^{Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word,
the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
~ Dietrich Bonhöffer}

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

The very thing we are afraid of, our brokenness, is the door to our Father’s heart.
~ Paul Miller, author, executive director, discipling ministry

More solemn oaths are often sworn by a look and a movement of the head than are heard in law-courts.
~ Honoré de Balzac, 1799-1850, novelist & playwright, Cousin Bette

As my AA and NA friends have repeatedly reminded me, rigorous honesty is the first rule of recovery.
~ from Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets

Matthew 5:33-37

The living human community that language creates involves living human bodies. We need to talk together, speaker and hearer here, now. We know that. We feel it. We feel the absence of it. Speech connects us so immediately and vitally because it is a physical, bodily process, to begin with.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929-2018, author, The Wave in the Mind

It is my conviction that our heavenly Father says the same to us every day: “My dear child, you must always remember who you are.”
~ John Stott, 1921-2011, Anglican priest, theologian

We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.
~ David G. Benner, 1947- , Psychologist, The Gift of Being Yourself

Thus to wait for the Lord is to live the covenant life, to commit the future into God’s hands by means of living a daily life that shows that we know his ways of integrity, honesty, faithfulness, simplicity, mercy, generosity, and self denial. The person who does not wait for these things may be waiting for something, but he or she is not waiting for the Lord.
~ John Oswalt, 1940- , scholar, NIVAC Commentary: Isaiah, Zondervan

For so sworn good or evil, an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world’s end.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Silmarillion

^{To value one another is our greatest safety, and
to indulge in fear and contempt is our gravest error.
~ Marilynne Robinson}

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer—so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) from The Scarlet Letter

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man’s wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.
~ Augustine of Hippo (354-430) theologian and philosopher

Matthew 5:27-30

Hyperbole is not easily dealt with. Usually, it collapses under its own weight.
~ Gwen Ifill (1955-2016) journalist

I’ll believe that when pigs fly.
~ old English phrase

I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.
~ Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024, president, diplomat

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
~ Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) wife and philanthropist

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616) playwright and poet

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
~ J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) author and scholar

We are not sent into this world mainly to enjoy the loveliness therein, not to sit us down in passive ease; no, we were sent here for action. The soul that seeks to do the will of God with a pure heart, fervently, does not yield to the lethargy of ease.
~ Dorthea Dix (1802-1887) social reformer

Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence of it.
~ Eugene Peterson, 1932-2018