Rich Mullins Quotations

I don't know that the United States is 'God's Country,' but the church has been so strong here, and because of its influence, we hold life to be sacred and we believe that individuals have dignity. This is part of our legacy.

Having grown up Protestant, I was unfamiliar with St. Francis. Then I watched the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon... I just became fascinated with the character of St. Francis. What I saw in that movie was a man who had fallen in love with God, someone for whom God was everything.

I have no physical genius about me. I can't dribble a ball and run at the same time, I can't do lay-ups - I'm not an athlete. But my experience as a kid was, I was made fun of so much that what I did then, is, I wouldn't participate. And I think I cheated myself out of a lot of fun.

The difference between me and most Protestants is most Protestants have no problem at all saying 'The Lord told me this' or 'The Lord told me that,' but they won't believe that the Lord speaks through the pope. You know, at least this guy has some credentials.

I think a lot of parents hand people over a blueprint and say, 'This is how you're supposed to do it.' And my parents, I think, kind of drew a picture and said, 'Here's the good stuff in life. How do you get there?'

I think I would like to be a monk. I really considered Catholicism a few years ago, but there were some things that I just couldnt reconcile.

I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am.

I would love to be a Franciscan brother. I'm just not sure I have the courage to do it.

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf. You have been King of my glory won't You be my Prince of Peace.

I think I would envy me too, if I didn't know me better...

There's a difference, you know, between faith and playing make-believe. One will make you grow. The other one will make you sleep.

Ain't it funny what people say? Ain't it funny what people write?

Joshua made the sun stand still in the sky, but I can't keep these thoughts of You from passing by.

I think a lot of parents hand people over a blueprint and say, This is how youre supposed to do it. And my parents, I think, kind of drew a picture and said, Heres the good stuff in life. How do you get there?

There is the music that we make, and the music that makes us.

I think, writing-wise, I am probably more of a quilter than a weaver because I just get a little scrap here and a little scrap there and sew them together.

There's people been friendly But they'd never be your friends Sometimes this has bent me to the ground

A lot of people are sitting around waiting for God to tell them what to do. I think God is saying 'Do what you want!' If he wants me to express His love, I need to find a way to do it.

...I think there's only one [thing] that anybody teaches, and this is character. And I think that whether you are teaching history, math, or biology, or music, what you are really doing is, you are helping to shape the character of that person who is your student... Music is such a wonderful teaching tool, because while you are developing musical skills, that student can learn a lot about discipline [and] cooperation.

We just can't love without God. God wants for us want we want for ourselves. These basic things are not that hard to grasp. We just have to have faith, and faith is a gift. We just need to accept it.

I dont know that the United States is Gods Country, but the church has been so strong here, and because of its influence, we hold life to be sacred and we believe that individuals have dignity. This is part of our legacy.

And I believe what I believe / Is what makes me what I am / I did not make it, no it is making me / It is the very truth of God and not / The invention of any man,

I think, you know, the thing everybody really wants to know anyway is not what the theory of relativity is, but I think what we all really want to know anyways, is whether we're loved or not.

We are not as strong as we think we are

Sometimes my life just don't make sense at all. The mountains looks so big and my faith just seems so small.

Psycho-babble is that language spoken by sailors who have become so interested in navigating their way around their boat that they have forgotten to read the stars and sea. They may be able to get from the galley to the head but will be lost in their journey from point to port.

I am tired again tonight - a good kind of tired. Some aches are well earned. I wish I could see the sky tonight

And step by step You'll lead me / And I will follow You all of my days.

Forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of human rage, with these out hells and our heavens, so few inches apart, we must be awfully small, and not as strong as we think we are.

You will never understand what you're doin'. But God does.

God loves us completely. And He knew us at our worst before He ever began to love us at all.

We are not saved because we're good. We're good because we're saved.

Yes, it’s embarrassing to be born again, but imagine how embarrassing it must have been to be born the first time. At least this time you get to wear clothes!

God did not give Joseph any special information about how to get from being the son of a nomad in Palestine to being Pharaoh's right hand man in Egypt. What He did give Joseph were eleven jealous brothers, the attention of a very loose and vengeful woman, the ability to do the service of interpreting dreams and managing other people's affairs and the grace to do that faithfully wherever he was.

If you live real good, I can guarantee you are gonna get beat up real bad!

I have no physical genius about me. I cant dribble a ball and run at the same time, I cant do lay-ups - Im not an athlete. But my experience as a kid was, I was made fun of so much that what I did then, is, I wouldnt participate. And I think I cheated myself out of a lot of fun.

You are not alone in the world. You are part of an ensemble.

I would love to be a Franciscan brother. Im just not sure I have the courage to do it.

It's not the job of government to help the poor. The church is the mechanism that God put on earth to help the poor.

I did not read the Bible today. I am not very good at being religious and don't really feel too bad about not being too good. I do wish that I loved God and His creatures more...

The longer I live, the more I have the feeling like God looks down, like when you've just bitten into a vanilla ice cream cone, you just get the feeling God's going, 'Yes! He enjoys it, and I made his taste buds and I made vanilla and he's putting it together and he's experiencing what I created him to experience.

It's a cultural disability in America that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you give a tithe, He'll make you rich. Why? Are you hacking Him off or something? If you give a tithe, you get rid of ten percent of the root of all evil. You should be giving ninety percent. Cause God can handle money better than we can.

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands, suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land. Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made blue for the sky and the color green that fills Your fields with praise.

Prayer is a grace through which we pour ourselves out before God and through which He calls us into His presence.

If my life is motivated by my ambition to leave a legacy, what I'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of the Spirit in me, if I live with the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to guide my actions, to guide my motives, those sort of things. That's the only time I think we really leave a great legacy.

Sometimes I think of Abraham How one star he saw had been lit for me He was a stranger in this land And I am that, no less than he And on this road to righteousness Sometimes the climb can be so steep I may falter in my steps But never beyond your reach

I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am

My salvation has very little to do with anything that I have done... Jesus will go to any lengths to draw us to himself.

It's all that pretending to be perfect that breeds inauthenticity in the church.

I hope I would leave a legacy of joy -a legacy of real compassion,

If you can't be good, be loud.

I think that of all the diseases in the world, the disease that all humankind suffers from, the disease that is most devastating to us is not AIDS, it's not gluttony, it's not cancer, it's not any of those things. It is the disease that comes about because we live in ignorance of the wealth of love that God has for us.

What I like about the Bible is that it doesn't make sense, which makes it more like truth than anything else I've ever read.

If you’re really looking for answers, look past me. But if you’re interested in how I got to where I am, I will be as honest as possible.

The biggest problem with life is that it's just daily.

A faith that moves mountains is a faith that expands horizons, it does not bring us into a smaller world full of easy answers, but into a larger one where there is room for wonder.

God is a wild man...should you encounter him...hang on for dear life-or let go for dear life is a better way to say it.

Faith without works is like a song you can't sing. It's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

Usually when we do something to corrupt our lives, it's usually something to fulfill an ache that we have...

If you want a religion that makes sense, then I suggest something other than Christianity. But if you want a religion that makes life, then, I think this is the one.

Look at us all - we are all of us lost and in all of our different ways of pretending, we all fool ourselves into the very same hell. Look at the cross - we are all of us loved and one God meets us all at the point of our common need and brings to all of us - all who will let Him - salvation.

Deliver us from evil - from moral duplicity and weakness, from laziness and spiritual complacency, from those lies we tell ourselves from our fear of facing the truth.

Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

The best that can happen is that someone can catch a glimpse of the glory you're hinting at.

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you've done it to me. And this is what I've come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they're just wrong. They're not bad, they're just wrong . . . Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken-hearted.

It's just that for so many people that I know, Christianity's this matter of ... it has everything to do with morals. Christianity is a religion about morals. And they will even talk about Jesus. And they will say kids need to know about Jesus so they won't smoke, drink, or dance, or go with girls that do, and all that kind of thing. And I kinda go, 'That's not why people need to know about Jesus. The only reason--The only possible excuse for talking about Jesus is because we need a Savior.'

I can't see how You're leading me unless you've led me here, where I'm lost enough to let myself be led.

Love is a virtue and not a feeling. It is fed and fired by God- not by the favorable response of the beloved. Even when it doesn't seem to make a dime's worth of difference to the ones on whom it is lavished, it is still the most prized of all virtues because it is at the heart of the very character of God.

Let people see your struggles and don't ever fake it.

