It is not enough to want to get rid of one’s sins, we also need to believe in the One who saves us from our sins.

I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not.

It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns...It will remain a garden only if someone does all these things to it...If you want to see the difference between [the garden's] contribution and the gardener's, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes rakes, shears, and a packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy, and fecundity beside dead, steril things. Just so, our 'decency and common sense' show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love.

Die before you die, there is no chance after.

That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal sufferring, "No future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.

For the Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work.