Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The truth was he'd overreacted that day because he didn't like running into her. Sure, there was danger from wild bulls and grizzlies in the area—though Rylan hadn't foreseen the two tangling. But the real reason it upset him to find her was she wasn't exactly safe from him. Oh, he'd never physically harm her, but he might end up spending time with her and talking and learning all about her.

run off, are you?" Rafe hesitated. "Nope, I'm not running

The devil is who torments good folks in the night. He whispers doubt in your ear. He stirs up anger. He picks at any little mistake you've made, or thinks you've made, and blows it up big. That's Satan, stirring and stirring trouble, like a pot he's trying to boil over, hoping he can spill sin through your soul and slop it all over the people around you.

Battling wolves today strengthens you for battling lions tomorrow.

Whining is not only graceless, but it can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.

It was a badly kept secret in foreign policy circles that Mohammed bin Salman—MBS—had a cocaine problem and could disappear for days or longer on benders, or on long and frightening (at least for other passengers) trips on his yacht. He also spent hours every day planted in front of a screen playing video games. Like Trump, he was often described as a petulant child.

He believed he could spook the other side.

To Walsh, the proud political pro, the chaos, the rivalries, and the president's own lack of focus and lack of concern were simply incomprehensible.

And so the world fell under the influence of one who hated God, hated his creation and in particular hated that part of creation that bore God's image. All the maladies and miseries of the world originated here—all the sickness and suffering began here, with a wrongful ruler given power by our wrongdoing. In the darkness of his evil heart, the devil conceived a plan to oppose God's purposes by stealing the position designed for us.

Successful resistance to temptation may result in an increase of moral muscle, but that is because one is going to need it. A temptation resisted may become more, not less, fierce.

Skepticism is no more "neutral" or "objective" than faith. It has thrived in the post-Enlightenment world, which didn't want God (or, in many cases, anyone else either) to be king. Saying this doesn't, of course, prove anything in itself. It just suggests that we keep an open mind and recognize that skepticism too comes with its own agenda.