I can be absolutely assured that any endeavor of which God is not a part is most certainly a step backward. And any step backward is at least two steps behind where I’d be if I’d have gone forward in the first place.

My worth is not based on the ‘work of my hands’ despite how feverishly I might work and how audaciously successful I might be. Rather, my worth is based exclusively on the astonishing fact that I am the ‘work of God’s hands.

Sometimes consequences are building blocks fashioned of granite when successes are shaped of clay.

Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase is going up or down.

Will it take the death of me to finally learn that the things that I describe as success may very well be the death of me?

I think that it is infinitely wiser to accept the fact that we’re afraid, for in accepting our fear we are in no way granting it the power to crush us. Rather we are finally empowering ourselves sufficiently so that we can crush it.

More times than not, going backwards is a necessary part of going forwards.

Sometimes my successes come quickly and at other times they are terribly slow to arrive. It is not my place to determine the speed at which they arrive or if they arrive at all. My place is to keep forging ahead no matter what.

When it comes to life, I would much rather have run the race well than have run the race fast. For if we understand life, we would realize that the first one to cross the finish line is not necessarily the one who actually won the race.