People need recreation, need to be achieving, need to contribute; but if these come at the cost of friendship with Christ, the price is much too high.
Marion D. HanksGod loves us and believes in us and has done and will do anything he can to help us, but he will not impose on our free agency.
Marion D. HanksEvery human being is trying to say something to others. Trying to cry out I am alive, notice me! Speak to me! Confirm that I am important, that I matter!!
Marion D. HanksNot only our eternal salvation depends upon our willingness and capacity to forgive wrongs committed against us. Our joy and satisfaction in this life, and our true freedom, depend upon our doing so. When Christ bade us turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, give our cloak to him who takes our coat, was it to be chiefly out of consideration for the bully, the brute, the thief? Or was it to relieve the one aggrieved of the destructive burden that resentment and anger lay upon us?
Marion D. HanksMaterial objectives consume too much of our attention. The struggle for what we need or for more than we need exhausts our time and energy. We pursue pleasure or entertainment, or become very involved in associations or civic matters. Of course, people need recreation, need to be achieving, need to contribute, but if these come at the cost of friendship with Christ, the price is much too high. The substitutions we fashion to take the place of God in our lives truly hold no water. To the measure we thus refuse the "living water," we miss the joy we could have.
Marion D. HanksThe question is not why good people have trials, but how shall good people respond when they are tried?
Marion D. HanksThere is no bravery in evil, no true courage in behavior that can only result in deep disappointment.
Marion D. HanksNone of us can afford to pay the price of resenting...because of what it does to us.
Marion D. HanksLearning is not automatic. You do not automatically know how to read because you turn five. Most of us are sensitive to the fact that we still have something to learn at every step of the way. Learning is not automatic. It comes with seeking and searching, with reading and watching, with thinking, praying, and listening.
Marion D. Hanks