Carolyn Custis James Quotes

A woman's mission centered on home and family - vital spheres of ministry to be sure, but only a slice of the vast mission God originally cast by calling women to rule and subdue the earth. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Officially, the New Testament church at an early stage took seriously their responsibility for widows who lacked family or other resources. The office of deacon was instituted initially to address this pressing need. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Talking Taboo is a groundbreaking book. This chorus of bold female voices is presenting the church with an opportunity to engage real but all too frequently avoided or unseen issues impacting countless Christian women today. Their candid essays cover a wide spectrum of perspectives. Readers will resonate with some and be shocked by others. Talking Taboo took courage to write. Reading taboo takes courage too. So buckle up and brace yourself for an eye-opening but vitally important read! ~ Carolyn Custis James

Far from polarizing male and female
as patriarchal definitions do
or highlighting gender distinctions between them (none of which are mentioned here), God's method in creating the woman unites them in a bone level solidarity. When the man sees the woman, he doesn't distinguish himself from her. He sees a reflection of himself. She is literally bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh perfectly re-engineered into a woman. The oneness between God's male and female image bearers is unmistakable and utterly profound. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Boaz is not diminished, marginalized, or feminized in the slightest by being outnumbered and influenced by Ruth and Naomi. As a matter of fact, he only grows stronger himself through his collaborations with them. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Theology isn't really theology for us until we live it. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Her loyalty to Yahweh prompts her to challenge the religious status quo and lead others into a whole new realm of allegiance to Yahweh that carries early hints of the teachings of Jesus. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Ruth's story helped me see that neither I nor any of God's daughters belong on the sidelines, while our brothers build his kingdom without us. He means for us to work alongside our brothers, and he is doing great things through his daughters, even though we, like Ruth and Naomi, may never live to see the full significance of our contributions. ~ Carolyn Custis James

First and foremost, God is the true hero of the story. No matter how captivating the other characters may be, our top priority is to discover what the Bible reveals about God. ~ Carolyn Custis James

If my own struggles have taught me anything, it is that my greatest need is to know God better, and I am not alone. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Not every woman has a Boaz in her life. Sometimes the male voices we hear are cautioning us to hold back instead of urging us to serve God wholeheartedly with them. Sometimes the cautioning voices we hear belong to other women. Sometimes those who have the power to facilitate our callings and clear a path for us set up roadblocks instead. Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz remind us powerfully that even in a dark era like the days of the judges, God always has his people and the Blessed Alliance is still alive and well. He is working in our hearts, summoning us to be strong and courageous like Ruth - to embrace and embody his gospel on our 'bit of earth. ~ Carolyn Custis James

A solitary image bearer cannot adequately or accurately reveal God in the world, much less fulfill his destiny as a human being. Obviously, this is a matter of grave importance to the Creator. ~ Carolyn Custis James

The ezer is a warrior, and this has far-reaching implications for women, not only in marriage, but in every relationship, season, and walk of life. ~ Carolyn Custis James

It doesn't cause me to doubt God's existence, but it does force me to admit there's a lot about God I don't understand. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Jesus won the war, and the rest of history is simply mopping up. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Everything. She lives with a profound confidence that he holds the whole world (including her) in his hands. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Joy isn't grounded in our circumstances; it is grounded in the unchanging character of God. ~ Carolyn Custis James

My mother used to tell me, "Things always look worse at night." For the most part, I believe her. But some of the troubles that keep me from sleeping look just as bad in the morning. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Male and female callings are not separate issues. They are interwoven, interdependent, and inseparable in the Bible. God didn't create a world where one gender can flourish at the expense of the other. In God's world, the true flourishing of one depends on and promotes the full flourishing of the other. In fact, God's kingdom purposes for the world hinge on how well we both flourish and pull together to serve him. ~ Carolyn Custis James

We are not the masters of our own destinies. We are called to plan and strategize, to work and live active lives, to attempt things that are beyond us and tackle challenges that stretch us to the limit. Yet the outcome of our efforts, even our ability to exert ourselves, is always in God's hands. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Instead, we end up with a list of bullet points - an inventory of God's communicable attributes, those qualities belonging to God that he shares with us. Moral, spiritual, intellectual, and relational qualities make the list. What ultimately happens is that instead of being shaken by a visionary calling that will take everything we have to offer and more, we end up with a static list of attributes that are echoes of the divine in us. Efforts to pin down the precise meaning of image bearer (which the text does not do) ultimately box up the subject. ~ Carolyn Custis James

