Choosing a life of safety is safely choosing something other than life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Simply giving something ‘a shot’ is not giving something our ‘best,’ for our best is made up of as many ‘shots’ as it takes in order to be our best. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The legacy I leave will be unimaginably enhanced by the legacies I received. Therefore, I must be wise enough to embrace the history of those who have gone before me so that I can shape the future of those who will go ahead of me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I worship the fact that I don’t worship anything, amongst other things what I’m worshipping is denial. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
As utterly irrational as it might seem, the greed within me has the most limited vision I can possibly imagine as it has eyes only for the few things it doesn’t have, and it is completely blind to all the many remarkable things that it does. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
True evil is unlikely to receive an invitation from us, so it clothes itself in just enough truth to make itself look appealing and then it looks to unpeel us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To fall is not to fail. To fail is to never fall because I never got up in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What insanity would lead me to believe that I possess the power, much less the aptitude to manipulate all of the consequences out of all of my decisions? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Anything great will only be appreciated if I am given the opportunity to feel the absence of it, or experience the reversal of it. It is only then that I can even begin to understand its majesty and cherish it in the manner I should have all along. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If life is nothing more than a journey to death, autumn makes sense but spring does not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What excites us the most or likewise scares us the most is when something is exactly what it says it is. And when it comes to Christmas, we’re going to end up finding ourselves on one side of that line or the other. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The step that we are on is only a step to the next place, and no step regardless of how massive is ever a destination. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The barrier to our future is often the very plans that we’ve created to get there. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Fear is often bred of an imagination that couldn’t let something be what it actually was. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Dreams must be chased, for if we wait for them to chase us we will live a life of waiting. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Disappointment focuses on ‘what is not,’ and completely misses the far greater reality of ‘what now is. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To think that we grasp the fullness of life is to say that by holding a mere drop of water in our hands we are able to understand the immensity of the ocean. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Have we ever thought to consider that the need to be loved grows because of its absence, but that love also grows because of its presence? And does this not speak to the power of love? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes we are so caught up in the disappointment of plans gone astray that we fail to recognize the potentially new options that might now exist. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest loss lies in our inability to accept loss. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To incessantly blame others for my shortcomings is cowardice borne of fear, fed by fear, and haunted by fear. To be steadfastly accountable for my shortcomings is bravery borne of God, fed by God, and blessed by God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The hallmark of great dreams is not their possibility but their impossibility, and the fact that it is the very notion of the ‘impossible’ that inspires us to go and accomplish them anyway. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Most of our fears are borrowed. Since that’s the case, we should get busy returning them. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
My life is a series of invitations accepted and invitations rejected, and the place I now find myself is often a result of accepting the wrong invitations and rejecting the right ones. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Prayer is knowing that what I ask for is always far bigger than what I could ever articulate, but it is never too big for God to understand nor is it ever too vast for Him to deliver. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I am always standing at the bottom of the mountain longingly looking up, in all probability it is because I have heeded the pillaging dogma of mediocrity which persistently tells me that the dream is not worth the climb. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To find one’s purpose is to discover one’s worth, discern one’s direction, wholly dedicate oneself to the journey, and forge an unbending determination that I will not leave the world the way I found it. This week's blog outlines the finding of our purpose. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To fall down is to face the weakness of my humanity, test the mettle of my character, and push the limits of my strength. Therefore, falling down will tell me who I am far more clearly than most things I might learn when I’m standing up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If the amount of times we get up is just one less than the amount of times that we've been knocked down, then we're spending our lives lying down. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Directing praise to oneself is to cash in on the ego in order to bankrupt the soul. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am always trying to figure God out so that I can figure Him in. But after a while I figure that I should just let God be God, and figure that He’ll figure it all out anyway. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Given the lethal enormity of sin and the inestimable value of a single soul, a baby in a manger and a man on a cross makes more sense that anything else I will ever be able to possibly imagine. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Thankfulness is an attitude of possibilities, not an attitude of liabilities. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The common theme of common sense is that it’s commonly rejected as uncommonly demanding. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are about the hurried business of living life while missing it in the very process of living it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It would be infinitely more prudent to be a single David standing with God, than a million Goliath’s standing without Him. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I can attempt to stay on the fence. However, the problem is that the fence is a figment of my fear not a reality of my journey. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
There’s something tightly woven throughout the fabric of our humanity that runs entirely opposite to the baser instinct of looking out for our own good. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The hand of God is wonderfully evident at those times when He pens stories whose lines we ourselves are far too fearful to pen or whose imaginations are far too limited to envision. And I would unashamedly suggest that the Christmas story is that very story. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We look around us and we find ourselves confused as to why the world has fallen into such deep darkness. And standing in this descending darkness, what we need to realize is that the farther we move from God, the darker everything gets. And no light of man can illuminate that kind of darkness. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I want to stand on the truth that God has designed us to stand, and that the opportunity to stand is the opportunity to live exuberantly and gloriously. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The strewn and tangled wreckage that litters our lives is the precious raw material from which great beginnings are forged. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I see only my bias, I have surrendered to a single myopic lens through which to view the world. If I dare to surrender my bias, I will spend the rest of my life seeing the world and throwing away lenses. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Despite our battered exterior and in spite of the festering scars and rank filth that overlays it, there is underneath it all the pristine likeness of God Himself. And we would be wise to cast an eye not on the marred exterior, but to be fixed on the glorious interior. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If God created great things with a point of vulnerability, it would lie in the reality that great things die in the hands of great ignorance. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Where there is no hope, there is Christmas. And where there is no Christmas, there is no hope. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Mediocrity is a path cleared by fear, leveled by apathy and paved by comfort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am what no one else is, and in the hands of God I can do what no one else does. And if I dare set such a truth in motion I will change my world. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If we’re missing life it’s probably because we’re expecting it to reveal itself to us, rather than realizing that life is revealed by us looking for it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Could it be that we lost something because had we not lost it, we would have lost ourselves? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The anticipation of loss is much more frightening than the actual loss as anticipation leaves room for the imagination to create that which, in all likelihood, will never transpire. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Love knows nothing of short hauls because it has committed itself for the long haul. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
