Rich Mullins

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a long time. Many months ago Dana loaned me her Rich Mullins cd/dvd. I really ought to give it back to her when she comes to visit. Rich Mullins was my hero. He wrote some of the best songs ever and I loved his honesty, candor, humor and insights about faith. So here are my favorite quotes from the dvd..



Alot of people think that Amy Grant invented Christian music, but the truth is, it's been going on for a long time. Bach just happens to be one of the really great Christian musicians.

The Bible is packed with weirdos. I always find it interesting all the people who read the Bible so they can find answers. Just about every time in my life I've found an answer, if I've gone back and read the Bible, [the Bible blows the answer] out the water. So I've given up trying to find answers in the Bible and I'm learning to look in there for the weirdest character of them all. And that would be God Almighty Himself. He who is bizarre from our whole point of view.

That someone (God) could be so totally other and so completely by Himself. Yet He could want us badly enough that He would become like us in order to help us become like Him. And if you want a religion that makes sense, I suggest something other than Christianity. But if you want a religion that makes life, then this is the one.

God is a wild man. I hope that in the course of your life you encounter Him. But let me warn you that you need to hang on for dear life. Or let go for dear life maybe is better.

Truth is not quite where we understand it. Truth doesn't have so much to do with statements of belief as it has to with..Truth is alive and it is a Person and that Person is Jesus.

The more we pursue what we think we want, the more it alludes us. OR we get what we think we want and then we find out we didn't really want it in the first place. Everything we go after will disappoint us and I don't think there's a whole lot of advantage in being terrifically assertive...We think we're going to find happiness because we see something we think happiness is supposedly contained in, and we go for it and we get it and we all live happily ever after. But that's not the way life works out, and even our own experiences tell us that. And yet we continue to be tolerant of a view of life that says nothing is more important than that you get what you want... 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.

Let me ask you this--do you think David wanted to cut off Goliath's head? I think he did.
The whole time (he's watching sheep) he's imagining he's killing Philistines. But what a drag--his father sends his brothers out to what he's dreamed of all his life and he's stuck at home watching sheep.
When David finally got to kill the giant, what did he really go out to do? How humiliating--he was taking sandwiches to his brothers. When did David kill Goliath? He got to kill Goliath after he took sandwiches to his brothers.
When we learn to obey, when we learn to follow, we may become able to lead. When we are able to listen..we are going to have something to say.
Everything in life is backward from the way we think it's supposed to be. That was God's mean little joke that He played on us all. But that's ok. If He wants to have quirks, He can--He's God after all. And we can argue with Him about it, but in the end He is going to win anyway. So we may as well say "the-Lord-giveth-and-the-Lord-taketh-away-blessed-be-the-name-of-the-Lord."
Submitting is a drag. Submitting isn't particularly exciting. Submitting doesn't give us the psychological boost of having asserted ourselves. But in submitting, we find greater happiness than we do in asserting ourselves.

If Jesus came to give us life, then maybe we're here to receive it.

The same God that put (the stars) there and made them shine, He's still there, too.

I don't know what life has for you. I don't know what life has for me. But I know this: I know that God is good. And I know that God does not lie. And I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish that He had given us someone else's life. But He chose to give you your life. Don't despair of it.