Sunday, June 2, 2013

I recently read Safely Home by Randy Alcorn and I can't recommend it highly enough.  Following are a few of the many quotes I copied into my commonplace book of quotes:

"China is my place of service.  It is the battlefield where LiQuan has been dispatched as Yesus' soldier.  But this is not my home.  Heaven is my home, my true country.  I know that now.  But it was a hard lesson to learn."  Pg 88

""Dr. Martin Luther King said, 'If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare composed poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of Heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great sweeeper who did his job well.'"  pg 89

"...Many students hoped they could change society and find meaning without God.  That day, hope was dahsed (Tianamen Square) and no matter how painful, it is always good when false hopes are dashed.  Since then, many have learned to trust not in man but in God.  That evening as he wept in my arms because of what happened I led my nephew Li Yue to Yesu.  He was only eighteen.  I hope you will meet him.  When men know they  cannot hope in a country, in a political belief, or in themselves, they become free to hope in God."   Pg 94

"...Who am I supposed to blame (for his mother's painful cancer death)?  If I was all-powerful, I wouldn't let people suffer like that.
    You do not see the end from the beginning.  You do not understand God's ability to use suffering for higher purposes.
     All I know is, I trusted God and He let me down.  And you don't know the half of it....

..."I know something of suffering, Ben Fielding.  I have learned God is not my servant.  Did you think he was like the story of Aladdin?  That he was your genie?  That he is safe and tame, at your call to do tricks and entertain you?  That is an American way to think, perhaps.  But it is not true to Shegjing (Scripture).  You cannot rub a magic lamp and comand God to do your will.  You accepted blessing from his hand, and still you do--yet you reject him because of adversity?

..."Are we not the clay, and God the potter?  When He refuses to conform to our wills, do we discard him?  If you are looking for a religion centered around yourself, Ben, I must agree that Christianity is a poor choice."                   Pages 108-109

"An obedient man is free when in prison," Quan said, "A disobedient man is imprisoned when free." Ben didn't like the way Quan looked at him.           Pg 119

"No.  But it is not that the communists wish there were a God and have been convinced by the evidence there is none.  It is that they fear there is a God and therefore reject the evidence for him.  Believers comfort each other in their suffering by the truth that there is a God.  Communists comfort each other in their prosperity by the myth that there is no God.  So atheism is the real wishful thinking."  Pg 107

"Did you not feel the forces today when we gathered and when we scattered?  Are you so blind that you do not realize earth is the battlefield where two kingdoms wage a savage war for the souls of men?"   Pg 158

"God is entitled to pass judgement -  he is the judge.  You think him judgemental?  I do not think he cowers in fear of your opinion.  He will not stand before you in judgement.  You will stand before him."   Pg 161

"The King sighed, 'Too quickly do they summon providence to the court of reason.  The night will only last so long before it is swallowed whole by the morning.  The longer their night lasts, the more they dream of the dawn.'  He looked at Michael, 'This I whisper to my servants in their sleep.'"  pg. 315

"They don't understand that I am not only working here, preparing a place for them, but I am at work there, preparing them for that place."   Pg 315

"out of whose control?  Ben Fielding's? Li Quan's?  Of course.  But Yesu does not cower before strutting dictators.  He does not bow before petty warlords like Mao and Stalin and Hitler.  Mao is responsible for his evil.  But Shengjing(Scripture) says, 'The King's heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he please.  'Mao could not thwart God.  In a hundred ways he prepared the way for the spread of the gospel like no missionary could."  pg 325

"Remember the most common cause of stumbling is the fear of man.  It is God we must fear, not men, you must learn to stand boldly for your LORD, regardless of what men may think of you."  Pg 352

"'You sound like you think you're going to die', Ben said.
'Of course I am going to die, Ben Fielding. As are you.  The only question is 'Is this the day I die  If it is, we should both be ready, should we not?"
 'Yes.'       pg 354-355

"He looked not at others who turned their heads from the children, too busy to share a meal, a blanket, or a paycheck.  They did little or nothing to help the children, and he (Jesus)  regarded their failure to help as the inflicting of harm.  'To you who look the other way, saying my children are not your concern: Repent!  For it is I you have turned away from.  I will not forget."   Pg 359

"I await you, loyal servant, In my presence is fulness of joy.  At my right hand are pleasures forever more.   I am the happiness you have always hungered for, the pleasure you have thirsted after, the peace you have sought in long shadowy nights.  The darkness is nearly done.  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."   Pg 369

"Every one of them realized something with undiminesed clarity in that instant.  They wondered why they had not seen it all along.  What they knew in that moment, in every fiber of the beings, was that this Person and this Place were all they had ever longed for...and ever would."  Pg 395


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing these quotes; I had forgotten how powerful the message of God's sovereignty and our submission was in this book. Alcorn really says it eloquently through the character of Li Quan. Now I know the answer to my question what you thought of the book! :)

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