Make today's decisions in light of tomorrow's hopes and dreams. The future is what brings today's choices into proper focus. Making choices with the end in mind goes a long way toward ensuring a happy ending.

There's a third thing about getting lost. The road I'm on always determines where I end up. Pretty insightful, eh? It really doesn't matter where I intended to be; the path I take determines my ultimate destination. Plans, intentions, spousal expectations . . . none of that counts. I always end up where the road I've chosen takes me. And that, as you know by now, is the theme of this book.

This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

Vision is a clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be.

In addition to a job description designed around your current employment, develop what you would consider to be the ultimate job description. This is for your eyes only. The goal of this exercise is to help you identify the niche in which you would feel most productive and consequently most successful. Dream a little.

If a teenage guy tends to overreact when he fails, there is a pretty good chance he thinks his significance is based on success.

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

Everybody ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose.

Direction, not intention determines your destination.

I've talked to many individuals who want to discuss their problems. But they don't really have problems. They have chosen to live in the wrong direction. They don't need a solution. They need a new direction.

If we can ever get the hang of life as God intended, then it becomes an adventure to be lived instead of an unknown to be feared.

Instead of picking your career and backfilling your life behind that, what if you pick your life and backfill your career with whatever is left over?