Will I find spiritual communion with God sweet enough, and hope in his promises deep enough, not just to cope, but to flourish and rejoice in him?

At one level, the message of the book of Ruth is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there.

All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God.

Gratitude is the joy that arises in response to God’s good will toward us in all his gifts.

According to the spirit of this age, the ultimate sin is no longer the failure to honor and thank God but the failure to esteem oneself. Self-abasement, not God-abasement, is the evil. And the cry of deliverance is not "O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?" but "O worthy man that I am, would that I could only see it better"!

God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do.

Pastors and missionaries (need) to know God and to find in him a Treasure more satisfying than any other person or thing or relationship or experience or accomplishment in the world.