If you're trying to find your primary refuge in your husband, if you've centered your hope on him, if your security depends on his approval, and if you will do almost anything to gain his acceptance, then you've just given to a man what rightfully belongs to God alone. And that means you've turned marriage into idol worship.

Here's what I've come to terms with in regard to mission: My first goal in life isn't to defend me. What someone thinks about me won't impact their future spiritual destiny.

We cannot receive, however, unless we set aside time for God to speak—and then let him set the agenda for our discussion. I've found that my agenda is frequently different from God's. He must be the initiator in my spiritual walk. He knows what I need to hear. When I'm consumed with my temporal problems, I miss the blessing of being out of doors.

Approached in the right way, marriage can cause us to reevaluate our dependency on other humans for our spiritual nourishment, and direct us to nurture our relationship with God instead. No human being can love us the way we long to be loved; it is just not possible for another human to reach and alleviate the spiritual ache that God has placed in all of us.

The Bible views us as recipients of God's perfect love, already charged with an important life mission (seeking first the kingdom of God), and thus the decision to marry, though crucial, won't define us. Nor will who we marry define us.

Ascetics are "strict" only because they want to reserve a major portion of their lives for their passionate pursuit of God.

We are told to seek first the kingdom of God, not seek first marriage.

Game of the Royal Way. I had discovered that when God supplied money He did it in a kingly manner, not in some groveling way. Three

It is shameful to abandon this divine communion to occupy our minds with trivial matters. We should feed and nourish our souls with high thoughts of God, which yield us great joy in devotion to Him.

Simply present yourself to God as if you were a poor man knocking on the door of a rich man, and fix your attention on His presence.

Brother Lawrence called the practice of the presence of God the easiest and shortest way to attain Christian perfection and to be protected from sin.

Yet grant, if it please You, that after having received them, I may return them just as You gave them to me; for You well know that it is not Your gifts that I seek and desire, but Yourself, and I can be content with nothing less.