Our goals should stretch us bit by bit. So often when we think we have encountered a ceiling, it is really a psychological or experiential barrier that we have built ourselves. We built it and we can remove it.

Why is it that for many persons changing others is so exciting and so relevant, while changing oneself is so boring and irrelevant?

The dues of discipleship are high indeed, and how much we can take so often determines how much we can then give.

During our mortal schooling in submissiveness, we will see the visible crosses that some carry, but other crosses will go unseen. A few individuals may appear to have no trials at all, which, if it were so, would be a trial in itself. Indeed, if, as do trees, our souls had rings to measure the years of greatest personal growth, the wide rings would likely reflect the years of greatest moisture-but from tears, not rainfall.

Daily hope is vital, since the ‘Winter Quarters’ of our lives are not immediately adjacent to our promised land either. An arduous trek still awaits, but hope spurs weary disciples on.

We can be walking witnesses and standing sermons to which objective onlookers can say a quiet amen.

The harrowing of the soul can be like the harrowing of the soil; to increase the yield, things are turned upside down.