Our tendency is to pray for miracles. But in most situations, it is more appropriate to pray for opportunities.

So let me take some pressure off. Your problem is not discipline. Your problem is not organization. Your problem is not that you have yet to stumble onto the perfect schedule. And your problem is not that the folks at home demand too much of your time. The problem is this: there's not enough time to get everything done that you're convinced—or others have convinced you—needs to get done.

There's never any cumulative value to all the things we do instead of the things we know are truly important.

There is a cumulative value to investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period. There are rarely any immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time in any arena of life. Neglect has a cumulative effect. here is no cumulative value to the urgent things we allow to interfere with the important things. If all of this is true, and time equals life, what is the wise thing to do as it relates to your time?

Whenever I counsel someone who feels called to be an evangelist, I always urge them to guard their time and not feel like they have to do everything.

Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

Your days are your life in miniature. As you live your hours, so you create your years. As you live your days, so you craft your life. What you do today is actually creating your future. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, the food you eat and the actions you take are defining your destiny — shaping who you are becoming and what your life will stand for. Small choices lead to giant consequences over time. There's no such thing as an unimportant day.

The time you least feel like doing something is the best time to do it.

Our environment either inspires who we want to become or challenges us on what we must avoid.

The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.

Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.