“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
Jon Krakauer, Into The World, and quoted by Aron Ralston in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Atria Books, a trademark of Simon Schuster, Inc., 2004, p. 73.

The good Lord didn’t create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes and sand gnats come close.

Forbidden fruits create many jams .

The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God’s will is our law; it is fully come when God’s will is our will.

…George MacDonald (1824-1905)

“Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service,” writes John Stott. “If we do not use the mind which God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality.”

He that gives should never remember, he that receives should never forget.

…Talmud

Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

… J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Plain Christianity [1954]

Augustine shows clearly the religious character of sin. Sin for him is not a moral failure; it is not even disobedience. Disobedience is a consequence but not the cause. The cause is: turning away from God, and from God as the highest good, as the love with which God loves Himself, through us. For this reason, since sin has this character — if you say “sins”, it is easily dissolved into moral sins; but sin is first of all basically the power of turning away from God. For this very reason, no moral remedy is possible. Only one remedy is possible: return to God. But this of course is possible only in the power of God, and this power is lost. This is the state of man under the conditions of existence.

…Paul Tillich (1886-1965), A History of Christian Thought [1968]

“People say that we’re searching for the meaning of life. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think what we’re seeking is a spirit of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, and quoted by Aron Ralston in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Atria Books, a trademark of Simon Schuster, Inc., 2004, p. 173.
Doubts: A man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood… Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.
George Macdonald (1824-1905), “The Voice of Job,” Unspoken Sermons, Second Series [1885]
Meditation:
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
— 1 Thessalonians 5;21 (KJV)

When you get to your wit’s end, you’ll find God lives there.