Once you have tasted conviction, you can’t bear to keep swallowing complacency.

Holy joy lies in the habit of murmuring thanks to God for the smallest of graces.

Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.

Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan's way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus' way? WHy else get angry? Isn't it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want? When I choose-and it is a choice-to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness? Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective-more expedient-than giving thanks?

[Bill Jensen] shared his extensive publishing background with me, and prayerfully offered to work out a proposal and to see if God opened any publishing doors? I never get over the unexpected ways of God.

I have to seek God beauty. Because isn't my internal circuitry wired to seek out something worthy of worship? . True Beauty worship, worship of Creator Beauty Himself. God is present in all moments, but I do not deify the wind in the pines, the snow falling on the hemlocks, the moon over harvested wheat. Pantheism, seeing the natural world as divine, is a very different thing than seeing divine God present in all things . Nature is not God but God revealing the weight of Himself, all His glory, through the looking glass of nature.

Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's, and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul.