The answer, The answer, my friend, is not yours to invent or create. It will be decided for you. It is outside you. It is real and objective and firm. One day you will hear it. You donโt create it. You donโt define it. It comes to you, and sooner or later you conform to itโor bow to it.
John PiperIt was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, โIโve wasted it!โ then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be Godโs passion.
John PiperLife is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.
John PiperGod is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings.
John PiperThe engagement of the heart in worship is the coming alive of the feelings and emotions and affections of the heart. Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead.
John Piper