I have to ask myself how I can possibly expect to know Jesus as he would want to be known if my life remains unscathed by trouble and grief. How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet if I never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart? How can I reflect his image if I never share in his sufferings? And how will any of us ever learn to treasure his hesed and grace if we never experience phases where these blessings seem absent? ~ Carolyn Custis James

Faith may want answers, but somehow it is able to survive without them. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Eve's goal was to align herself with God at every possible level - to share his heart, imitate his ways, love what he loved, and join him in his work. It is the rarest of privileges, the highest of honors, the most daunting challenge imaginable. A simple list of attributes barely scratches the surface of all it means to bear God's image. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Now, instead of asking if God is good for women, I'm asking a new question. I stole it from Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic novel, "The Secret Garden." When the orphaned heroine, Mary Lennox, stumbled over a piece of untended, overgrown land needing to be ruled and subdued, she asked her uncle, "Might I have a bit of earth?"
[ ... ] May God bless every woman's life with men like Boaz. But even if there is no Boaz, God is a mighty advocate. God is good for women, and women who know this are strong for his kingdom. God wants to hear his daughters ask, "Might I have a bit of earth?" This is the Gospel of Ruth. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Sometimes following God means throwing caution to the wind. Sometimes caution is a symptom of faithlessness. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Everything was going according to plan. What caught me off guard, however, was the fact that this eagerly awaited phase brought a sense of loss to me that triggered a whole new wave of soul searching I had not anticipated. ~ Carolyn Custis James

Actually, it was more like they thought I was going to take off all my clothes and streak through the hallway. ~ James Patterson

Producers are looking to me to concept full worlds for subjects to compete, play a game show in, win an award, blah blah blah. ~ James Pearse Connelly

Yes, you're in charge. That makes me XO, and it's the XO's job to tell the captain when he's being an idiot. You're being an idiot, sir. ~ James S.A. Corey

We don't need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could. ~ James Cromwell

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against Fate.
Death lays his icy hand on kings ... ~ James Shirley

our objective as moms and dads is to transform our sons from "immature and flighty youngsters into honest, caring men who will be respectful of women, loyal and faithful in marriage, keepers of commitments, strong and decisive leaders, good workers, and men who are secure in their masculinity. ~ James C. Dobson

I think there is a spiritual scent in us which feels mischief coming, as they say birds scent storms. ~ James Anthony Froude

Hey ! Ain t it glorious to be living? ~ James J. Montague

Now, to a single-minded man, who is either brave enough or reckless enough to surrender himself wholly to one idea, and look neither right nor left, but only forward, what earthly consequences may follow is not material. Persecution strengthens him; and so he is sure he is right, whether his course end in a prison or on a throne is no matter at all. But men of this calibre are uncommon in any age or in any country very uncommon in this age and this country. ~ James Anthony Froude

Adolescents were the most wretched humans of all. ~ James Patterson

Why should I waste my imagination on myself? - SERGEI DIAGHILEV ~ Clive James

I became a door-to-door IBM salesman in 1963, a job I had for six years. But most everyone thought it was a bad idea. Door-to-door salesmen were lower than used-car salesmen or attorneys. ~ James W. Murphy

In a small cathedral town where changes are few, there are always people who remember who used to live in a particular house, what happened to them there and afterwards, and so on. ~ James Hilton

Every man in the chapel hoped that when his hour came he, too, would be eulogized, which is to say forgiven, and that all of his lapses, greeds, errors, and strayings from the truth would be invested with coherence and looked upon with charity. This was perhaps the last thing humans could give each other and it was what they demanded, after all, of the Lord. ~ James Baldwin

It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now. ~ James Baldwin

When people start talking about enjambment and line endings, I always shut them up. This is not something to talk about, this is a private matter, it's up to the poet. ~ James Tate

The best moments in life are not the kind many historians record. ~ James Lee Burke

Happiness is the ability to recognize it. ~ Carolyn Wells

James 2:17- 'Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.' The lives of many people who call themselves 'Christians' in America lack manifestations of a vital and active faith. And this, to be perfectly honest, frightens me. It keeps me up at night. It causes me to pray desperately and fervently for my congregation, for the groups of people I speak to, and for the church as a whole. ~ Francis Chan

What the winners of finite games achieve is not properly an afterlife but an afterworld, not continuing existence but continuing recognition of their titles. ~ James P. Carse

My dad was always snoozing on the couch, like Dagwood Bumstead. He was a lazy motherfucker. God bless him. He was always working on some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. This is what my dad was like: I'd say, Hey, Dad, we studied penguins today in school. He'd say, Yeah? I'm a penguin fucker from way back. Dad, I saw a giraffe at the zoo today. Yeah? I'm a giraffe fucker from way back. That's my dad. My dad was a giraffe fucker. ~ James Ellroy

