Francine Rivers

“God does not abandon men, my son. Men abandon God.”

“Have you ever been to the beach and wanted to feed the seagulls? The problem is you tear off a little crust from your sandwich and toss it to one, and ten more show up. Toss a little more and a flock descends. You start to wonder: if I run out of bread, will I become the meal?Turkeys are different. They startle easily and run for the barn. In the wild, they run for the hills. Of course, they’re very tasty. Benjamin Franklin thought them majestic enough to be an emblem for our country. I’m sorry, but Thanksgiving would be downright depressing. There’s our national symbol lying stuffed and roasted and ready to carve up for hungry guests. And then we have the eagles. Our forefathers were trained in the Bible. […]They would have known Isaiah 40:31. “Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” They were making war on the greatest power in the world of the time; the world was watching them. What could this band of commoners do? What troubles me about our country today is how many seagulls there are, scrambling for more. Remember the movie “Finding Nemo”? “Mine, mine, mine!” And we sure have a lot of gutless turkeys running for the barn whenever hard decisions have to be made; like how to keep our country solvent so our children won’t be in soup lines… Where are the eagles? That’s what I want to know. Please, God, we need us some eagles!”

“Only later during her prayers had it come to her how cunning Satan could be. Her love for Marcus could become a tool against her, for when her heart and mind were on Marcus, Julia lay forgotten.Nothing must distract her from her mission here. And no one.”

“Fiction can serve in a non-threatening way to open minds and, I hope, hearts to the Word of God.”

“Love doesn't last." She didn't know how much showed her pale face.Meribah's face softened. "Sometimes it does. If it's the right kind.”

“Anything less than your best dishonors God”

“And if it (life) were easier, would i have given my heart so fully to God? Put your hope in Him, and you won't be disappointed by what life offers”

“You are free, you just don't know it" ~Michael to Sarah”

“I'm only a tool, beloved. Not your Savior”

“I promise to love and cherish you, to honor and sustain you, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth,in the bad that may darken our days, in the good that may light our way. Tirzah, beloved, I promise to be true to you in all things until I die. And even beyond that, God willing”

“I want to be free Michael, just for once in my whole life I want to be free" "You are free. You just don't know it yet”

“I gave up what I can't keep for something I can never lose.”

“Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we've nothing worth living for.”

“Oh!" Hadassah said, a catch in her throat. "Put me down, please." Rashid knew in that instant they were in the lion's den.”

“God would light the way. Faith would keep them on the right path.”

“Love one another, Jesus said. Sometimes it took a lifetime to learn how. Sometimes it took someone to hit rock bottom to make someone reach up and grasp hold and be lifted from the mire to stand on a firm foundation.”

“Calamity is a blessing when it brings one to God. --- Hadassah”

“It was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. It was the Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It was like a best-loved story being told day after day with each sunrise and sunset, year after year with the seasons, down through the ages since time began.”

“Never doubt God in the darkness what he has given us in the light.”

“Can you see air you breathe? Can you see the force that moves the tides or changes the seasons or sends the birds to a winter haven?" Her eyes welled. "Can Rome with all its knowledge be so foolish? Oh Marcus, you can't carve God in stone. You can't limit him to a temple. You can't imprison him on a mountaintop. Heaven is his throne; earth, his footstool. Everything you see is his. Empires will rise and empires will fall. Only God prevails.”

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.' Whatever happens is to His good purpose and for His glory. I am not afraid.”

“Stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm and let Him fight your battle. Do not try to fight alone.”

“Have faith have faith. When you have nothing else have faith.”

“The Lord will provide.”

“You said go to her, and I let pride stand in my way. You said she needed me, and I didn't believe. You said love her, and I thought it would be easy.”

“Michael had once read to her how God had cast a man and woman out of paradise. Yet, for all their human faults and failures. God had shown them the way back in.”

“Why is it only in darkness that we remember what sustained us even in the light?”

“True beauty is rare, and seldom recognized by the one who possesses it.”

“I'm going to give you God's truth, little girl. All men want to do is hurt you. Once you give them your heart, they tear it to shreds." ~Francine Rivers; Redeeming Love”

“As gentle a man as he was, as tender as was his heart, there was nothing weak about Michael Hosea. He was the strongest-minded man Joseph had ever met. A Man like Noah. A Man like the Shepherd-king David. A man after God's own heart.”

“Tell me everything about this woman you once knew. Tell me everything she ever told you about Jesus of Nazareth." Marcus saw the fever in his eyes. "Why?" he said, frowning. "Why does it matter?""Just tell me, Marcus Lucianus Valerian. Tell me everything. From the beginning. Let me decide for myself what matters."And so Marcus did as he was asked. He gave in to his deep need to speak of Hadassah. And all the while he talked of her, he failed to see the irony in what he was doing. For as he told the story of a simple Judean slave girl, Marcus Lucianus Valerian, a Roman who didn't believe in anything, proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“my love isn't a weapon, it's a lifeline, reach out and take hold, and don't let go!”

“Love is the way back into Eden. It is the way back to life.”

“Mara, that's the life I want to give you. That's what I'm offering you. I want to fill you life with color and warmth. I want to fill it with light. Give me a chance”

“I want you to love me. I want you to trust me enough to let me love you, and I want you to stay here with me so we can build a life together. That's what I want”

“...for some of us, one mile can be more to walk than thirty.”

“Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display.What happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?”

“Love God and He will enable you to love others even when they disappoint you.”

“Better the discomfort that leads to repentance and restoration than temporal comfort and eternal damnation.”

“I've done everything for the wrong reasons. All the good works people credit to me are nothing because I did them expecting God to repay me. I thought if I worked hard enough, God would have to give me what I wanted. The truth is I've never served the Lord at all. I was always serving myself.”

“How is it possible to hold such anger against something you don't believe in?”

“We all wanted what we wanted, and when the Lord fulfilled HIS purpose rather than ours, we struck out against him. In anger. In disappointment. Yet, it is God's will that prevails.”

“Jesus has given me eternal life in Him. Let them take my life here, but God holds me in the palm of His hand and no one can take Him from me.”

“Love the Lord your God, and love one another. Love one another as He loves. Love with strength and purpose and passion and no matter what comes against you. Don't weaken. Stand against the darkness, and love. That's the way back into Eden. That's the way back to life.”

“Everyone wanted to be the best. Best student. Best servant. Best Christian. They got caught up in it, pressing and pushing until they forgot whom it was they were trying to please.”

“Julia looked back at Hadassah on the bloodstained sand. A great emptiness opened within her as she looked at the still form. Gone, too, was the salt that had kept her from completely corruption.”

“[He] looked up and imagined the hand of God flinging stars like shining dust across the heavens. No. He was wrong to think such pagan thoughts, for God had only to utter a word and it was done. Only man had He shaped with His hands, using the dust He created to form His most precious and amazing creation. Only man was molded and loved into being, the breath of life in his lungs given by God.”

“We bear the consequences for what we have done to ourselves, and for the sin that rules this world. Jesus forgave the thief, but he didn't take him down off the cross.”

“Beloved, surrender wholeheartedly to Jesus Christ, who loves you. As you drink from the deep well of Scripture, the Lord will refresh you and cleanse you, mold you and re-create you through His Living Word. For the Bible is the very breath of God, giving life eternal to those who seek Him.”