"Whiners produce when they feel like it. Winners produce when they don't feel like it." - John Maxwell, Leadership, Summer 1995

"Many people quench the Spirit by being down in the mouth rather than rejoicing, by planning rather than praying, by murmuring rather than giving thanks, and by worrying instead of trusting in him who is faithful." - Cameron Townsend, Founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators

"There may be times when you will be sorry about something you said; sorry that you stayed too late, or sorry that you went so early; sorry that you won something, or lost; but all your life, you'll never be sorry you were kind." - Anonymous

"It is much easier to fix blame than to fix problems." - Kathleen Parker in the Orlando Sentinel

"What we see as we go through life always depends upon where we stand to look. Many a man who tries to talk as if he were standing on a mountain, shows by what he says that he is up to his eyes in the mud." - Billy Sunday in a sermon, 'Under the Sun,' from The Real Billy Sunday

"If successful, don't crow; if defeated, don't croak." - Samuel Chadwick (quoted in Interest, Jul/Aug 1994)

"The real danger in our situation lies in the fact that so many people see clearly what they are revolting from and so few see at all what they are revolting to." - Henry Emerson Fosdick

"From Pennsylvania State University comes confirmation of what you always suspected. People take longer to vacate a parking space when they know someone is waiting. Sociologist Barry Ruback and colleagues observed 200 departing drivers in a mall parking lot. When no one was waiting for them to leave, the drivers took an average of 26 seconds to back out of their spots. Bring a hovering driver on the scene, and that time increases to 31 seconds. Honk a horn and you're going to wait an excruciating 43 seconds. Ruback relates this behavior to our territorial instinct to defend our space. Sounds like pure contrariness to us!" - Health, September 1997

Attitude

In Becoming a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg tell this story:

"A newly promoted colonel had moved into a makeshift office during the Gulf War. He was just getting unpacked when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a private with a toolbox coming his way.

Wanting to seem important, he grabbed the phone: 'Yes, General Schwarzkopf. Of course, I think that's an excellent plan.' He continued: 'You've got my support on it. Thanks for checking with me. Let's touch base again soon, Norm, Goodbye.'

'And what can I do for you?' He asked the private.

'Uhhh, I'm just here to hook up your phone.'" - Ron Willoughby, Augusta, GA

Authenticity

"A college professor sometime ago through a study of national statistics, discovered that the average depth of rivers in America is two and one-half feet. Yet he drowned the next year trying to wade across the Mississippi River. Accepting the average may be dangerous."

"'I am about an average Christian' declared one church member. Yet in defending his mediocre manner of Christian living, he made the mistake of thinking that 'average' and 'normal' mean the same thing. They do not."

"When a person is average, he is just as near the bottom as he is the top. In this light, an average Christian is subnormal while our Lord redeems us for a nobler kind of living. The average church member attends one service each week - some weeks."

"If churches were open for the average member, they would operate only on a part time basis."

"To be only an average Christian - is both subnormal and dangerous."

Average

"When you turn your back on God, any way you go is a wrong direction." - Anonymous

"Backsliding starts when kneebending stops." - Anonymous

"Jesus healed a crippled man, then said, '…take up thy bed and walk.' In other words, make no provisions for a relapse. In what ways can we make no such provision? Change your atmosphere, change your attitude, and change your activity…these were all educed from the story. I point out that the little phrase, '…and walk,' is another cure for backsliding. By walking, the once crippled man could leave the place of helplessness, the place of self-pity, and the place of sympathy." - Jess Moody

Backsliding

"We live in a nation where we slaughter our children, and we act surprised when they slaughter each other…God help us. - Rev. Tim Percy at the funeral of Kayce Steger, Nichole Hadley, and Jessica James, who - after finishing a prayer meeting - were shot by a fellow Paducah, Ky., high school student." -- Youthworker, San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 6, 1998.

"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we wish." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, quoted in Good News (July/August 1994).

"Abigail Van Buren once wrote about a woman who listened to a mother verbally destroy her child. The woman told the mother, 'I'll give you a dollar for him.' Only then did the mother realize the value of her child." - R.J. Thesman in The Christian Leader (March 10, 1992).

"I've gone through three different abortions with girlfriends, and it really took a lot out of me. So I sang this to the child I never had." - Estranged Stone Temple Pilot singer Scott Weiland on 'Son,' a selection from his 12 Bar Blues solo album, Details, April 1998.

