A DANGER OF MINISTRY SUCCESS

'Sadly achievement can turn humble servant leaders into proud, controlling, and unapproachable mini-kings.' 

Paul David Tripp, Lead, p.49.

GOOD IS GOOD

'Some years ago, I noticed amid the grading of many papers (the plight of every English professor) how often the positive feedback I wrote on my students' work consisted simply of the comment "good." I contemplated varying that word with others. But then I realized that good is the best word. (It is certainly easy to write!). Once in a while, the world excellent might be warranted. But not often. We live in a society so obsessed with "the best" that good is seldom good enough. But good is good.  it is very good. It is the way God characterized his own creation in Genesis.' 

Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well, p.131. 

DON'T WAIT TO HAVE THE TIME

'The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.' 

CS Lewis, 'Learning in War-Time' in CS Lewis Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories, p.177.  

A GOOD WEEK

'Often when we look back on a "good" week, we think is was good because it was comfortable, predictable, pleasurable, controllable, successful, etc. Our evaluation of the week is shaped by our wants, feelings and estimation of our needs. But there is another "good" that God is working on. He is using this period of time to continue the work of radical rescue and restoration that he has begun in us.'

Paul David Tripp, Broken-Down House, p.165.

HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS

'Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.'
Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p.xiv.