your awkwardness with personal conversations keep us at a distance. Now let's be clear. I'll call when I want to, for as long as I want to, and I will ask anything I want about how you are feeling, what you think of as you face death, what your relationship is with the Lord, and anything else I want to know. You can do as you choose. Hang up on me. Refuse to answer. Refuse to feel. Do what you want, but I will too. — Dan B. Allender

Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another's glory or toward degrading each other. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

Grace. Loss. Fortune. Hardship. Victory. Sometimes the worst seat is best seat in the house and it comes as a result of leading. — Dan B. Allender

The triggering event and resulting shame is worse than being rejected because rejection assumes a path by which to return to acceptability. The fear involved in shame is of permanent abandonment, or exile. Those who see our reprehensible core will be so disgusted and sickened that we will be a leper and an outcast forever. — Dan B. Allender

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

The more you openly name your struggles, the less people can use your silence as a back door to blackmail you, to sabotage your leadership, or to subvert relationships within the organization. — Dan B. Allender

In order to reclaim the joy and passion of leadership, we must walk the valley of the shadow of death and name the cost of leadership. — Dan B. Allender

Stories don't give answers, but they do offer perspective. — Dan B. Allender

You may obey a leader who has power and authority, but you will not strive to serve her or the cause of the organization unless you respect and care for her in addition to the ones with whom you serve. — Dan B. Allender

Sane, reasonable, play-it-safe people are not sufficiently engaged in life to generate great stories. Instead, they sit back and wait for a leader-storyteller to come along and get them caught up in a life worth living. — Dan B. Allender

God's passion is to rig the world so that we are compelled to deal with whatever blocks us from being like His glorious Son. — Dan B. Allender

God is continually, literally, second-by-second covering our sin under His Son's blood and forgiving us our sins. God cannot love us unless He forgives us and cannot forgive us without a commitment to love us. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

We live in a culture where the acknowledgment of wrong or the ownership of risk and failure is paramount to forfeiting the game. — Dan B. Allender

Repentance is an internal shift — Dan B. Allender

Perhaps a better explanation for why it's so difficult to feel our feelings is that ALL emotion, positive or negative, opens the door to the nature of reality. All of us prefer to avoid pain -- but even more, we want to escape reality. — Dan B. Allender

Hope refuses to believe that the inevitable is so. What has always been and can't change is an illusion; if anything is true, it is that change is inevitable, not that the inevitable will not change. But evil caustically replies, Nonsense. It is what it is. You will only be more discouraged and frustrated until you accept reality. — Dan B. Allender

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. — Dan B. Allender

[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. — Dan B. Allender

One of the best sources of perspective is enemies. If we can learn from them, then we can profit from anyone. — Dan B. Allender