The Hound of Heaven calls me to enter into a relationship with Him through which I will find that service is freedom, weakness is strength, humility is power, obedience is liberty and losing life is finding new life. Such apparent contradictions turn the world’s wisdom upside down; but whenever, timidly and tentatively, I respond to this call, I find a rightness, a truth, a congruity and a peace which passes understanding.- Mary Frances Wagley

Let us ever bless God that the Gospel sets before us such a Savior, so faithful to the terms of the covenant--so ready to suffer--so willing to be reckoned sin and a curse in our stead. Let us not doubt that He who fulfilled his engagement to suffer, will also fulfill His engagement to save all who come to Him. Let us not only accept Him gladly as our Redeemer and Advocate, but gladly give ourselves, and all we have, to His service. Surely, if Jesus cheerfully died for us, it is a small thing to require Christians to live for Him.~ J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985], 215. {Mark 10:28-34}

In the first garden “Not Your will but mine” [by Adam] changed Paradise to desert and brought man from Eden to Gethsemane. Now “Not My will but Yours” [by Jesus Christ] brings anguish to the Man who prays it but transforms the desert into the kingdom and brings man from Gethsemane to the gates of glory.- D.A. Carson, Matthew, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1984, p. 545,

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.- Thomas Merton, 1915 - 1968

When ambition ends, happiness begins.- Thomas Merton, 1915 - 1968