begin.

"one must take off her fear like clothing;

one must travel at night;

this is the seeking after God."

-maureen morehead.

today. (every day).

He must become greater. 
i must become less.

a long process.

"The apostle Paul was one of the most mature Christians who ever walked the face of the earth. But he saw himself being torn—the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Paul was in the middle, having to make the choice. If he had not grown spiritually, he would never have seen the conflict; his mind would have passed right over it. Thus, on the one hand, Paul delighted in his understanding of the purpose and perfection of God's law, yet on the other, that insight produced much dismay in him because he could see how far short he fell, from time to time, of its perfection.

The existence of this inward conflict is not a sign that the person is not sanctified. As long as we are in the flesh, we will never be entirely free of this struggle. Human nature does not go down without a fight. It must be overcome! In a way, this evil entity within us actually becomes part of the means of our perfection.

Overcoming is a long process, and it requires diligent and humbling effort to subdue our human nature. However, we must never allow ourselves to fall into the attitude that all of our effort is somehow justifying us before God—even though it pleases God and gratifies us. The holiest of our actions, the holiest of the actions of the holiest saints, are still full of imperfections and defects. Even some of these are done from the wrong motive. They could even qualify as being nothing more than a splendid sin in God's sight. Nevertheless, we are saved by grace through faith. Even with that, God requires that we make an effort to do what we can on our part."

-john ritenbaugh.

try.

"it is not complicated to live a spiritual life, but it is difficult. we are blind, and subject to a thousand illusions. we must expect to be making mistakes almost all the time. we must be content to fall repeatedly and to begin again to try to deny ourselves, for the love of God.

it is when we are angry at own mistakes that we tend most of all to deny ourselves for love of ourselves. we want to shake off the hateful thing that has humbled us. in our rush to escape the humiliation of our mistakes, we run head first into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation. and so we spend our lives running back and forth from one attachment to another.

if that is all our self-denial amounts to, our mistakes will never help us.

the thing to do when you have made a mistake is not to give up what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well."

-thomas merton.

look.

"do not look anxiously about you, I AM your God."

Isaiah 41.

the L-rd is my shepherd.

"those who hope in me will not be disappointed...do I lack the strength to rescue you?"

-the L-RD, isaiah.

Yes. (and amen).

"for no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'yes' in Christ. and so through him the 'amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God."

-2 Corinthians.