Jon Foreman Quotes

My faith, I mean, that's such a personal aspect that a lot of times, of course it's going to come out through the song. But at the same time, I'm not a religious salesman. I feel like God doesn't really need a salesman, and what these songs are are simply my interactions with this life and learning. I guess the bottom line is the songs are really honest, you know what I mean. That faith is going to come through. If the listener is looking for it, that's definitely a part of it.

If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past, then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed.

As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.

Why is it that everything is collapsing if gravity is pulling us together?

The biggest thing that I've learned is to run the marathon, not the sprint. By that I mean, don't let the little problems that you face in the hour in daily life cast a shadow over the larger joys that you have, over the course of the years.

I'm always looking to find order within the chaos. And sometimes when my life gets fairly chaotic, I'll take a walk outside. I think about the order and the perfection of galaxies of planets in orbit and traveling around space and thinking how chaotic the wars and divorces and riots on our planet must look from outer space.

Don't be discouraged, but know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance brings character, and character brings hope, and this is a hope which will not disappoint us.

Most of the time a spark of beauty or truth will start a fire of a song but fires rarely produce goodness on their own ... you need to control them and put them to work.

Music is admitted under the skin without permission.

I think that to believe is to acknowledge that it's a choice in that present tense and that doubt is always an option. You’re not dealing with a fact like one plus one equals two—I’m gonna choose to believe that. It’s kind of one of those things where you are choosing to believe that someone loves you. That is always going to be your choice. So for me, I think that’s what makes the faith that I have volatile and explosive and dangerous and troubling. That’s what most of my songs are about.

I think sunrises are rarer for me, but sunset is my favourite time of day.

It was a beautiful letdown, the day I knew, that all the riches this world had to offer me, will never do.

I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.

I think of myself as more of a lover rather than a fighter, but sometimes you have to fight for what you love.

Pain is a common emotion in many of my songs mainly because I often don't know other ways to express it adequately. In my songs I wrestle with the things that I don't understand.

I’m really only responsible to make sure that one person is clapping at the end of my life. Because I feel like as a performer, a lot of times you live for everyone else’s applause. That’s a dangerous thing within the church or outside the church.

I look for places where there's no one out on the water. I'd rather surf a wave to myself than fight a crowd.

My best sunsets are always going to be in my home town, San Diego. Watching the sunset from the Pacific knowing that you're sleeping in your own bed, there's something special about that.

Music is a handshake where I, as a songwriter, am only part of the equation. I love that, the fact that you can make the song your own.

Nothing stays together without a fight.

The biggest problem facing our world today is a lack of hope and a lack of meaning. [It's] basically just a postmodern world in which there is no right or wrong, no better or worse.

Information has become king, whereas wisdom should be king and there is a big difference between the two.

Think deeply about life, it's worth it!

Surfing and music were incredible outlets for me when I was a kid. And there are some really tricky times when you're growing up and it's easy to make a wrong decision, even with a good family and community around you. Surfing and music kept me out of trouble.

The kingdom of heaven is comprised of the broken, the fatherless, the poor, the starving. Nothing that could create good ratings for NBC.

Please be slow to judge ‘brothers’ who have a different calling.

You want songs to sound cohesive with the other songs on the record but when you first start writing you just want to write to tell the truth.

For me, I want to create a environment for the songs to live in. So one song by itself only tells a piece of the story, but in the context of the album, more of the colors are revealed.

When I'm happy, when I'm enjoying life, I'm home, I'm surfing, I'm spending time with my wife, my friends and I'm not thinking about the pain. And then the moment I encounter something that feels difficult, I feel like that's when, for me, I turn to writing and thinking and maybe a song comes from that.

Switchfoot is a surfing term… To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music.

I don’t think we can solve the outside problems until we solve the ones within.

Live rather than talk. Talk is cheap and the tabloids scream about it every day.

What you do with your life is ascribing more to what you invest your time in. If you spend a lot of time on your phone, you're ascribing more worship to that. Anything can become, by that definition, some form of idol or deity or ultimate worth in your life.

I've experienced more sunrises with my bandmates and friends out on the road than with my wife, because we're always up at these strange times in the mornings trying to catch a plane.

Let me know that you hear me, let me know Your touch, let me know that You love me, and let that be enough

I feel like that's something the church has done really badly is actually confessing. We are sinners. We are broken, shattered people that do things selfishly, out of arrogance, pride, lust, greed. And all have fallen short. That doesn't mean some we're definitely a part of that inclusive all.

I've got a variety of different sources of news that I follow and every day there's going to be different headlines, different stories spun different ways and different sources that they're going to cite as their facts.

Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric.

Experience is all I have. I equate song-writing with archeology. Every day you dig. You dig into different places within yourself - even finding places that you've rarely been. And buried within the soil is song.

Life is a battlefield. I don't have enough time on the planet to play games.

IF YOU APPROACH THE WORLD WITH THE APRON OF A SERVANT,THEN YOU ARE ALLOWED TO GO PLACES THAT YOU CAN'T GO IF YOU APPROACH IT WITH THE CROWN OF A KING

Hope is not a substitute for pain. Hope is in spite of pain.

Sometimes it can be really hard in our fast paced society to slow ourselves down enough to begin to listen to God's voice. The dilemma exists in my position as well. To be a follower of Christ is to emulate Him. When He went off alone into the desert to pray, He was teaching a valuable lesson.

Your story matters, who you are matters, tonight matters, none of it is an accident. You were born for the blue skies.

Hope is not something you can just place in your back pocket or put your fingers around – it’s the belief in a world that has yet to exist.