Bob Goff quotes:

Failure is just part of the process, and it's not just okay; it's better than okay. God doesn't want failure to shut us down. God didn't make it a three-strikes-and-you're-out sort of thing. It's more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.

Whimsy doesn't care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.

The words we speak to each other should leave stretch marks, not bruises. Love is always picky about what it says.

Grace means we can put the chalk away and stop keeping score!

Don't let uncertainty talk you into pursuing a backup plan instead of your purpose.

The most beautiful scenery in the world is when our friends come into view.

But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright.

Stand up like a mountain; have faith like a rock; love like an avalanche

Selfless love is always costly; fear can't afford it, pride doesn't understand it and friends never forget it.

Words people say not only have a shelf life but have the ability to shape life.

It has always seemed to me that broken things, just like broken people, get used more; it's probably because God has more pieces to work with.

Great love leaves little doubt.

I don't know every step I'm supposed to take. I think Jesus just wants me to take the next step.

Cynicism is fear posing as confidence; joy is hope let off the leash.

We all want to have a place where we can dream and escape anything that wraps steel bands around our imagination and creativity.

Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.

Our failures can leave behind pavement or potholes. Our ability to receive grace determines which it will be.

That's one of those things about love. It always assumes it can find a way to express itself.

Jesus lets us be real with our life and our faith.

God doesn't break things so He can fix them; He fixes broken things so He can use them.

I used to think God guided us by opening and closing doors, but now I know sometimes God wants us to kick some doors down.

God makes confetti out of our titles and accomplishments to celebrate the poor and the humble.

Love God, love your neighbors, and do stuff!

It will be the people with the greatest love, not the most information, who will influence us to change.

Courage doesn't mean we're not afraid anymore, it just means our actions aren't controlled by our doubts.

Something happens when you feel ownership. You no longer act like a spectator or consumer, because you're an owner. Faith is at its best when it's that way too. It's best lived when it's owned.

Too often we are posers. Don't be afraid. Be you. Live a life worthy of the calling YOU'VE received.

It's easy to confuse a lot of activity with a purposeful life. Do what lasts; let the rest fall away.

Thinking about work as a day job has made a big difference in the way I approach what I do. It also helped me not to confuse who I am with what I do.

...we need to stop plotting the course and instead just land the plane on our plans to make a difference by getting to the "do" part of faith.

We plant sod where God wants 2 plant seed. He's more interested in growing our character than having us look finished.

That's what love does - it pursues blindly, unflinchingly, and without end. When you go after something you love, you'll do anything it takes to get it, even if it costs everything.

Day turned to night, His friends scattered and death thought it had won. But heaven just started counting to three

You can quit anything on a Thursday.

No book is a chapter, no chapter tells the whole story, no mistake defines who we are. Hope makes our lives page turners.

Love does whatever it takes to multiply itself and somehow along the way everyone becomes a part of it.

Living a life fully engaged in full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget.

Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That's what I want my life to be all about - full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.

Figure out what fuels your joy, then do lots of that

Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It's not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He's made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, "Let's go do that together.

The way we love people we disagree with is the best evidence of what we really believe.

People who want to manipulate you will fear your joy, because it's not easily controlled.

Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won't have a title until much later.

Don't let not knowing how it'll end keep you from beginning. Uncertainty chases us out into the open where God is waiting.

God never said He'd eliminate all of the chaos from our lives; He just said He'd bring meaning to it.

Don't save up love like you're trying to retire on it; give it away like you're made of it.

No one leads people to Jesus; He leads people to Himself. All the pressure's off; just go love everybody without agenda.

We can't always see people's pain; they can always feel our love.

We won't be distracted by comparison if we're captivated with purpose.

Instead of closing our eyes and bowing our heads, sometimes God wants us to keep our eyes open for people in need, do something about it, and bow our whole lives to Him instead.

The teachers I've learned the most from, didn't think they were teaching me; they just thought we were friends.

Love like there's no tomorrow; live like there's no yesterday. We're forgiven; now go love people like we believe it

I used to think God wouldnâ??t talk to me, but now I know Iâ??m just selective with what I choose to hear.

Whatever you're aiming for, God's better.

See people for who they're becoming. Not who they were.

I once heard somebody say that God had closed a door on an opportunity they had hoped for. But I've always wondered if when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in our hearts because He wants it for us and it honors Him. Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God wants us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can come in.