It always cracks me up when people try to impress God, because people don't have to impress God. He's already knocked out by you.

I take comfort in knowing that it was the shepherds to whom the angels appeared when they announced Christ's birth. Invariably throughout the course of history, God has appeared to people on the fringes. It's nice to find theological justification for your quirks.

If you've ever known the love of God, you know it's nothing but reckless and it's nothing but raging. Sometimes it hurts to be loved, and if it doesn't hurt it's probably not love, may be infatuation. I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God, but we don't really love Him, and they don't really let Him love them. Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world, it's also the only thing that can bring us salvation and it's like everything else that is really wonderful, there's a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt.

Love is found in the things we've given up, more than in the things that we have kept.

If your life is motivated by your ambition to leave a legacy, what you'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition.

We were given the Scriptures to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.

And I really suspect that of all the things we think we want to know, the only thing we really want to know is that we are loved. And if Jesus means anything, he means that you are loved. I hope you know that. And I hope you stop worrying about all the stuff you don't know, because I don't think it amounts to a hill of beans.

In the end, it's not gonna matter if you have a few scars, but it will matter if you didn't live.

Good taste has everything to do with being cultured and being refined, and if art has to do with anything, it has to do with being human.

We never understand what we're praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom.

The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa- for he has so much to look forward to.

Save me from trendy religion that makes cheap clichés out of timeless truths.

We do not find happiness by being assertive. We don't find happiness by running over people because we see what we want and they are in the way of that happiness so we either abandon them or we smash them. The Scriptures don't teach us to be assertive. The Scriptures teach us—and this is remarkable—the Scriptures teach us to be submissive. This is not a popular idea.

God spoke to Balaam through his ass. I believe God still speaks through asses today. So if God should choose to speak through you, you needn't think too highly of yourself.

When you stop being so afraid of failing you become much more free to succeed

Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him. And never assume that if it cost Him His very life, that it won't also cost you yours.

Theres a wideness in Gods mercy I cannot find in my own And He keeps His fire burning To melt this heart of stone Keeps me aching with a yearning Keeps me glad to have been caught In the reckless raging fury That they call the love of God

So go out and live real good and I promise you'll get beat up real bad. But, in a little while after you're dead, you'll be rotted away anyway. It's not gonna matter if you have a few scars. It will matter if you didn't live.

I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.

The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart -- it is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that benefits mankind. It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice -- it does not so much nibble at our shoe leather as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from the bone. It does not give us answers fitted to our small-minded questions, but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask.

I think that part of being human is being alone, and being lonely. I think one of the stresses on a lot of our friendships is that we require the people we love to take away that loneliness. and they really can't. And so, when we still feel lonely, even in the company of people we love, we become angry with them because they don't do what we think they're supposed to. Which is really something that they can't do for us.

It's so funny being a Christian musician. It always scares me when people think so highly of Christian music, Contemporary Christian music especially. Because I kinda go, I know a lot of us, and we don't know jack about anything. Not that I don't want you to buy our records and come to our concerts. I sure do. But you should come for entertainment. If you really want spiritual nourishment, you should go to church...you should read the Scriptures.

The hardest part of being a Christian is surrendering and that is where the real struggle happens. Once we have overcome our own desire to be elevated, our own desire to be recognized, our own desire to be independent and all those things that we value very much because we are Americans and we are part of this American culture. Once we have overcome that struggle then God can use us as a part of His body to accomplish what the body of Christ was left here to accomplish.

I grew up hearing everyone tell me 'God loves you'. I would say big deal, God loves everybody. That don't make me special! That just proves that God ain't got no taste. And, I don't think He does. Thank God! Because He takes the junk of our lives and makes the most beautiful art.

I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and He has been speaking through asses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'.

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

I think I would rather live on the verge of falling and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some pietistic illusion of moral excellence. Not that I don't want to be morally excellent but my faith isn't in the idea that I'm more moral than anybody else. My faith is in the idea that God and His love are greater than whatever sins any of us commit.

God notices you. The fact is he can't take his eyes off of you. However badly you think of yourself, God is crazy about you. God is in love with you. Some of us even fear that someday we'll do something so bad that he won't notice us anymore. Well, let me tell you, God loves you completely. And he knew us at our worst before he ever began to love us at all. And in the love of God there are no degrees, there is only love.