“We need not suppose that we can serve two masters. If we try, we may be sure of one thing- that our master will not be the Christ, for He will not accept us on those terms.”

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”

“When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.”

“Our day -- with its confusion and noise, its blurry, dark, and whirling pace - is much like a hurricane. The steadying voice is not found shouting above it all. Stability speaks in the quiet interior, "in the stillness" where prayer begins and the testimony of Christ is kept, that familiar chamber where we detect truth and where we chose to do the right thing.In that place of patient hearing, we find out what the Master would like us to do. There, we can avoid getting tangled in other things. There, we decide to do His short list of tasks. There, we resist adding to our marching orders, avoiding the tendency to dwarf His list with a longer list of our own.If we fail to listen in those depths, if we ignore the interior voice, if we indulge ourselves in self-appointed missions, we will soon complain that we have too many things to do. And then a hundred hours in a day will not be enough. The truth is, we don't need more time for doing things. We need more vision about what few things to do.”

“It is in the home that our behavior is most significant. It is the place where our actions have the greatest impact, for good or ill. Sometimes we are so much “at home” that we no longer guard our words. We forget simple civility. If we are not on guard, we can fall into the habit of criticizing one another, losing our tempers, or behaving selfishly. Because they love us, our spouses and children may be quick to forgive, but they often carry away in silence unseen injuries and unspoken heartache.”

“The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.”

“Passion is what we live for. The excitement it brings us, the drive we feel to do it, the feeling of emptiness and confusion if we ever lost it. Like a lover, it can cheat and leave us, but also infatuate us. With drool dripping down our chins, we lunge and become one with it so we are inseparable—complete—as our insides begin exploding like fireworks. We claw ourselves onto it like we aren’t ever going to let go of that single craving. Sometimes, it feels like we won’t....”