Without making a fetish of goal setting, and without letting "lists" of tasks we desire to do dominate us, some recording of goals is wise not only for the self-reminder these constitute, but also for the satisfaction of crossing things off.

How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!'

In racing marathons, one does not see the dropouts make fun of those who continue; failed runners actually cheer on those who continue the race, wishing they were still in it. Not so with the marathon of discipleship in which some dropouts then make fun of the spiritual enterprise of which they were so recently a part!

You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms.

Real hope is much more than wishful musing. It stiffens, not slackens, the spiritual spine.

If another person only had in his storehouse of deserved self-esteem what you had put there, what would he have to draw upon and to sustain him?

God’s grace will cover us like a cloak-enough to provide for survival but too thin to keep out all the cold.