An exceptional future can only be built on the transformation of the mess I’ve made, not the elimination of it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Good tells us that our agenda is the agenda of the person next to us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The worst defeat of all is to surrender without having been defeated. And it is Christmas that obliterates both. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I am brave enough to stand against those who have been groomed by fear, I will recognize that where I get knocked down is all about where life begins, and has nothing to do with where it ends. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I fear that should I seek out the treasures around me, they might by comparison reveal that I have not cultivated the treasures within me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Fairness is not something to which we are entitled. Rather, it is something for which we hope. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I cannot calculate nor attempt to manage sacrifice, for to do so is to attempt to sacrifice comfortably. And it is in the attempt to sacrifice comfortably that I begin to realize that the desire for comfort is in reality the demand that I put myself first, and there is nothing of sacrifice in that. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I much prefer not to fall, unless of course I am falling into the hands of God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I have yet to learn that I am not designed to carry the burden of men. Rather, I am designed to carry the love of God so that I might soothe the burden of men. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To embrace the message of Christmas is to throw off my hedonistic rebellion and bow before the chafing reality that I can't save myself, and in that very act to be suddenly taken aback in that I've stumbled upon the very freedom I've longed for in the very place I'd least expected it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We have the power of the pen to write the next chapter, and the privilege to author the page in whatever fashion we choose. Yet, seldom do we understand the power of the pen and the privilege of the page. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Many of our efforts to intentionally craft and subsequently force our limited vision on life has more often than not resulted in some degree of cataclysm or schism or division or any number of other things that aren’t all that savory. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If my decisions constantly heed the voice of the world, I can be completely assured that I’m going to end up in a ‘world of hurt.’ If my decisions heed the word of God, I can be completely assured that this ‘world of hurt’ isn’t anywhere near my solar system. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To grasp love, I must grasp the fact that it is a creation of God and therefore it is forever beyond me. But the very fact that it is forever beyond me is the very thing that prompts me to forever pursue it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God has hewn out a hidden path more glorious, tantalizing and adventuresome than the path trod by most, and it is a path seen only through the eyes of our wounds, felt solely through the heart of our losses, and singularly traversed by those with a limp in their step. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Happenstance is the myth of the simple mind, for it is the deliberate genius of God that what appears entirely disjointed always reveals itself to be stunningly seamless. And it is in reflecting on such stunning ingenuity that our faith becomes seamless. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest abuse that we perpetrate on liberty is our assumed right to it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Every life is a canvas and every interaction is a brush, therefore we’d be wise to consider how we handle the paint. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
And so, it is always the case that the past is irreparably land-locked, and the future has yet to land. And here we are, living out our lives on the precariously thin line which separates the two. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Real, lasting closure is never secured through retribution or retaliation. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Starting over is opportunity informed by failure, which is opportunity made intelligent. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To be blessed and yet permit gluttony to blind me to the blessings is to banish myself to a life of unrelenting poverty even though I might be utterly engulfed in the embrace of a million marvelous blessings. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The extent of God’s grace always eclipses the extent of my grotesqueness. Therefore, I can never be bad enough for God to tell me that He’s had enough. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When the world does its level best to devalue me in ways that are nothing short of brutal, all it does is evidence my value. For why would it expend such massive amounts of energy attempting to destroy something that’s not there? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Such is the power of truth that even the slightest whisper of it can handily drown out the most boisterous of lies, which may explain why in many instances God only needs to whisper. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I would suggest that our imagination is a tiny shard of God’s infinite genius that we have within us simply because we were created in God’s image. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I can only begin the process of saving myself when I surrender to the reality that I can’t. And what greater place to surrender that reality than to an infant who surrendered Himself to me so that I might surrender myself to Him. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It’s not about the elimination of fear. Rather it’s about the elimination of the feeling that the elimination of fear is necessary before we take the next step. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The paralyzing fear of being lost is fed solely by the irrational fear that we will never be found. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I can ruthlessly press my imagination out beyond its very edges, and even in such a remote place I have not begun to touch the barest periphery of God’s imagination. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To put others in front of ourselves is to put God in front of everything. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Genius without wisdom is like a plane without wings; it will navigate the runway but it will never know the sky. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Ignorance is avoiding that which stands in front of me out of the misplaced hope that it will put what I’m ignoring behind me. Instead, it’s most certain to drop it on top of me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To avoid the cost incurred in pursuing great things we opt for ease and blithely abandon great things. The sheer recklessness of such a pathetically apathetic trade-off will eventually cost us a life squandered, which in the end is the greatest cost of all. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The challenge is never based on the size of the obstacle that stands before me. Rather, it is dictated by the degree of faith that rests within me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I simply can’t look into the heavens on a crisp starry night and somehow bring myself to believe that the gaping expanse that engulfs the whole of me is the product of chance happenstance. And neither can I believe that the gaping expanse that rests within me is anything less. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I often think myself to be so ingenious that I don’t even realize that my own plans may actually be my own undoing. Therefore, I might be wise to realize that God’s plans undo what I’ve done that’s undoing me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The most critical time in any battle is not when I’m fatigued, it’s when I no longer care. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I have not been both soothed by love and on the opposite extreme left devastated by it, I will never understand its power nor respect its majesty. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Great difficult is the dogged bedfellow of great wealth, which always renders great wealth as less than great. Yet, great wealth as bequeathed by God is robustly free of such travails, which always renders it greater than great. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
At the end, a journey based on my imagination will leave me imagining that I should have engaged the very thing I used my imagination to avoid. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Self-serving biases and self-centered agendas are cotton jammed in the ears of our conscience. Even if truth shouts, we can’t hear it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The hands of man can manufacture many things both penetratingly brilliant and utterly astounding. Yet, despite their amazing dexterity and profound skill they cannot manufacture hope. Such a masterpiece as that is left for the hands of God and a manger crafted by those hands. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Jesus came to give us life so unimaginably beyond anything that we could ever hope to conceptualize that wonder cannot help but be our constant companion. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I think that it is infinitely wiser to accept the fact that we’re afraid, for in accepting our fear we are in no way granting it the power to crush us. Rather we are finally empowering ourselves sufficiently so that we can crush it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It has nothing to do with who I am as compared to everyone else. It has everything to do with who I am in companionship with God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Despite my best effort to make myself as large as absolutely possible, life will always be larger than me. That simple fact makes God not only a likelihood, but a necessity. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Either we are running ‘from’ what we fear, or running ‘to’ what we fear. The former is a choice driven by fear, the latter is an action inspired by it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To lust for something is desire turned selfish and gone mad. To embrace God’s passion is desire turned selfless and gone mindful. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest dividends in life are those that we give away. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Is it reasonable to assume that the jarring nature of a particular consequence might be the very thing that strong-arms us away from making the poor choice that we didn't see as a poor choice? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Although it would lead me to believe otherwise, fear has little interest in intimidating me. Rather, it much prefers to enslave me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Comfort is a stance of avoidance rather than the pursuit of excellence. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The adult within me would be much wiser to learn from the child within me rather than focus on the demand that the child within me grow up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Because thankfulness is the tonic that always cures the cancers of greed, envy and jealously, it should be taken in liberal doses daily. