We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt.

The different parts of the automobile like the ignition switch, the various buttons, the steering wheel - the interfaces between the driver and the machine - is our spirit or heart.

The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best.

Almost everything worth doing in human life is very difficult in its early stages and the good we are aiming at is never available at first, to strengthen us when we seem to need it most.

Many people get what they need from church attendance because the Word is preached, and the rituals are carried on, and God works, but it's drift more than anything else. And that's why the churches keep reaching for some programmatic formula that will make people come and give money. It's just really very sad.

God will meet us and help us.

Bodily pleasure is not in itself a bad thing. But when it is exalted to a necessity and we become dependent upon it, then we are slaves of our body and its feelings. Only misery lies ahead.