Victory over Circumstance

"If you would live in victory over the circumstances great and small that come to you each day. . . and if you want God's life and power to well up from the depths of your being. . . then you must refuse to be dominated by the seen and the felt." 

                  - Amy Carmichael

The Skeleton at the Feast

"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."

         - Frederick Buechner

"for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God."

            James 1:20

Giddy in the Getty

Took my daughter to the Getty a few months ago and captured 17 seconds of butterfly dances & carefree bliss.     They don't sell this in stores, of course, but I would be first in line to buy "carefree bliss" in injectable form.     Wish I could freeze time, sweetie! :-)

The 2nd Before the 1st

"The controlling principle of the biblical philosophy of history rests in the precept of the second before the first. God often chooses the 'nothings' (1 Cor. 1:26:27). Only in this way is the self praise of man destroyed. It is a pervading characteristic of the whole course of redemption that God chooses the younger before the elder, sets the smaller in priority to the greater, and chooses the second before the first. Not Cain but Abel and his substitute Seth; not Japheth but Shem; not Ishmael but Isaac; not Esau but Jacob; not Manasseh but Ephraim; not Aaron but Moses; not Eliab but David; not the Old Covenant but the New; not the first Adam but the last Adam. The first becomes last and the last becomes first."
 
          - Joseph Dillow, The Reign of the Servant Kings

Gospel-Based Sanctification

"The irony of gospel-based sanctification is that those who end up obeying more are those who increasingly realize that their standing with God is not based on their obedience, but Christ’s.

The people who actually end up performing better are those who understand that their relationship with God doesn’t depend on their performance for Jesus, but Jesus’ performance for us."

- Tullian Tchividjian, from his post “Does the Gospel Scare You?”