Philip Gulley Quotes & Sayings

I believe God loves everyone. — Philip Gulley

People feel guilty enough at funerals without having more guilt heaped on. I would prefer a bighearted preacher giving my eulogy, someone inclined to widen heaven's doors. I don't want to leave folks wondering whether I made it. — Philip Gulley

I don't want to spend this last half [of life] trying to recapture the first. I want to stretch and grow and do bold things ... and question what I've been taught and generally alarm people with my broadmindedness. — Philip Gulley

Wrinkled women lifting their faces, chasing their youth.
Fat men sucking in bellies.
Poor folks putting on airs.
Sinners acting like saints.
All of us keeping pace with our companions, stepping lively in this dance of deceit. — Philip Gulley

The leaves of our blessed lives fall to the ground and if we're wise like my grandfather, we gather them in a pile and keep them safe lest the winds of forgetfulness blow them away. — Philip Gulley

Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow. — Philip Gulley

Reality has a long history of not altering itself to make us happy or comfortable. — Philip Gulley

Oddity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What one person rejects as lunacy, another reveres as truth. — Philip Gulley

A New World. A world where God has set up housekeeping, where God will live right with us, and we with Him. He'll wipe the tears from our eyes, and death will die. No more crying, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more. — Philip Gulley

God is love. When people claim to speak for God, there should be love in their words. — Philip Gulley

We don't need to be beautiful for Christ to take us in. He is equally at home when we're broken-down and dirty. — Philip Gulley

Susan admitted the churches she had grown up in were heavy on hell and damnation and light on grace. They claimed to be "saved by grace" but then carefully outlined a very specific set of beliefs one had to accept in order to be a Christian. They had emphasized law over love. Nearly every sermon she heard growing up had warned of God's wrath. She'd been taught to fear God rather than be awed by his grace. — Philip Gulley

Love, even that love which is imagined, is sometimes all we have to get us through. — Philip Gulley

Sometimes what we think we need isn't what we need at all, and what gets thrown in for good measure is that which fills our hearts. — Philip Gulley

Here's a good test to know whether or not truth-telling springs from love. Truth will not only pain those who hear it; it will pain those who speak it. If we don't love someone, it won't hurt at all to speak truth. We'll tell them what we think with no regard for their feelings. If — Philip Gulley

When love takes you by the hand and leaves you better, that is home. That's the place to stake your claim and build your life. — Philip Gulley

When I was in second grade, my teacher, Miss Maxwell, read from The Harmony Herald that one in every four children lived in China. I remember looking over the room, guessing which children they might be. I wasn't sure where China was, but suspected it was on bus route three. I recall being grateful I didn't live in China because I didn't care for Chinese food and couldn't speak the language. — Philip Gulley

Write letters to your grandmother. She will love it. And leave you money in her will. — Philip Gulley

Too many times we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be swept asunder. — Philip Gulley

There are things we see with our eyes, sitting high and looking out. And there are things we see with our hearts, sitting still and looking in. — Philip Gulley

We just never know. We think we do. We think we have life figured out, and in our arrogance we become hard. But life has a way of humbling us, of softening us. — Philip Gulley

We cannot be wise while in the grip of a deep fear ... This is why demagogues, when seeking our support, will first cause us to fear and hate, knowing when we are in the grip of a great fear, we will abandon common sense and wisdom, we will forsake the hard-won lessons of time and experience. — Philip Gulley

Instead of viewing God as one who helps me accomplish my purposes, it is now my joy to help God accomplish the divine purpose - seeking the best for others and seeking the growth of the beloved, which is to say everyone. — Philip Gulley

I ran across the following thought that I JUST LOVE & I thought of you ...
"I do not know where we will sit at the final banquet, but I suspect who will sit beside us - on our right will sit the person whom we have harmed the most. On our left will sit the person who has done the greatest evil to us. We will be seated between grace received and grace required". — Philip Gulley

We always look for Christ amid magnificence. But ... Christ has a history of showing up amide the unlovely. Born in a dirty stall. Crowned with thorns. Died gasping on a shameful cross atop a jagged rise.
We don't need to be beautiful for Christ to take us in. He is equally at home when we're broken-down and dirty. It's like George Herbert wrote:
'And here in dust and dirt, O here,
The lilies of God's love appear.'
We think magnificence is in short supply, that dust and dirt choke out the lilies. But that's not true and never was. Lilies may root in dirt, but they reach for heaven - and in the reaching, reveal their magnificence.
- chapter 24 — Philip Gulley

When we are honest, we admit how agreeable it can feel to be singled out for favored treatment. The biggest barrier to equality for all is that inequality for some feels good. — Philip Gulley

Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near - that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.
I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due - that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.
Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.
- chapter 2 — Philip Gulley

Many false claims are made about God. They exact a heavy toll on people who believe every utterance from the pulpit must surely be the gospel truth. — Philip Gulley

But spirituality, it seems to me, when answering the question, "Why should I be good? Why should I care for others?" says, "Because that is the best, most fulfilling way to live" Whether or not you receive an award or a payment is incidental. You are good and kind and loving because it is right, even though it is difficult sometimes. It fulfills the highest law, to treat others as we wish to be treated. — Philip Gulley

I can only make one person happy each day.
Today is not your day.
Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.
- Frank the 70 year old secretary, chapter 9 — Philip Gulley

Truth doesn't need elaboration or embellishment; it can stand on its own two legs. All the adornment in the world doesn't make the truth any more true. — Philip Gulley

In the end ... Stand where we feel led. Stand straight, stand tall, and try to remember that other folks might be led to stand elsewhere. — Philip Gulley

Legacies are hard to come by, after all. And if you have one going, you ought to do what you can to keep it alive. — Philip Gulley

There's danger in thinking joy is a matter of location. If we can't find joy where we are, we probably won't find it anywhere. — Philip Gulley

But we have to get our thrills somewhere. Some men have a weakness for fast women. I have a soft spot for eighty-year-old heretics who buy me pancakes and root beer. — Philip Gulley

Raw pain alarms. us. It reminds us that life isn't as orderly as we'd hoped. We demand that pain settle down before we shuffle it off to the quiet table. We want pain to stay in its own little section, want to keep it from spilling over into the other parts of life. Just like . lunch trays. Keep pain in its own little compartment. — Philip Gulley

There is a certain transcendent joy in creating a thing of beauty. But even more fulfilling is to become a being of beauty. — Philip Gulley

Thus are the changes wrought in a man's life - that courage is treasured more than comfort and, in that choice, victory is gained. — Philip Gulley

I believe God will save every person. — Philip Gulley

I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when. — Philip Gulley

That was the problem with religion. You no sooner made up your mind about something than you had to change it. — Philip Gulley

The testimony of the Bible is clear. The God of Jesus, of Peter and of Paul, and of Abraham and Jacob is a living God. He calls himself "I AM," not "I WAS." Scripture isn't a brittle and crumbling letter from a God long silent. The Bible proclaims a God of visions, fresh words, and new revelations. To believe the Bible is to believe in such a God. — Philip Gulley

The more I work on loving Jesus, the easier it becomes to love my family. Maybe it's really a matter of putting first things first. When we love the way of Jesus first, we're then sufficiently equipped to love our families. — Philip Gulley

This is how foreign grace was to her, that when she heard it she mistook it for heresy. There are some people, I am sorry to say, who wouldn't recognize grace if it stood at their door wearing a name tag. — Philip Gulley