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I must look at the 'nature' of God, not the 'nature' of the challenge. For the former means everything and the latter means nothing. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Truth is its own defense, therefore if something can’t speak for itself, it’s not truth. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In evaluating ourselves, we tend to be long on our weaknesses and short on our strengths. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Most often, what I don’t know will have a vastly greater bearing on my life that what I do know. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The most formidable way to lead is to serve. And while the perplexing oxymoron of such a grinding statement absolutely cripples us, it birthed a Savior. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Faith revels in the liberating fact that only a terribly miniscule part of life lies within the constricted confines of my reach, and that I am graciously invited out to live in a place beyond my grasp. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The best way to see majesty is to strip away everything that pretends to be majestic so that which is fake wholly collapses in the face of that which is majestic. And God in a manger is likely the most remarkable example we have of such a monumental truth. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest imagination in all of existence is one that would be able to take ‘nothing’ and imagine ‘something’ from ‘nothing.’ And that is God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too often the spotlight that highlights our successes burns out quickly, while the spotlight that scrutinizes our failures is a long-life bulb. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I have refused to risk, I have in the self-same decision refused to love. And if indeed I have refused to love, tragically I have refused to live. And when will I realize that that in and of itself is an unacceptable risk. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Our best-laid plans are often our worst-made decisions. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Darkness should never be an excuse to quit, for with God, darkness is the exact stuff that light was built for. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
There appears to be value in getting past a mentality that good things can only rest in good things. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We desperately want to believe in something. To simply live out our lives believing in nothing is to live as if this thing we call life is filled with nothing but nothing. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The presence of a path doesn’t necessarily mean the existence of a destination. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To dress up today in the threadbare garments of yesterday is to create an impoverished tomorrow. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God’s eyes readily see beyond our actions, for our actions are simply fear and selfishness pretending to be us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Loss eventually arrives when something departs. Grief is working through both. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A nation aimlessly drifting away from God is a nation for which prayer is a rudder and praise is a sail. And it is the man or woman on their knees that builds the former and gives wind to the latter. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I give with the motive to get, regardless of the degree to which that motive besets me, I will walk away impoverished and I will leave those to whom I have given just as impoverished as I have now found myself. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Life however is teeming with vitality and is likewise terribly tenacious; holding on against impossible odds in impossible situations over impossible lengths of time. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If you think you can stand to know what you’re made of, try kneeling before God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We tend to deny our humanity because in accepting the fullness of it, we would need to confess how little we’ve done with it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The line that we chart into our future is often more a circle that brings us back to our past. And it might be that there is some hidden intent in charting circles in that we can feel like we’re moving when we actually have no intent of doing so. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
More often than not, rejecting rescue is in reality rejecting our need to be rescued. And it may very well be that is why so many reject Christmas. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can only climb the mountains because there’s a valley that makes the mountain a mountain. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am far too often the author of terribly poor decisions. Yet I must rest in the unalterable fact that God says I am far better than what the sum total of those decisions would ever suggest. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Life is not about getting everything right, as much as it’s about working to live right. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In the deepest darkness God tenderly grasps my hand and whispers that darkness is nothing more than a place that He is preparing for the arrival of light. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Often we don’t see the majesty of God’s design because we’re caught up in the mediocrity of our own designs. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To make a choice not to sacrifice is to decide that I am better off allowing a life to perish than release the resources I possess that might allow it to thrive. And because of choices such as these, the life that I am really allowing to perish is mine. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe the truth of it all is that we’re just too fearful to give our faith enough running room to realize that this precariously thin path that led us to the end of this life is dwarfed to obscurity by the infinitely vast byway that begins immediately on the other side. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Most of the things we deem as impossible are only impossible because we’ve given them permission to be impossible. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I had any hand in it at all there’s a chance that it might be beautiful, but it simply cannot not be majestic. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To maximize our lives we think that we should get up and join in the race. Yet, we rarely consider that maybe it’s less about joining a race and more about actually creating one. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we’re holding on to that which we’re climbing, or we’re letting God hold onto us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
There are often two sets of goals in life: those that we establish, and those that really matter. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Jesus came to give us life without leaving out any of life in the giving. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Instead of the weight that sinks us, consequences are often the life preserver that saves us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Tragedy cleans the windows of the soul by washing away the bias of our lives in the detergent of pain. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The burdens I carry on my back are in direct correlation to the weight of my ego. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
However, in many instances we might be very wise to ask what the consequence of removing the consequence might actually be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Apathy is unconditional surrender where we are driven into hiding by unrealistic fear, and firmly held there by the misinformed belief that we are helpless to do anything other than hide. Therefore, apathy survives solely on lies and can be completely abated by truth. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Calm for too long begs the question of whether we're in an all-out pursuit of life, or we're all-out of the pursuit of life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I don’t know who I am apart from everyone else, I probably need to spend some time apart from everyone else. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes the very things that we’re expending our lives to sustain are the very things that are killing our ability to live. And against our blind and frequently raging protests, these are the very things that God let’s die so that we can live. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
You are greater than you can possibly imagine, if you would only free yourself up to imagine. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I must know something in order to believe in it, what I am able to believe in will be severely limited. If I choose to believe in something in order to know it, then what I believe in can be boundless. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I want to stand on the belief that great things are the product of ordinary people who are made great when they stand. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If my heart is set on pursuing real treasures, my mind must be fixed solely on the privilege of enjoying them and freed of the obsession of owning them. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe the thing that we’re losing is the very thing that has caused us to lose everything else in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe we ought to consider that sometimes the most destructive outcomes in our lives are the ones that we’ve created. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It may be that we’re not seeing the wonder in life because all we’re doing is wondering how we’re going to survive life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am thankful that in the giving we receive, and what we receive is the satisfaction of knowing that whatever we give is always bigger once we’ve given it away. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes the grandest of all events are described in the poverty of a few simple words. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A commitment to never getting knocked down is in reality a decision to never stand up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too often fantasy is not a rich elaboration of life designed to enhance our existence, rather it is our pell-mell escape from life with the intent of exiting this existence. And the most imaginative fantasy of all is to somehow think that I can do that in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to stand back up, we are using wisdom to overcome cowardice. