we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us.

God is always active in our lives. He always calls, he always asks us to take up our crosses and follow him. But do we see, feel, and recognize God's call, or do we keep waiting for that illusory moment when it will really happen? Displacement is not primarily something to do or to accomplish but something to recognize.

The first task of seeking guidance then is to touch your own struggles, doubts, and insecurities—in short, to affirm your life as a quest. Your life, my life, is given graciously by God. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

They ask only one question: what is pleasing to the Spirit of God? And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit in the silence and solitude of their hearts, they follow its promptings even if it upsets their friends, disrupts their environment, and confuses their admirers.

The loud, boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, and loving voice of God. A Christian leader is called to help people hear that voice and so be comforted and consoled.

I have learned that the swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.

Not till we are completely lost or turned around, do we begin to find ourselves.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.

To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust.

Moses had to re-check Gods' directions constantly. He obeyed God, spoke to Pharaoh, and everything went wrong, but Moses didn't quit. He went back to the Lord to clarify what was happening.

Faith accepts His divine command and steps out in a direction that only God can complete.