Top 70 Emily P. Freeman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I don’t believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.”

— Emily P. Freeman

2. “Jesus does not turn away from the world, but turns to face it. Jesus came down. He turns toward. He makes his face to shine upon. He shows compassion. He sits with. His with-ness is so important that every time we say his name, we declare it – Immanuel, God with us.”

— Emily P. Freeman

3. “You are designed to reflect the glory of God, and when you release the fullness of who you most deeply are, we will see God because we’re finally seeing you.”

— Emily P. Freeman

4. “Worry is a thief, Fear is a liar, and Anxiety is their trembling, furrow-browed baby.”

— Emily P. Freeman

5. “It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God – but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people – and this is not learned in five minutes. – Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.”

— Emily P. Freeman

6. “Jesus came to save me from myself. He came to save me from self-effort. He didn’t just die for my sin to give me forgiveness; he rose again to give me life.”

— Emily P. Freeman

7. “Our Western minds are trained to go down the path of explaining. We think if we can understand it, then we can control it... We are conditioned to believe the only reason we should do things is if we know why, where we are headed, and for what purpose. No wonder we have trouble making decisions. If we don’t have clear answers or sure things, then taking a big step feels like a risk at best and a wasteful mistake at worst.”

— Emily P. Freeman

8. “We may call it “people pleasing,” but it is entirely self-serving because it is really all about keeping myself comfortable. Boiled down, it could be more accurately called “me pleasing.”

— Emily P. Freeman

9. “I don’t remember anything about that summer because I existed in a lonely fog of memories, longing, and rejection.”

— Emily P. Freeman

10. “But Tuesday teaches me that part of living well in ordinary time is letting this day be good. Letting this day be a gift. Letting this day be filled with plenty. And if it all goes wrong and my work turns to dust? This is my kind reminder that outcomes are beyond the scope of my job description.”

— Emily P. Freeman

11. “Desire often lives next door to grief inside the soul. Access the grief, and you wake up the longing as well.”

— Emily P. Freeman

12. “To accept the lively, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing.”

— Emily P. Freeman

13. “What if I began to believe that the critique isn’t just an unwelcome part of the art-making process but might actually make the art better?”

— Emily P. Freeman

14. “A No Mentor is there to help you feel confident about saying no to the things you really don’t want to do anyway or to help you finally discover your strong, brave yes in the midst of fear.”

— Emily P. Freeman

15. “There is power in naming the unnamed things. This is an important part of our decision-making practice and key to taking our next right step in love. Remember today is a plot point. See it honestly for what it is, but don’t confuse the moment for the whole story.”

— Emily P. Freeman

16. “My part is not feeding five thousand men. My part is giving my lunch to Jesus.”

— Emily P. Freeman

17. “We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people – and this is not learned in five minutes.”

— Emily P. Freeman

18. “Just because things change doesn’t mean you chose wrong in the first place. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.”

— Emily P. Freeman

19. “All beginnings, no matter what they are, hold elements of both joy and heartbreak. When we enter a new beginning, we have generally also experienced some kind of ending that comes with layered emotions and experiences of grief, transition, and letting go. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Be relentlessly kind to yourself. What if this is your next right thing?”

— Emily P. Freeman

20. “Sometimes that’s what prayer is – simply inviting God to join us where we actually are, not because He isn’t already here but because inviting Him reminds us it’s true.”

— Emily P. Freeman

21. “We were made to build, to co-create, to bring glory to God with the work of our hands, to move into the world as unique reflections of Christ. But we were not made to fill rooms, stadiums, or bank accounts. We were not made to fill our souls with worth we construct with our hands.”

— Emily P. Freeman

22. “Being his workmanship doesn’t mean we are all poets. It means we are all poems, individual created works of a creative God. And this poetry comes out uniquely through us as we worship, think, love, pray, rest, work, and exist.”

— Emily P. Freeman

23. “The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it’s a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.”

— Emily P. Freeman

24. “Either way, the result is you depending on yourself to do life right. Either way, God isn’t even in the room.”

— Emily P. Freeman

25. “I can’t prevent storms from coming, but I can decide not to invent my own.”

— Emily P. Freeman

26. “They just need to sit on a bench with someone else so they know they’re not alone. I know this because it’s what I need too.”

— Emily P. Freeman

27. “What if you began to see your art as something other than your idea? What if it was less lofty and more necessary to your daily rhythm? What if your art is part of a bigger picture, part of a daily grace God has in mind for someone else?”

— Emily P. Freeman

28. “All he wants is simply you – minus your good works, minus your perfect attendance, minus your politeness. When you really believe that, you may discover that all you want is Jesus, simply Jesus. Not just to get to heaven or to help you be a good person or do the right thing, but to simply love and be loved by him.”

— Emily P. Freeman

29. “Like you, I’m figuring out how to walk with Christ into my day, into Target, into church, into the kitchen, and most importantly, into the lives of other people. Christ doesn’t stop being relevant just because I’m standing at my sink, cleaning out my closet, meeting over coffee, driving to the bank.”

— Emily P. Freeman

30. “Jesus says his load is easy and his burden is light, but he doesn’t say there isn’t a load or a burden.”

— Emily P. Freeman

31. “I looked to my boyfriend to satisfy my Godbreathed longing for acceptance. I had my first glimpse of what it might feel like to be loved in a romantic way. It didn’t take long for me to become addicted to that feeling.”

— Emily P. Freeman

32. “Ease my fatigue with your presence and my hesitation with your peace.”

— Emily P. Freeman

33. “God does not ask us to carry burdens. He does not ask us to save the world. He does not ask us to come up with a plan. He simply asks us to ‘come’.”

— Emily P. Freeman

34. “I don’t want to live my life in such a hurry that I’m always closing the fridge door with my foot and scribbling out birthday cards in my car at the last minute. I want to make bread, or at least find the time to toast it.”

— Emily P. Freeman

35. “But the secret of the law was not to prove our inadequacy for God’s sake. It was to prove our inadequacy for our sake.”

— Emily P. Freeman

36. “True belief is movement toward God even in the midst of confusion or frustration or fear.”

— Emily P. Freeman

37. “Let’s dig deep, not to create meaning where there isn’t any, but to see Christ, our companion, where he actually is, not where we wish he was.”

— Emily P. Freeman

38. “And so the meaning of our lives is not dependent upon what we make of it but of what he is making of us.”

— Emily P. Freeman

39. “I’m exploring what it looks like to release my obsession with building a life and embrace the life Christ is building in me, one small Tuesday at a time. I hope you’ll come along.”

— Emily P. Freeman

40. “It isn’t about what we are supposed to ‘do’; it is about what we choose to ‘believe’.”

— Emily P. Freeman

41. “Picture a girl with her arms full of small packages, too many to hold all at once. When they topple and fall all around her, she stoops down and scoops them all back up, literally re-collecting all the gifts that are already hers. To set your mind is to recollect truth that already belongs to you.”

— Emily P. Freeman

42. “We praise people who never let on they are suffering.”

— Emily P. Freeman

43. “The deepest need of my soul isn’t a personal organizer or an empty inbox. The deepest need of my soul is Christ.”

— Emily P. Freeman

44. “Making a living is nothing if you’re not also making a life.”

— Emily P. Freeman

45. “You may continue to show up at a job not beacuse you necessarily wanted to be there but because your deepest desireis to provide for your family and that is truly what you want.”

— Emily P. Freeman

46. “What connections and experiences have I missed because I’m either remembering a former embarrassment or fearing a new one?”

— Emily P. Freeman

47. “What now? is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now? can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow.”

— Emily P. Freeman

48. “In the midst of grief, there is no such thing as strong women of God. There is only brokenness, desperate need, and little girls in Daddy’s lap. We are not called to be strong women. Oh, how that sentence makes me bristle. I want to be strong, independent, and capable. This broken, desperate need for Christ offends my mask.”

— Emily P. Freeman

49. “You may not be the first to say it, write it, create it, or believe it – but you saying it may be the first time someone finally hears.”

— Emily P. Freeman

50. “When we believe that God expects us to try hard to become who Jesus wants us to be, we will live in that blurry, frustrating land of Should Be rather than trust in The One Who Is.”

— Emily P. Freeman