The Voice of the Heart Quotes

“Feel your feelings—take responsibility for the content of your heart. Tell the truth—be vulnerable and truthful with others. Give it to God—ask for help from others and God, and recognize that you are needy and incapable on your own. Follow life’s call—pursue your heart’s desires.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“You see, paradoxically, it is with those you have harmed, sought forgiveness from, and received forgiveness from that you are able to have the most fulfilling relationships. It is by truthfully revealing your heart to others and God that you find full life and healing from the pain of old wounds that are infected with unresolved guilt. You also find love as a gift of grace that you receive through admission, not merit.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Feelings are not impulses that need to be controlled; they are tools that we need to learn how to use well so that we do not behave impulsively and act out without the ability to take responsibility. They are tools that allow us to live truthfully and move responsibly. They are good because they allow us to process life experience—not as a mechanical rationale of moving ourselves about like widgets, but to process life as a living, breathing experience over which we really do not have control. Feelings are required material to be able to live the human experience rather than a mechanistic objectification of our existence.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“of our hearts. In truth, rage and anger are miles apart. Rage rejects the fear of having desire. Anger is an acknowledgment of the depth of our desire. Rage denies our humanity with a willful fury against vulnerability. Anger acknowledges our humanity with all of its hungers. Fear has in it a desire for something to stop, or a desire for something to start. In our anger we reach out in vulnerability, saying, “I want that to stop. I want this to change.” We will know if we are fearful rather than full of rage by whether or not we can be in contact with other feelings and use those feelings for benefit. By mistaking rage for anger, we end up thinking that someone else’s anger is a rejection of us. Because we have experienced people raging at us, many of us have anxiety about anyone expressing anger toward us. When they raged at us, they were indeed”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“RESENTMENT We often attempt to avoid the truth and vulnerability of hurt by hiding it, denying it, or dying from it. We label hurt as an enemy and we become prideful and fearful of it. Examples abound, from alcoholism to eating disorders, compulsive materialism to glory-seeking, epicureanism to stoicism. While genetic predispositions can contribute, anything that we use to cover, deny, or destroy our emotional and spiritual hurt is detrimental to full life. Avoiding hurt renders us numb and, therefore, numbs our hearts and their hunger for healing and life which comes through relationships. Resentment is the product of trying to find solutions that reject hurt. When hurt is denied, minimized, or projected onto another, it becomes resentment. Through resentment we are able to deflect the focus from the internal pain and onto someone or something else. This impaired expression of hurt kills relationships and, therefore, stops all healing. Healing comes through relationship of the heart. Resentment denies the heart. In resentment, not only do I try to remove myself from the truth, but I also try to hide my resentment because it reveals that something has gotten to my heart—I’m vulnerable. This attempt to escape pain uses denial and blame to stave off vulnerability and, therefore, blocks the heart’s experience of healing, forgiveness, acceptance, and love. Resentment is unfortunately a logical and effective reaction to hurt. It justifies itself based upon the actions of another. Nursing a grudge generates its own energy because it keeps us from facing our own powerlessness over others and from accepting our vulnerability to pain. It is an attempt to have our cake and eat it, too. Resentment allows us to know that we have pain, keep it secret, and find others to blame—making them responsible for fixing it. It even leads us in our denial to believe that if others would change, our hurt would be assuaged. Resentment and Rejection Consider the following example of the complexity of hurt and resentment. My spouse finally asks me, “What’s wrong?” and I respond in a clear tone, “Nothing.” This “nothing” exposes the”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“We suffer depression to escape from anger.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Submit to authority—recognize your limitations and listen to words and guidance that helps you grow. Acknowledge that you matter—there is nothing you can do to be more or less loved by the One who made you. Recognize what you value—cherish it for what it is, a gift. Risk loss—you will find joy and success.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“No matter where you go with your heart, you will find fuller life because living from your heart awakens your dependency, vulnerability, and neediness for relationship with others and God.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“The two greatest commandments begin to be fulfilled in the recognition of the awakening of the human heart. Unless you’re able to recognize the state of your heart, you cannot value mine, and you also cannot hear God’s calling.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“The truth is that you cannot love your neighbor unless you love yourself first.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“In realizing our worth, we begin to see what Jesus was talking about when He was asked which commandment was the greatest. He said to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. He then said that a second “which is like the first” is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said to love yourself. In recognizing the value of yourself, you’re recognizing how God made you and others.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“To know God relationally, personally, intimately, is a powerful experience. In the pursuit of an intimate relationship with the Giver of Life, we begin to find our lives reshaped and transformed until we are living in the expression of our hearts’ desires. We come to recognize our brokenness, and in our brokenness we find our inheritance of full life.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Simply put, if we do these three things—feel our feelings, tell the truth, and give it to God—full life will follow.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Ultimately, gladness comes as a distinctive characteristic of someone who has surrendered his heart to something or someone greater than himself. Ultimate fulfillment in life—gladness—is a matter of the heart, and at the heart’s deepest core we are truly fulfilled by a consuming relationship with God.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Fulfilled of heart or “blessed” are the “poor in spirit” because they will become people who face the depth of their hunger to live fully as emotional and spiritual creatures.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Wherever there is hope, there is gladness. Wherever hope is fulfilled, there is more gladness.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“you need to reveal truthfully your guilt to God, offering your heart in the trust that God will provide forgiveness in return. In this way, your heart finds rest and freedom from the burden of living under the weight of guilt.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“The deeper the harm before forgiveness, the deeper the relationship can be when forgiveness is granted.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“To refuse our need of forgiveness or to believe that all can be made well by good intentions and hard work is to reject mercy and grace. Mercy brings tenderness to our lives. Grace brings amazement. Both bring gratefulness. Without guilt we miss the beauty of being loved.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“We don’t create ourselves; we are created. We don’t forgive ourselves; we are forgiven. We are not God; we need God and the help of others.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Now in this knowledge of fear, go hug your children, kiss your father, tell your mother of your hurt, tell God you need more, tell your spouse you were wrong. Admit to your self your lack of sufficiency, your inability to control your circumstances, and your hunger for love. Release your anxieties, embrace your fears, and pursue wisdom. Grow into faith. Reach out for help. Give it away.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“in place of facing our fear through relationship, we grow anxious for control over our fears.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“We are personally responsible for making choices, yet we cannot succeed alone. We are limited, yet we will forever find that great strength lies in relying upon one another. Depending is good. We don’t have enough knowledge, wisdom, or power to succeed alone, yet we are completely responsible for all of our choices.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Judgment hides fear. It is a form of stopping fear without listening to it. It keeps us from hearing the meaning of our fear in the moment when we are experiencing it.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“By listening to our fear, we recognize our value and prepare to prevent harm to ourselves and others.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“When we are around someone who is sarcastic or belittling, for example, our hearts beat with caution.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Until we truly feel our own pain by recognizing that life gets to our hearts, we cannot meet others in their pain.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Through pride, we justify our behaviors instead of accepting responsibility.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“Tears are gifts that we give to whatever we lose.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living

“When you take part in relational hurting and healing with God and others, you find that restored hope leads to the truth of authentic faith—because you have actually experienced it. By trusting hope with action, you find healing experiences. These new experiences prove hope and trust to be valuable, real, and good. Hurting, reaching, and trusting create faith. There is mysterious power in the fact that through the pain of hurt, you and I find deeper faith and greater strength.”
― Chip Dodd, The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living