Kingdom Journeys Quotes

“If we never get out of our comfort zones we can’t grow into the places God has prepared for us.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Folded arms can’t fly.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Journeys cause you to put your status quo self into foreclosure and put a down payment on your truest self.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Restlessness is an itch that, if left unscratched, is a curse.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“A kingdom journey removes scales from our eyes & allows us to see God all around us & even within.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“God uses failure to bring us to brokenness, to force us back to a posture of dependence.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“We can’t be fully transformed in our own backyard. We need to journey.”
― Seth Barnes, Sr., Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“All kingdom journeys have an end, as do all journeys in life. Ultimately, we will have to ask ourselves if we are satisfied with how we’ve lived. Did we invest our life the way we or God wanted? Did we live well?”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“The Curse of Restlessness that can lead from one trip to the next, one job to the next, or one relationship to the next, can be transformed by a sense of contentment. An abiding peace can grow — a peace that comes from living your calling in the world.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“When we heed the truth about our greatness in him — when we first hear his whispering voice — the Gift of Restlessness stirs in our souls. We sense God calling us to something more, and it resonates inside of us. The Gift of Restlessness is just a manifestation of our deepest purpose. When we start to step into that greatness and walk in our calling, we find what we sought. Or maybe it finds us. In other words, obedience defeats restlessness.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Look at anybody you admire — from Mother Teresa to Nelson Mandela — and you’ll find that their life was filled with great pain. You’ll also see that they met the deep challenge of that pain with love. In so doing, they found the call that defined their lives.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“There are other effective programs, too. Of the faith-based journeys offered, Youth with a Mission’s Discipleship Training School is perhaps the most established. It’s a six-month experience divided into two parts. Initially, students spend three months in the classroom. Then they spend the second half of the program doing outreach internationally. There are countless other opportunities involving kingdom journey missions and travel. Some people serve full-time missionaries in a country to which they feel called. Others join a monastery for a season. Some go on a series of short-term trips, or intern with a development organization, such as Food for the Hungry. There are, of course, non-Christian opportunities that may be worth considering, Inter Exchange and Go Abroad, for example.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“The World Race is an eleven-month program that initiates young adults into a lifestyle of following Jesus by living as the early disciples did for a year.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Jesus was the original radical. He announced the arrival of a kingdom that would stand common sense on its head. Early on, after his disciples saw him heal the sick and rout the enemy, Jesus turned his boys loose on the countryside. They’d seen enough. Now it was time to do what Jesus had done: heal the sick, raise the dead, and declare the kingdom. (The whole great adventure is chronicled in Luke 9 and 10).”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“These are two very different stories. Andrew likes Matthew’s story because it features Peter’s passion and intuitive understanding of who Jesus is. I prefer Luke’s version with its more gradual relationship-building process. Both are in the Bible. The question is which path should Joe have taken? Matthew’s or Luke’s? If he had followed Matthew, he would have left immediately without telling anyone, and set out for Georgia. Had he followed Luke’s model, Joe would take several months of waiting and watching before he made his journey. For Joe, the question was whether or not he was correctly discerning God’s call to a kingdom journey. My advice to him was that hearing God can be a hard habit to start. If we’re ever going to learn to hear God, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Since Jesus already commanded his disciples to go out into the nations, our posture should be one of leaning forward, assuming that Luke 10 applies to us, too. At the same time, we should seek confirmation from other believers who hear the voice of God, that’s always wise. Joe didn’t quit his job and start hitchhiking to Georgia that day, but the seed of kingdom journey was planted in his soul. A few months later, he came to a conference that our organization hosted in Georgia. Several months after that, Joe left for a year-long trip around the world knowing he was finally following God’s call. Joe was right when he e-mailed me. He sensed the Gift of Restlessness — God’s call to leave everything. Mirroring the path we see in Luke’s version, however, he had to get more confirmation.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Am I moving toward isolation and self-reliance or toward greater dependence on God and others?” We may think we need to deal with these things on our own. But really what we need is to allow God and his church to help us find answers. “We’ve been force-fed the doctrine of self-reliance for so long that it’s embedded into the very fabric of our souls,” say authors Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.48 The irony, according to Bridges, is that the more God-given abilities we have, the more we’re prone to rely on them — rather than on God. The problem is this self-reliance is corrosive to our souls.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“When we avoid risk or compromise, God doesn’t live through us to the extent that he’d like. He wants us to depend on him and his resources. To accomplish God-sized dreams, we must jump into situations where we have to depend on him.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“How do we practice dependence in ministry? We know that the Lord always wants to rescue the lost, heal the sick, and set the captives free. So we might begin by asking him for his heart of compassion. Like Jesus, we can ask God where he’s working and how we can join him. Of course, the real test comes when we step out in obedience to what we see and hear him doing. The more frequently we risk trusting him to show up, the more he’ll prove himself trustworthy.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

“Ephesians 2:10, Paul says that God has stored up good works for us to do. If we are to do those good works, we must learn to pay attention to what we see and hear the Father doing; we must learn how to depend on him. We need to plug into another power source if we are to come close to doing what Jesus did.”
― Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline