CHANGE

'...Five Kinds of Hard Things that can change your world:

• things that take you outside your comfort zone - taking risks to grow
• things that go beyond what's expected or required - pursuing excellence
• things that are too big to accomplish alone - dreaming and daring big
• things that don't earn an immediate payoff - being faithful and choosing integrity
• things that go against the cultural norm - taking a stand for what is right'

Alex & Brett Harris, Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, p.212.

THE BIBLE

'...don't seek to know God apart from his Word or read the Word without realizing that you are in the presence of God...Say to the Lord from your heart, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears." If you get into the habit of taking the Word for granted, it will harden you rather than bless you. Since the Word is powerful it never leaves you the same. It will leave you either better off or worse off.'

John Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord, p.50.

PERFECTION

'In this life there is always a sadness in perfection; we feel that we are made for it, and yet we cannot make it stay.'

Peter Jensen, At the Heart of the Universe, p.15.

HATRED

‘”…the danger with hatred is, once you start on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can’t stop. I don’t know anything harder to control than hating. Easier to kick drinking than to master hatred. And that is saying something.”’
Philip Roth, The Human Stain, p.328.

CHRISTIAN LIFE

‘A little child is easily affected with grief at temporal evils, and his heart melted, and falls a weeping. Thus tender is the heart of a Christian with regard to sin. A little child is easily afrightened at the appearance of outward evils, or anything that threatens its hurt. So is a Christian apt to be alarmed at the appearance of moral evil, and anything that threatens the hurt of the soul. A little child, when it meets enemies, of fierce beasts, is not apt to trust in its own strength, but flies to its parents for refuge. So a saint is not self-confident in engaging spiritual enemies, but flies to Christ. A little child is apt to be suspicious of evil in places of danger, afraid in the dark, afraid when left alone, or far from home. So is the a saint apt to be sensible of his spiritual dangers, jealous of himself, full of fear when he can’t see his way plain before him, afraid to be left alone, and to be at a distance from God...A little child is apt to be afraid of superiors, and to dread their anger, and tremble at their frowns and threatening. So is a true saint respect to God...A little child approaches superiors with awe. So do the saints approach God with holy awe and reverence.’
Jonathan Edwards in Sam Storms, Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affeactions, p.128.

BEREAVEMENT

'This happened on December 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you.

And it will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you.

That's what I'm here to tell you.

You see me on this stage, you sit next to me at dinner, you know what happened to me.

You don't want to think it could happen to you.'

Joan Didion, Year of Magical Thinking (Play)

FAITH

'The moment one asks onself "Do I believe?" all belief seems to go. I think this is because one is trying to turn round and look at something which is there to be used and work from - trying to take out one's eyes instead of keeping them in the right place and seeing with them. I find that it happens about other matters as well as faith. In my experience only v.robust pleasures will stand the question, "Am I really enjoying this?" Or attention - the moment I begin thinking about my attention (to a book or a lecture) I have ipso facto ceased attending. St. Paul speaks of "Faith actualised in Love". And "the heart is deceitful"; you know better than I how very unreliable introspection is.'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol II, p.983.

PRAYER

'Of course it is very difficult to keep God only before one for more than a few seconds. Our minds are in ruins before we bring them to Him & the rebuilding is gradual. It may help to practice concentration on other objects twice a week quite apart from one's prayer: i.e. sit down looking at some physical object (say, a flower) and try for a few seconds to attend exclusively to it, quietly (never impatiently) rejecting the train of thought & imagination wh. keep starting up.'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol. II, p.826.