Part of the thrill of guiding children into adulthood is the release. But it's also a parent's greatest act of surrender. Still, you have to let them go. Start now.

So, you want to be like Christ? Me too. But that kind of godliness won't just happen by hanging around a church or thinking lofty thoughts three or four times a day or learning a few verses of Scripture. It will take more - much more. Disciplining ourselves will require the same kind of focused thinking and living that our Master modeled during His brief life on earth.

"Do not lean on your own understanding." That means don't bring in the crutches and lean on them, those crutches that you have designed and made to handle such situations. Stay away from them. Don't lean on them; lean on God.

When we attempt to find meaning in the pursuit of pleasure, the commitment to a job, or through plumbing intellectual depths, we all eventually find in each of these pursuits a dead end.

The crisis of physical hunger is essentially a crisis of faith. What or whom will you trust to meet your most basic needs? Will you trust the God who made human bodies, or will you seek your own way? (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)

There is an enormous difference between growing old in the Lord and growing up in Him. One is automatic and requires no effort at all ... just aging. But the other is never automatic, or easy. It calls for personal discipline, continual determination, and spiritual desire. Churches are full of sleepy saints who are merely 'logging time' in God's family.

Let`s choose each day and every day to keep an attitude of faith and joy and belief and compassion.