Quote of the day#4

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

AND (because I think they can be read together...)

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."~G. K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"

Quote of the day#3

"If you're not growing, if you're not walking with Jesus; if you're not being challenged by Jesus, if you're not learning from Jesus; if you're not receiving the forgiveness and restoration and mercy of Jesus, if you're not paying attention: Then even the past fruit of your life will shrivel up and blow away. See the Christian life is either growing or dying. And most people who think they're standing still are dying; they're dying. It's grow or die. And those who pay attention grow.These words are life, they really are. But you have to pay attention. You have to kneel before a king, not rub your chin and take advice from a good teacher. And when we're doing that a change will happen, it just will. Not because we're pursing change. Converts will happen not even because we're pursing converts; because we're pursing Jesus. Change happens because you pursue Jesus not because you pursue change. Discipleship happens not because you're pursuing discipleship but because you're pursuing Jesus."~Sharad Yadav (my Pastor!)