Courtesy, not control, that was His means. Just as He requested the stars to sing, and they leapt into bright being, so request was to be their rule over bird and beast, seas and trees, mountains and moons and all the dancing distances between the heavenlier filled with the unending song of Creation.

— Geoffrey Wood

Denial makes it easier to keep an addiction progressing smoothly along and, being a lie, it’s just better form.

— Geoffrey Wood

Even if their guilt actually does produce a good action, it will be the saddest good action you’ll ever see, and it will be of no use to them because their goal is not to obey, but to feel less guilty, thus nothing about their souls will be reshaped.

— Geoffrey Wood

Everyone needs to calm down! Okay, you got a weird cookie. So what? I don’t mean to swat your ego here, buddy, but this smacks a little narcissistic for me. God is not trying to communicate to you through a cookie. It doesn’t work that way. God’s not all Jack-and-the-magic-beans and tooth-beneath-the pillow voodoo. You don’t just close your eyes, flap open your Bible, and slam a steak knife into a verse. It’s that sort of thinking that leads to witch trials and Senate probes.

— Geoffrey Wood

Finally, slowly, trippingly, degrade the term Choice down to its most meager means: The red car not the black one. The 9:25 showing, not the 7:15. Ritz not Wheat Thins.

— Geoffrey Wood

For example, your man might think: I don’t steal. Maybe on my taxes, everyone does that, but not in the way I heard so-and-so stole from his company. See? Those men for whose opinion he cares approve of embezzlement in one area, not the other. He uses them to maintain a claim on goodness while at the same time stealing.

— Geoffrey Wood

Grace runs downhill and now all his time is being redeemed.

— Geoffrey Wood

Gratitude, not guilt, as motivation is always His starting point, thus guilt as a motivation leads nowhere.

— Geoffrey Wood

Guilt, if cultivated in a Christian client, can render their Christianity worthless to themselves and others.

— Geoffrey Wood

I don’t even like the phrase ‘opportunity to sin’ because it implies the opportunity to obey.

— Geoffrey Wood