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Christmas is God deciding to become what He never had been, so that we can become what we never could be. And so, God does the most improbable thing imaginable. He orchestrates His own birth. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To live safely within the realm of possibility is to know nothing other than that which is possible. To live boldly within the realm of God is to experience everything that’s impossible. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Truth speaks for itself if we’d just let it speak. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To embrace an attitude of humility is to free myself from myself. And that is likely the great liberation of all. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Mediocrity is ‘purpose’ left to rot in minds ensnared in the deluded rationalization that vision is nothing more than a collection of fanciful dreams constructed by an imaginary God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Any purpose will be entirely purposeless unless it completely exceeds my ability to achieve it for only then is there room for God, and without God purpose of even the most magnificent sort remains utterly and abjectly purposeless. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Everything I touch makes me a little bit more like the thing I’m touching, so I’d better start paying attention to what I’m touching. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Dream extravagantly, for God has imbued us with ample imagination to dream out to and across the very periphery of the impossible. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Denial is a seductive ruse of our own making, force-fitting our agendas by forcing out truth all because we bent to fear rather than bowed to God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
With God, a mountain before me is soon to be a memory behind me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are quick to surrender that which we deem as long dead, when God is quick to restore that which He deems as never really having lived. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Forgiving others simply means that you refuse to be a prisoner of a past that you can't change, and shackled to decisions that you didn't make. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Although I’ve been thoroughly conditioned by pain to see it otherwise, an ending is nothing more than the backside of a beginning. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When standing face to face with myself, I far too often refuse to look in the mirror. When standing face to face with God, there is no place where a mirror is not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I cannot create greatness as I can only create weak facsimiles. And in sorting through the innumerable facsimiles around me, I will only happen upon true greatness when I happen upon the true God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Independence that has declared its ‘independence’ from the sure and certain compass of sound morals is nothing more than rogue greed having scantily dressed itself in the garb of independence while running off the cliff of anarchy. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We opt to be seen as ‘right’ in the eyes of everyone else, rather than doing what’s ‘right’ in light of the situation. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I assume the ‘truth’ to be negotiable based on whether or not it serves my agenda, then my agenda has become my ‘truth.’ And the ‘truth’ of the matter is, when I do this I’ve chosen to take a treacherous path through some very deep woods where neither path nor woods exist. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To forgive is to refuse to contaminate the future with the errors of the past. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Undoubtedly, our weariness is not based on the fact that we’re running. Rather, our weariness is all too frequently based on the fact that many of the things that we’re running from are the very things we should be running to. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Authorship of anything apart from God is nothing more than a tragedy in the making. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Whatever might be taken from me need not leave me with a deficit in its wake. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If sacrifice is not the theme of my life, there’s no sense telling the story. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A consequence may be the very thing that saves us because it was the only thing loud enough to get our attention. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A hole is a space where everything has been moved out so that opportunity has space to move in. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To save myself I must face myself, which may be the hardest of all things to face. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The Christmas story is penmanship of the most brilliant sort, where God crafted a beginning that would never be subject to an ending. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To calculate sacrifice is to attempt to sacrifice safely, and safe sacrifice is one of the most outrageous oxymoron’s I can think of. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Abundant living is realizing that life is a privilege whether it’s adhering to our scripts or not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To enjoy beauty in the company of myself is to experience beauty bound by the limits of the sole person that I am. But, to experience beauty in the company of God is to experience beauty bound by the limits of Who God is, which is to experience beauty without limits. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I would suggest that the prisons I incessantly create are not designed to lock me in, rather they are designed to lock the world out. And the oddity is that either way, I am a prisoner who has sentenced himself to a prison within which I do not belong. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Judging others is too often escapism dressed in the garb of righteous indignation, whereby I dutifully point out in others that which I probably should be pointing out in myself. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The worst denial of all is being in denial that we’re in denial in the first place. And I would wonder if that’s not exactly where most of us live out most of our lives. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
My wisdom absent of God’s wisdom is nothing more than a best-guess. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To forget is to render the pages of history as entirely blank, and the lessons of history as never taught. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Bravery is not found in getting knocked down. Rather, bravery is found is getting back up knowing that you’re going to get knocked down again. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Fate’ and ‘coincidence’ are the mythological derivatives authored by those who refuse to see a ‘greater purpose’, because such a conclusion would naturally suggest a ‘Greater Being’. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Vulnerability creates unimaginable space to build each other up, as much as it creates ample room to tear each other down. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I say that my value is based on my accomplishments. Christmas is God saying that I am His accomplishment and that will forever be enough. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We really can’t afford to live our lives walking in some sort of introspective darkness as if the darkness is the only thing that we can walk in. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The point that I think myself to be so terribly clever is the precise point at which I am beginning to think myself to be god-like, which causes me to become God-less. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In the thoughtlessness of my incessant hurry, I have made God an ‘addendum in’ my life verses the ‘agenda of’ my life. And what I need to hurry up and realize is that with these priorities positioned as such, what I am hurrying to is my own demise. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can’t even remotely fathom that whatever is ending for us is always more than an ending. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Worlds of my own creation are erected with walls that are within but a few scant paces of each other. The world that God creates for me has no idea what walls are. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To focus solely on endings is to trade conclusions for the very beginnings that created them. And if this cycle should persist, we will likewise miss the beginning that will follow this ending. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When we actually refer to God’s blueprint, we gladly work in fascinated conjunction with it, suddenly realizing that any other action outside of that blueprint is foolhardiness and lunacy of the worst sort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If the pursuit of perfection is a way to prove our worth, in the end the pursuit will only prove our imperfections. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
How often do I stand in abject terror and raw trepidation before the impossible peaks that soar to impossible heights in front me, when God turns to me and calmly says what mountains? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The only reason I can’t jump in and engage life is that I’ve told myself I can’t. Yet I can’t helping wondering would happen if I told myself I could? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The road ahead is not some predetermined path that I am forced to trod, but it is a rich byway that I can help create. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In reality, is being sedentary a choice to run from our calling by not running after it? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To my own demise, I rarely ask why I’m hungry because I’m focusing all of my energies on getting fed. And if I persist in such a diminishing cycle, in all probability I will eventually starve to death because I have chosen to gorge myself on the very things that will keep me empty. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Why is it when I pursue the praises of men I find myself with everything that I’ve looked for but nothing that I need? That’s because I have an extraordinary habit of looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The reason my life has wandered to nowhere is likely due to the fact that the focus of the moment has dictated the destination of my life, when the destination of my life should have been dictating the focus of the moment. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Without a beginning I am pouring the whole of my existence into the building of endings, while the cross and the resurrection declare that God is incessantly building beginnings from the collapse of endings. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Either we are running ‘from’ what we fear or running ‘to’ what we fear. The former is a choice controlled by fear, the latter is an action inspired by it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
One of the greatest lies is to believe that we don’t have value. One of the greatest mistakes is to act on that belief. And the greatest liberation is found in looking at the cross of Christ and realizing the enormity of the lie. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Oftentimes I think it is far better to listen for an answer, rather than talk out of an effort to create one. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It’s not so much about writing the story of Christmas itself, as ingenious as it is. In reality, it’s much more about writing the story of Christmas into the story of life so that it will become the story of life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I am not touching a life, I am not touching life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The road from ‘here’ to ‘there’ is a map yet to be written with the pen I hold in my hand. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God has given me both the right and privilege to outrun Him if I so choose. Yet, if I do so, I will have lost the race. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I have diligently disciplined my life to search out life’s gifts in the places where life stores its scraps. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The promises of God hold up long after the promises of the world have blown up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest gains that we will ever experience arise from the greatest sacrifices that we have ever known. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To wait is to wisely resign myself to the fact that my ‘timetable’ is too often a ‘table’ with two legs that won’t stand up no matter how much ‘time’ I give it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It might not be about perfection. Rather, it may be that that which is imperfect is that which has the most character. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To assume that I can even begin to chart a ‘straight’ path is probably the best way I can take myself ‘straight’ to the very place I don’t want to go. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We myopically stare at the gaping hole left in our lives and see nothing but the hole, not realizing a hole is defined by everything around it that is not a hole. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The drum to which we march reveals the conductor to whom we’re listening. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To declare myself as a genius immediately evidences that I am not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water’s edge and clumsily grab whatever happens to float by me. Rather, it is to deliberately step into waters both calm and turbulent in order to wrestle great things to shore. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I would like to say that I’m sacrificial. But am I sacrificial enough to acknowledge the fact that I’m not? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
By choosing comfort we are in the very same decision choosing to miss every great thing in life, and that thought should be anything but comforting. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We’re constantly presented with opportunity, or the opportunity to create opportunity. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I ruthlessly expend my time and my energies seeking many random things, none of which will bless me in the way that I suppose they will, for despite my frequently stubborn resistance to the thought, the single and sole blessing that I can be utterly confident in is found in seeking God alone. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What in the world would ever lead to me believe that life is a series of opportunities that are readily available to everyone else but me? What really leads me to believe such an atrocious lie is that I don’t believe in myself sufficiently to engage those opportunities in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I thought myself sufficiently shrewd to make whatever decisions I wanted to make, and then to be able to sufficiently steer those decisions away from the rather dark and nasty places they would naturally take me. And I stand oddly perplexed that suddenly everything around me is dark and nasty. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
At the point that it dawns on me that I am not God I have finally made room for God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are always immeasurably bigger than the little person we’ve too often doomed ourselves to be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Surrendering is intentionally laying down the power I possess. And have I considered that the power I lay down is often more powerful than that which I’m laying it down in front of? Therefore, I would be wise to recognize that surrender is less the absence of power and more the presence of fear. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Through the eyes of men an utterly irrational birth followed by a terribly improbable execution are miscues of the most pathetic sort. And all I can say is that I’m immeasurably thankful that I’ve been given access to the eyes of God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
More often than not, the foolishness of our humanity drives us to destroy the very things that we need to keep ourselves from destroying ourselves. And because that’s the case, God will never allow us to destroy Christmas. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The worst thing that I can do is humanize God. The second worst thing that I can do is deify myself. And the best thing that I can do is to avoid both. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Our experiences are the building blocks of the future hewn out of the granite of the present. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Opportunity is present is wreckage as much as it is in that which is wonderful. It’s not so much how it comes to us, but what we do with it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Love never lives on a one-way street, for it will always come back up the road bigger than how we had sent it down the road. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Faith means I chose not to know, which is different than ignorance which refuses to know. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe the real miracle in any miracle is our ability to believe that despite our own depravity, in the eyes of God we are worthy of a miracle. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What rubs off on me is hard to rub off. So, I’d better figure out what I rubbing up against. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If a father does not altogether embrace a life of uncompromised sacrifice as the core of all principles by which he nurtures his children, he is a father by birth only and no power on earth can ever or will ever make that sufficient. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Hope is oxygen to the soul, and God is the oxygen of hope. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The ledger of my life can lean heavy with a prolific array of stellar investments, yet in the tallying I would be wise to remember that an investment that is not of God will leave a zero balance on the ledger of my life no matter how many different ways I try to add it up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To even begin to embrace the magnitude of God’s vision, we must first embrace our vision as being nothing more than vision by definition. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I huddle in the dark with a mass of burnt matches strewn at my feet. And yet, for all of those matches I’ve not been able to light a single candle. And huddled in such deep darkness, I’ve somehow yet to realize that Christmas made both matches and candles forever obsolete. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The problem that I think I have with God is often not a problem at all. Rather, it is most frequently a tired misperception where I have made God what I need Him to be in order to justify my rejection of Him. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Discerning the difference between a dictator and a leader is quite easy. The former cannot help but see ‘leading’ and ‘serving’ as stark contradictions that by their very nature are utterly incompatible. The latter can’t tell the difference - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To seek the praise of men as our motivation is to abandon truly great things, for more often than not truly great things elicit the ire of men far more than they garner their praises. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To say that my existence is entirely inconsequential is to utterly ignore the amazing reality that life is a masterful story penned by a brilliant God who wrote me into the story in such a way that my absence would literally diminish the whole of the story. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In too many instances we have settled for a world of our own shaping that is shaping up to be in terrible shape. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Being our best involves walking away from every situation with less than what we had when we encountered it because we left something behind in the exchange. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To dream only of what is ‘possible’ is to be fooled into believing that one is dreaming in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Loss is the uninvited door that extends us an unexpected invitation to unimaginable possibilities. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I have become so pathetically dulled that I hold freedom as my right and the privileges of liberty as my due, I can stand beside the stilled graves of a thousand soldiers fallen in defense of freedom and not feel a thing. And my most solemn prayer is that I will never be this. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In a relationship with God, our most secret places once thickly cloaked and meticulously hidden away now stand before us utterly and entirely exposed. And it may be that this dreaded fear is the single thing that keeps us an arm’s length from God, and forever a single step away from His blessings. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When we surrender to a purposeless existence, we are surrendering to death way ahead of death’s actual arrival. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The true sign of a robust and mature life rests in how many times that life has been knocked down, for to be incessantly knocked down and yet find oneself still standing means that someone had the resolve to get up that many times plus one. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Despite my incessant desperation, I simply cannot paint the perfect picture within which I would wish to live out my life. And because I cannot, God picked up the brush of love, positioned the canvas of history and painted a manger. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Forgiveness means that you will not allow a temporary event to have forever repercussions. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Do I make up some ‘god’ in my mind, or do I make up my mind to know God? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Jesus was and is the greatest restoration specialist of all time. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can't change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and a stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future was the past was not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Christmas embodies everything that I need. However, everything that I need is often made up of a lot of stuff I don’t want. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It might behoove us to realize that isolation is the absence of all the senseless clutter, and all the incessant racket that would keep God from having ample room to show up and sufficient silence to be heard. Therefore, isolation may actually be the place where we are least isolated. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If left to my own simplistic devices and the sorely scant limits of my abilities, would I not die a death of the blandest sort imaginable? And should I not thank God that He graciously gifted me with an imagination that renders such a death entirely unimaginable? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Contrary to popular opinion, we are all a vast brotherhood of human beings whose very survival hinges not on what we keep, but on what we give. And it is in the giving that we not only survive to live another day, but we thrive to celebrate another day. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase is going up or down. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The issue is becoming so absorbed in positioning ourselves ahead of everyone else that life becomes nothing more than an endless strategy. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The shortest short-term investment is to serve ourselves. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In the oddity or maybe the miracle of life, the roots of something new frequently lie in the decaying husks of something old. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The key to understanding if something is truly precious is to ask if we can hold it, for things truly precious cannot be held. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The voice incessantly quelled in the chorus of human voices will always be the voice of God. And given a reality of this magnitude, I would be well advised to cease my babbling and encourage those around me to do the same. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It is inevitable that I will leave a legacy simply because I cannot walk through life without leaving footprints as I walk. Therefore, I would be wise to consider the path before I make the prints. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
One of the most terrifying things I fear is not my potential, but how much regret I’ll die with should I never use it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
That which I cannot hold is that which I can treasure the most because it affords me no burden other than to enjoy it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Apathy is giving up when we need to get up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Common sense is one of the most unused commodities available to man. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I cannot live without you. For to attempt to do so would be to rob both of us of each other, and that is thievery of the greatest sort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest men stand on their values and pray on their knees. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We tend to perseverate on the fact that as far as we might have fallen, there’s always another bottom underneath the one we’re laying on. Yet, for every bottom underneath us, there’s always endless opportunity above us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Death reminds us that life is a temporary privilege, not an endless right. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can live out our lives, and in the end realize that we never really ‘lived’ a day in our lives. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Real accomplishments do virtually nothing to serve me and they do everything to serve others. Anything less is nothing more than a meaningless task dressed in the deceptive finery of accomplishments. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes consequences are building blocks fashioned of granite when successes are shaped of clay. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The choice to avoid risk is the choice to avoid living, and to avoid living is one of the greatest risk of all. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I would surmise that we must cherish the resources that God has given us to achieve a goal more than we cherish the goal itself. For if we fall victim to the pursuit of the goal alone, then the goal has suddenly become our god. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It is, I think, a far lesser offense to blatantly ignore God’s directions for our lives rather than arrogantly think ourselves shrewd enough to be able to bend them to our liking without breaking them and therefore breaking ourselves. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We have a choice. We can be jaded by what we’ve lost, or joyous over what that thing had accomplished while we had it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I often ask to what place I am running, for if I am unable to identify that place it is likely that I am running in a circle of the most circular sort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
With God, being lost is nothing more than an idea that never has and never will be anything more than an idea. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We may find great relief and inexplicable solace in purposefully looking beyond grief in order to determine the provision made within it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We want a fresh start only because we didn’t sufficiently care for the last fresh start. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Ignorance is not bliss. Rather, ignorance is blistering. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When wisdom gives way to whimsy and ethics fall to excitement, it is highly likely that the ground beneath me will ‘give way’ and it is I who will ‘fall. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To let something go is to participate in a much greater dance that we call life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Pain is nothing but growth waiting for us to give it permission to grow us up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It is at the precise moment that I take something for granted that I have placed myself in the precarious position of losing that very thing. And if that thing I risk losing is liberty, taking it for granted is foolishness of the most foolish sort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The message of Christmas is a message of hope when all other such messages created by men can do nothing more than be hopeful. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Arrogance is a map of a road that leads to bridges that are out. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Love in the service of self is greed in disguise. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Heaven shows up all the time. But we plan our time so that we show up in other places. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Men can dig wells, but they can’t create water. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I can bow to fear and flee the pursuit of great things. I can bow to God and engage in the pursuit of making things great. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Life is bigger than any of us will ever be as an individual. Purpose tells us that we’re specifically designed to engage every bit of that. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We might do well to take a look at what we’ve crammed into our pockets as it will say much about what we’ve crammed into our hearts. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We want to 'write in' our plan and 'write out' the consequence. When we do that, we're headed 'right back' to what we foolishly thought we could 'write out. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Have we ever thought to consider that God allows things in our lives to die so that in that death we might come to the precious realization of how little we’ve actually lived in the first place? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Our imagination is God’s ingenious gift that hands us the privilege of romping and playing in realities that we can’t see only because we’ve yet to create them. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The worst of me is the raw material from which God molds the best of me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Yet, there is a sense of some deep sort that runs entirely contrary to human nature, that in putting ourselves first, we must by necessity put others first. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
My decisions determine my destination long before I ever get there. And once I do get there, I suddenly realize this is not the destination I had in mind because what I had in mind was the fantasy that my denial had created verses the reality my choices crafted. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To intentionally pass on opportunity is to intentionally pass on living. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I incessantly look for water in wells dug by men, and I have drunk enough sand to prove it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