When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food. ~ James Allen

I don't try to hide sex in my music. Music is very sexual. I don't hide it. ~ Rick James

In the case of Five-O, I believe it was a combination of many ingredients - timing, chemistry, Hawaii. ~ James MacArthur

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident. ~ James Bryce

Russia, France, Germany and China. They revere their writers. America is still a frontier country that almost shudders at the idea of creative expression. ~ James A. Michener

I had to give him props, but how annoying of him to be a hero when I was trying so hard to dislike him. It was downright selfish. ~ James Patterson

A profit is not without honor save in Boston. ~ Carolyn Wells

All drunks, particularly those who grew up in alcoholic homes, have that same sense of angst and trepidation, one that has no explainable origins. The fear is not necessarily self-centered, either. It's like watching someone point a revolver at his temple while he cocks and dry-fires the mechanism, over and over again, until the cylinder rotates a loaded chamber into firing position. ~ James Lee Burke

You know, what I didn't know was how many people in the tech world the original movie had such an impression on. That's really interesting to me because a lot of the people who created this technological revolution that we're all living through were kids when Tron came out, and they saw Tron and it impacted them. ~ James Frain

The great fact all the while however had been the incalculability; since he had supposed himself, from decade to decade, to be allowing, and in the most liberal and intelligent manner, for brilliancy of change. He actually saw that he *had* allowed for nothing; he missed what he would have been sure of finding, he found what he would never have imagined. Proportions and values were upside-down; the ugly things he had expected, the ugly things of his far away youth, when he had too promptly waked up to a sense of the ugly--these uncanny phenomena placed him rather, as it happened, under the charm; whereas the 'swagger' things, the modern, the monstrous, the famous things, those he had more particularly, like thousands of ingenuous enquirers every year, come over to see, were exactly his sources of dismay. They were as so many set traps for displeasure, above all for reaction, of which his restless tread was constantly pressing the spring. It was interesting, doubtless, the whole show, but it would have been too disconcerting hadn't a certain finer truth saved the situation. He had distinctly not, in this steadier light, come over *all* for the monstrosities; he had come, not only in the last analysis but quite on the face of the act, under an impulse with which they had nothing to do. ("The Jolly Corner") ~ Henry James

On the song 'Dangerous,' it feels like a teenager picking up a new instrument and writing something with all of that naive excitement. ~ James Blunt

Something I've never been able to adapt to, to understand is how they can lavish such love and care on the animals and then see them sold for slaughter. I don't dare say anything about it, though. Richard and his friends would be down on me in a flash. But there's some kind of cold, unfeeling contradiction in that business. ~ Robert James Waller

The New York Quarterly is an amazing, intelligent, crazy, creative, strange, and indispensable magazine. ~ James Dickey

That's a shame," said Bert, "to run out of crackers before you've run out of emergency. ~ James A. Owen

A basic rule of life for reporters is that you should spend your time talking with and learning about people who are not sending you press releases, rather than those who are. ~ James Fallows

Your highest loyalty after the Lord is to your family. Your first priority after God is your wife then your kids. ~ James MacDonald

We're doing the right thing, Thomas. See you on the other side. ~ James Dashner

Mandelbrot changed the way ibm's engineers thought about the cause of noise. bursts of errors had always sent the engineers looking for a man sticking a screwdriver somewhere. ~ James Gleick

The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the world begins, as it ends, with a Code. ~ Henry James Sumner Maine

Pride rises above and against the knowledge of God, acting as if He is unworthy to be retained in our thoughts. ~ James MacDonald

In order to fix it, you need a passionate anger about something that doesn't work well. ~ James Dyson

This is what it feels like when a man loves you, sweetness," he growled. "It's hot and it's hard and it goes deep. No pretending it ain't happening, no running from it, and there's sure as hell no controlling it. It just is, baby, and you've got to let go. Just let it happen. Let me love you." His hand ran over her face roughly. "Trust me to love you. ~ Marysol James

The extraction of deep wisdom can be done at any age, and if we are to love the time of our life, it must be. Imbedded within us is the deeper story we came to live, and the core issue at every age for any awakened human being is the extent to which we are living that story in the present moment. ~ Carolyn Baker

Skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering about his legs the loose folds of his ~ James Joyce

A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge. ~ James A. Michener

The apostle James tells us that a man who can control his tongue can control the rest of his body as well. This goes double for the man who is putting what the tongue does into a more permanent setting. ~ Douglas Wilson

I'm so much more than just Angelina [Jolie's] brother. I'm also Jon Voight's son and Billy Bob Thorton's brother-in-law. ~ James Haven

When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all. ~ James Gray