God pursues us into whatever dark place we've landed and behind whatever locked door holds us in. He holds our unwashed and dirty hands and models how He wants us to pursue each other And He says to ordinary people like me and you that instead of closing our eyes and bowing our heads, sometimes God wants us to keep our eyes open for people in need, do something about it, and bow our whole lives to Him instead.

Go be the next humblest version of yourself.

What I've learned the more time I've spent following Jesus is that God delights in answering our impossible prayers.

Stop doing what you're able to do and figure out what you were made to do - then do lots of that.

We won't figure out what's sacred in life if we settle for what's safe.

The way we deal with uncertainty says a lot about whether Jesus is ahead of us leading, or behind us just carrying our stuff.

God isn't trying to make our lives easier; He wants to make them more meaningful.

God made beauty so we'd know how He felt about us.

We determine how much influence we'll have, when we decide how available we'll be.

There are lots of things we're able to do, but I'd like to land on the one thing I was MADE to do.

That's one of the things about love. It doesn't recognize boundaries and never obeys the rules we try to give it.

We need to make our faith our very own love story.

I've learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can't see past it. Sometimes we can't even see God because of it. When we want something that bad, it's easy to mistake what we truly need for the thing we really want. When this sort of thing happens, and it seems to happen to everyone, I've found it's because what God has for us is obscured from view, just around another bend in the road.

The real game of Bigger and Better that Jesus is playing with us usually isn't about money or possessions or even our hopes. It's about our pride. He asks if we'll give up that thing we're so proud of, that thing we believe causes us to matter in the eyes of the world, and give it up to follow Him. He's asking us, 'Will you take what you think defines you, leave it behind, and let Me define who you are instead?'

People who take huge risks aren't afraid to fail. In fact, they love to fail. It's because failing means they found the edge.

I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.

Live your life like you're exactly who Jesus thinks you are.

I used to think I could shape the circumstances around me, but now I know Jesus uses circumstances to shape me.

Insecurity wants us to keep track of our failures; grace doesn't even write them down.

Loving people the way Jesus did, means living a life of constant interruptions. Bring it.

Faith isn't figuring out what we're able to do, it's deciding what we're going to do - even when we think we can't.

Every time we see people as ordinary, we turn the wine back into water.

I don't think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, the scripts we know offer a brand of security, of predictability, of safety for us. But the problem is, they only take us where we've already been. They loop us back to places where everyone can easily go, not necessarily where we were made to go. Living a different kind of life takes some guts and grit and a new way of seeing things.

God's big plan: go love everybody, always!

Jesus always pointed people towards a better version of themselves - particularly when they'd failed.

Here's our job as believers, love everybody ALWAYS!

God often waits until we're out of ideas before He lets us know His plans. He competes for our hearts, not our attention.

Most of our decisions are driven by either love or fear. Figure out who's doing the talking, then decide what you'll do.

We'll fill our lives with what we cultivate the most. Plant grace by the acre.

I used to think being loved was the greatest thing to think about, but now I know love is never satisfied just thinking about it.

When you love people like Jesus, you get messy. But messy looks good on you!

God finds us in the holes we dig for ourselves. We see failures; He sees foundations.

Courage isn't the absence of fear, it's just deciding that fear isn't calling the shots anymore

Grace works that way. It's a kind word from a gentle person with an impossible prayer. It's a force sometimes transmitted best hand to hand in a dark place.

Don't let who you were talk you out of who you are becoming.

What distracts us will begin to define us. We don't need to swing at every pitch.

Be ambitious about things that last.

You don't need a plan; you just need to be present.

Courageous people feel the same fear everyone else does, they just decide to not be afraid anymore.

Don't let other people decide who you are.

We keep asking for answers; God keeps sending us people.

There's a lot to be concerned about; there's more to be hopeful for.

We can be the light of the world without leaving our high beams on and annoying everybody.

Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those "we'll go there next time" deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no "next time" because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.

God isn't afraid of our doubts; He's way more concerned when we fake it.

...love is never stationary.

God keeps telling us to be not afraid, to go big

Sometimes the things we think are the impediments are actually the path.

Live a life of conspicuous grace and courageous resolve.

I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them.

We're all amateurs when it comes to love. Don't be too hard on each other.

God's grace comes in all shapes, sizes, and circumstances as God continues to unfold something magnificent in me.

We'll never honor Christ if we forget how to honor each other.

I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.

I used to think that real love involved falling for someone; but now I think it usually involves standing for someone.

Grace means we don't need to airbrush our lives to make them look like they're working.

We won't be like Jesus if it's more important to us to be like each other. God doesn't compare what he creates.

Grace draws a circle around everyone and says they're in.