How often have I painted a splendid picture of a journey marked by courageous ascents and daring desert crossings when all along all I’ve really been doing is running? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am so often the architect of my own pain and the engineer of my own failures. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The eyes of love have 20/20 vision when focused on another, and become entirely blind when focused on ourselves. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Timeless principles never age, and truth is as young as the day it was spoken into existence. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We have errantly romanticized love as something we freely get verses something we sacrifice for in the giving. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I can only see life as this most miserable accident that I have been forced to endure simply because I refuse to see it as the most astounding plan that I have been privileged to engage. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I will either adamantly prioritize my agendas at the expense of the truth, or I will consistently bring my agendas into unrelenting obedience to the truth. And if for some reason you’re trying to determine who I truly am, the choice I make will tell you. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am thankful that to be attuned to the needs of another attunes us to the world, and that if I stay attuned only to my needs I will always be a stranger to the world. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Is the goal I’ve set been determined by a desire to avoid the goal I should have set? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We’re making our decisions … or so we think. Yet in truth, ignorance, greed, and the scourge of immediate gratification are often the things that are making them. So if we’re going to truly live well, maybe the first thing we need to decide is who’s deciding. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are not built for mediocrity, but we build it into our lives nonetheless. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God’s genius is as wide as the cosmos, while by comparison our intelligence can find room on the head of a pin. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I wholly unleash my imagination and forcefully stretch it out beyond its own edges, even at such a point I can only imagine a thin shard of this most immense God. And even though it is but a thin shard, it will nonetheless be mesmerizingly colossal. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The service of self terminates at our own death. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God’s decision to reach out in such dramatic fashion as to lay all rightful privilege aside and be born into abject destitution tells us that His passion for us exceeds our desire for Him. And maybe we should commit to evening that up a bit. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To live a lie may allow us to avoid the truth, but the real lie lays in believing that we can avoid the truth in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Rarely do I truly understand the disease which ails me. Therefore, rarely do I truly understand the fix that would cure me. And so maybe I should truly contemplate how rarely I recognize that God understands both. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The sacrifice ‘of’ self for the greater good is the greatest calling imaginable, and it is the bedrock of the greatest nations. The sacrifice ‘for’ self is the most pathetic calling imaginable, and it is the quicksand within which nations perish. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The very places that we presume God not to be are the very places that are filled with His footprints and littered with His fingerprints. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To judge someone is to say that I have the right to define who they are, verses understanding that God has handed me the priceless privilege of discovering who they are. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can only get to God through God. Every other possible avenue is a dead-end before it even starts. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The clash is born of the fact that the child within me sees with undiluted clarity what the adult within me is incessantly working to deny. And in these most vexing moments, to be the adult is to defer to the child. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can’t change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and the stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future what the past was not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I cannot be afraid of being afraid. Rather, I need to realize that it is my fear that gives me the energy to wrestle that which I fear into the dirt that is soon to become the road underneath my feet. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too often my solution is to let something die because I can’t keep it alive, when God’s solution is to let something live because His Son already died for it. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Far too often, it is at the moment where we finally stand on the very precipice of some great thing that we turn and abandon it, for it is at these seminal moments that fear wins and greatness dies. The beauty of Christmas is that God steps over precipices. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Prayer is one action where I lay aside my abilities to immerse myself wholly in God’s capabilities. And the liberation found in such an action is less about being engaged with God and more about being freed from myself. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
This is the wonder of Christmas, that in the solitary form of an impoverished infant God has handed me everything that I could never create so that I can be everything that I could never be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Making oneself large involves intentionally making oneself small. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We incessantly vacillate between what’s behind us and what’s before us depending on the current barometer of our courage and the ambivalent nature of our vision. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To look beyond our horizons is to acknowledge that we’ve hemmed ourselves in by creating them in the first place. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Why is it that none of the things I construct ever make me feel safe? The answer lies in the fact that safety can’t be created. It can only be found. And the only thing I've found that’s never been created is God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We would prefer all gain and no loss in life, yet that would gain us nothing more than great loss. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Only God understands how incredibly far we’ve fallen, and only God understands how incredibly far we can rise. And only we can determine if we’re going to wallow in the mediocrity that is born of the refusal to understand either. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The yardstick that we frequently use to determine if something can be restored is based on the handful of inches that we bring to the process, when God shows up with an infinite amount of miles. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I am thankful that sacrifice is non-negotiable, and that counting the cost in giving to another is foolishly assuming that we can put a price on sacrifice. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To understand the mysteries of God we must move past the logic of men. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
When will I realize that without God my world is draped in shadows between which there is not a single ray of light? And when will I recognize that with God, my world is deluged in light between which there is not a single thread of darkness? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
My prayer is that God would continue to love me enough to refuse to answer the prayers I'm praying that I shouldn't be praying. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We lose the understanding that death always begets life of some sort, and that life is always an opportunist, persistently standing ready to build something out of the smoldering ashes and raise something up out of the tangled carnage. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
My worth is not based on the ‘work of my hands’ despite how feverishly I might work and how audaciously successful I might be. Rather, my worth is based exclusively on the astonishing fact that I am the ‘work of God’s hands. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
An idea without sacrifice, regardless of grand it might be, will never be anything more than an idea. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
More times than I can remember I look around and I ask why the hole I’m in looks so strangely familiar. Probably because it looks a whole lot like all the other ones I dug before I got around to digging this one. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Real relationships are the product of time spent, which is why so many of us have so few of them. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Why in the world have we never found what we’re really looking for? Because what we need is often the very thing we won’t accept. And sadly, in turning away the God we need, we need to understand that we have chosen to live without everything we need. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Without an imagination we would be irreparably shackled to what is, and never be released to what could be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A true work of art is shaped by the hands of another, and if in shaping us that ‘other’ is anything other than God, the piece will never touch the remotest periphery of its potential. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I want to have the eyes of an adult to see the world as it is, but I more desperately want to have the heart of a child to make certain that I never forget what it could be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Each day hands me a clean sheet of paper upon which to write. Therefore, I would be wise to write without ever having the need to erase. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
There is no doubt that the most effective way to heal my pain is to purposefully put it to work healing the pain in the life of another. But that means I must endure the pain of not focusing on 'my' pain. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We know enough to know that all of this is not quite right. And we know enough to know that settling for what’s not quite right is quite wrong. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A conviction borne of God amply possesses the potency and power to brazenly reach beyond the possible in order to topple the impossible. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
