The weakness of your Christian life is that you want to work it out partly, and to let God help you.

I learned this early on in the variety store business: you've got to give folks responsibility, you've got to trust them, and then you've got to check on them.

Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain, Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice.

From the perpetual necessity of consulting the animal faculties, in our provision for the present life, arises the difficulty of withstanding their impulses, even in cases where they ought to be of no weight; for the motions of sense are instantaneous, its objects strike unsought, we are accustomed to follow its directions, and therefore often submit to the sentence without examining the authority of the judge.

I felt free this time, knowing I had a job and that I wasn't going to be graded. I could simply experiment and create. The thought occurred to me that if I always lived under the certainty of God's provision instead of the certainty of Lexi's worry, I might always feel this free.

What they had most feared had happened, and yet what lay ahead was a wonderful plan they could not have imagined on their own. God had things well under control.

The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.

Often God will send us what we need in a package we don't want. Why? To let us know He's God and we cannot second-guess Him. We cannot search for answers merely with our heads; we must seek Him and His provision with our hearts. Scripture cannot be interpreted from our limited human mental understanding. There must be a breath of the Spirit of God. He alone gives wise counsel and correct application.

Do not take the agenda that someone else has mapped out for your life.

We are men born in a land of eternal darkness. We grope where we cannot see clearly. Why mistrust what ancient books say? Why mistrust what our souls say? Our forefathers gave us this lamp, and the flame was lit in brighter days, when men saw further. I agree the lamp-light of such far-off lore, is dim for us; but surely that proves it to be folly, not wisdom, to cast the lamp aside: for then we are blind.

Grant, Almighty God, since thou hast delivered to us a sure rule of worship, which cannot deceive us, and since thy Son became for us a perfect master of all wisdom and of solid piety, that we may obediently follow whatever he prescribes for us..."

This is how we can distinguish true religion from superstition: when the Word of God directs us, there is true religion; but when each man follows his own opinion, or when men join together to follow an opinion they hold in common, the result is always concocted superstition.