All along, I was less concerned about walking a path of integrity and more caught up in a compass calibrated by greed. And with a compass such as this, how is it that I’m having a hard time understanding why I am where I am? - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The image of God infused in us never sees the light of day in the service of self, but it becomes the light of day in the service of others. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Loss is an invitation to a journey of unparalleled growth, yet we seldom RSVP the invitation. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too many of us view liberty as something that ‘just is,’ and too few see it as something that ‘is’ only because someone, somewhere was faced with the formidable reality that to keep liberty meant paying a stiff price. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In many instances, the failures of my greatest schemes ultimately lead to the fulfillment of my greatest successes. Therefore, God will allow our most cherished dreams to perish so that we might turn and seek out His most cherished plans. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If we dare examine our decisions, we will see our values woven in and through every single one of them. Therefore, it would do us well to take an occasional peek to insure that our values remain at their peak. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The only thing I have to wait for to change my life is my attitude. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
More times than I’m willing to admit I am my own worst enemy, which suggests that more times than I’m willing to admit I should allow God to be my own best friend. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I would be dreadfully remiss not to think that God would painstakingly craft something an intimately ingenious and inexplicably intricate as my life, and that by virtue of such sheer brilliance I should not examine it with the greatest precision and unleash it with the fullest abandon. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Pain dutifully reminds me that the world is terribly imperfect, but it faithfully helps me appreciate the world on those days when it’s a little closer to being perfect. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I must be ever so careful to remember that my pain is a precious salve that when used in the service of others can heal a thousand wounds and more. And I must likewise remember that if I do not use it as such, I have done nothing more than wound myself yet again. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Responding to the 'great good' within us causes us to be 'great people. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe consequences are dear friends in stealthy disguise. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Surrender is a choice, it is never a calling. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It would do me well to realize that the path that has led me to where I am was mapped by those who taught me and paved by what they taught me. Therefore, if God is not my teacher and His truth is not my topic I will find myself where I don’t want to be, having trod a path I didn’t want to take. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The love hidden within is always greater than the hate displayed without. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Mediocrity is the companion of passivity and will not heed the call of great things. Courage is the companion of sacrifice and cannot help but heed the call of great things. And we are left of our own accord to choose one or the other. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What I allow into my head finds its way to my heart, which is a porthole to my soul. Therefore, I might be wise to consider the state of my soul, and then walk this process backwards. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The sure path to tomorrow was plotted in a manger and paved on a cross. And although this sturdy byway is mine for the taking, I have incessantly chosen lesser paths. And maybe it is time to realize that Christmas is a promise that I can walk through the world and never get lost in the woods. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
An exceptional future can only be built on the transformation of the mess I’ve made out of my past, not the elimination of that mess. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
In my desperation, I have finally discovered that the only way that I can begin to fill the gaping hole within me is to be thankful for what’s there, and not angry for what’s not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Peace is achieved when our conscience rests in the fact that we’ve engaged in ‘right’ living, verses believing that living is a ‘right. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Far too often we’ve let humanity become a commodity that serves us along the way, rather than an asset that enriches our journey. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To pretend is to do nothing more than imagine life as something wonderful so that we don’t have to incur the pain that it takes to actually make life wonderful. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
With God, anything that stands against you will always be inferior to what resides within you. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I will not find myself, nor will I obtain any precarious morsel of life in giving all of life to myself. If I am ever to find these things, I must first be willing to give these things away at the very moment that I come into possession of them. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Without a doubt, the most ingenious plan I could ever hope to devise would be to trade my plans for God’s. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I find that I spend a tremendous amount of time chasing the praises of men rather than sitting with the praises of God. The former is something I attempt to catch, the latter catches me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Betrayal is advancing myself at the expense of the one who I committed myself to advance. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To assume that I and I alone have all the answers is to eventually find myself entirely alone without any answers. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
A label locks me into a definition that people use to control me. A vision graces me with an idea that serves to release me. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Integrity is the antithesis of compromise and the sworn enemy of comfort. It bases its decisions not on how much discomfort we might be able to avoid, but on how much we need to avoid the compromise of comfort. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To fill the fathomless caverns of my thirsty soul I must work entirely contrary to impulses of my own humanity, for it is in emptying myself at the very point where I am most empty that I fill myself. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Humility is the greatest shaper of souls and crafter of character, for it wipes away all the grandiose things that we spend so much of our lives pretending to be, so that we can spend all of our lives being the exceptional person that we were actually created to be. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To only see ‘death’ in death is to somehow assume that death itself is a barrier so abrupt that God Himself is halted by it. To see ‘life’ in death is to understand that death is a sprawling horizon to a new beginning that God created long before death ever thought to show up. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Because I have ‘chosen’ to see something as impossible, there’s a good chance that it’s not. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I feign fullness, but in reality I am achingly empty. And it is because I too often sit at the table of the world instead of the feet of God. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Jesus came to give us life to the very edges of life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
There is that gnawing feeling that we are far more than what we believe ourselves to be. Maybe it’s time to believe the gnawing. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Contradictions are the impossible chasms that create forever separations. God is the forever bridge that creates impossible reunions. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
What we’re searching for will determine where we arrive, or if we arrive. And right in the middle of such risky choices, Christmas is God perfectly solving the problem by showing us what to search for and then bringing it to us. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I often wonder if my imagination is one of God’s choicest gifts bestowed upon me to deliberately break me free from the frequent doldrums of my humanity. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To realize your potential you must look beyond the end of yourself, realizing that where you end is most likely where you actually begin. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
God beckons me to exhilarating adventures that are without number, beyond all conceivable boundaries, and effortlessly eclipse the furthest reaches of my imagination, all while I sit languishing in stifling adventures of my own limited creation. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We got where we are because our choices mapped the route and paved the road. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
I want to stand on the foundation of ethics and morals when the world around me would assault that foundation with all of its collective might, and in the standing I want to stand on the truth that that foundation will stand long after everything that has assailed it has itself has ceased to stand. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
It would be advisable to realize that we will eventually become whatever it is that we’ve created. And too often what we’ve created is a massive mess. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Instinct is all of our humanity being deliberately honest with all of life. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
If we’ve somehow become convinced that the script we followed ‘yesterday’ can’t be edited, it will be incredibly difficult to tell the difference between ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
Intelligence and wisdom are certainly compatible, however they are rarely seen in each other’s company. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We can fill our lives with ‘stuff,’ but as we do we’re concurrently filling our lives with the obligation to maintain that ‘stuff. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To take this one shot at life and live it with God is to take this one shot and have it reverberate across and around my world as if it were a million shots and more. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
We’ve yet to comprehend the impervious reality that to gain ‘life’ we have to do the most scandalous thing imaginable, and that is to work ‘against’ the whole of our humanity and give everything away. And yet to give everything away is to work ‘with’ the whole of God’s character. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
The power of a thing is not based on the power it actually possesses. Rather, it is much more about the power that we permit it to possess. - Craig D. Lounsbrough
To be an end in myself is to bring an end to myself. - Craig D. Lounsbrough