"President Reagan did what few presidents have done while in office. He wrote a full-length article for a journal of opinion (The Human Life Review). 'The real question is not when human life begins, but, what is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law - the same right we have.'" - President Ronald Reagan

"The horrible procedure is most common with triplets and more, but is sometimes used even to eliminate one of a pair of twins. Wall Street Journal reporter Barbara Carton last week described a true case of reducing triplets to twins: 'Dr. Evans hovers over the woman's belly with a foot-long needle and examines shadowy uterine images on the ultrasound scanner. He looks for a deformity that would make the selection easier, but finally he says: .'We don't see anything obviously wrong with any of them, so we're just debating which is easiest to get to'. He decides, then pierces her belly, guiding the needle until he punctures the chest cavity of one fetus. 'Perfect,' he whispers. He injects three cubic centimeters of potassium chloride. The fetus flails its arms and legs, then stops.' The typical excuse, believe it or not, is that it would be inhumane to run the statistical risks of a multiple pregnancy. Those risks are real, to be sure - but at their worst, hardly as terrifying for the baby as the altogether certain effect of the search and destroy mission so regularly employed. In fact, it's blatant selfishness - not humane generosity - that drives 'fetal reduction.' The Wall Street Journal writer suggests a telling question pondered by those who seek such destruction: 'What if you eliminate one or more fetuses, and then the others don't survive?'" -- Joel Belz, WORLD, December 6,1997

Abortion

"'You can't tell people for two or three generations, as even some theologians have, that truth is relative and that nothing is absolute-and then expect them to produce justice...You can't tell people that truth is relative and expect them to produce good government, worthwhile education, or honest business. So it's not just a little tinkering here and there that is necessary to get our confidence in the court systems back again...No system of any kind works when the people themselves have lost their way.'" -Joel Belz, World, October 14, 1995.

"Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism. - Hunter S. Thompson

Absolutes

"May you live all the days of your life." - Jonathan Swift

"A university professor tells of being invited to speak at a military base one December and there meeting an unforgettable soldier named Ralph. Ralph had been sent to meet him at the airport, and after they had introduced themselves, they headed toward the baggage claim. As they walked down the concourse, Ralph kept disappearing. Once to help an older woman whose suitcase had fallen open. Once to lift two toddlers up to where they could see Santa Claus. And again to give directions to someone who was lost. Each time he I came back with a big smile on his face.

'Where did you learn to do that?' the professor asked.

'Do what?' Ralph said.

'Where did you learn to live like that?'

'Oh,' Ralph said, 'during the war, I guess.' Then he told the professor about his tour of duty in Vietmam, about how it was his job to clear mine fields, and how he watched his friends blow up before his eyes, one after another. 'I learned to live between steps,' he said. 'I never knew whether the next one would be my last, so I learned to get everything I could out of the moment between when I picked up my foot and when I put it down again. Every step I took was a whole new world, and I guess I've just been that way ever since.'"

"The abundance of our lives is not determined by how long we live, but how well we live. Christ makes abundant life possible if we choose to live it now." - Barbara Brown Taylor, Clarkesville, Georgia

Abundant Life

"Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed." - anonymous

Accountability

"Adultery is something that shakes the roots of the family, which is why most people who attempted open marriage in the '60s and '70s came back to monogamy-for pragmatic reasons. I find myself in a situation where I would rather give up sexual freedom than give up trust." - Erica Jong, who wrote books in the '70s advocating sexual freedom (quoted in Citizen, Oct. 20, 1997, page 8)

Adultery

"God wants us to have purpose. We must be careful not to settle for ambition." - Max Anders

"Average people look forward to 'getting off.' Successful people look forward to 'getting on.'" - Jim Rohn, First Draft, April 1998

Ambition

"Many people literally stuff their anger-they keep it down by putting food on top of it. This process is similar to packing in wadding when loading a cannon - and the results can be just as explosive." - Love Hunger by F. Minirth

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight." - Phyllis Diller

"Every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness." - anonymous

"Anger. It can explode like an erupting volcano; it can also sizzle slowly, breeding bitterness and resentment. It's sometimes disguised through sarcasm, grudges, fearfulness, or rebellion, but the long-term effects are always predictable. Physical health, mental well-being, and interpersonal relationships begin to deteriorate when anger is continually handled in a spiritually destructive manner. The emotion of anger in itself is not sin, for God is righteously indignant over man's sin every day. But the snare of human rage manifests our selfishness." - anonymous

"I'm supposed to hate something, but I'm not sure what. I wasn't even here last year, and I'm mad. - Marty Carter, safety for the Chicago Bears, on their rivalry with the Green Bay Packers

"It is the great duty of all Christians to put off anger. It unfits for duty…a man cannot wrestle with God and wrangle with his neighbor at the same time. Short sins often cost us long and sad sorrows." - Philip Henry

"In a 1994 article, 'War's Lethal Leftovers Threaten Europeans,' Associated Press reporter Christopher Burns writes: 'The bombs of World War II are still killing in Europe. They turn up - and sometimes blow up - at construction sites, in fishing nets, or on beaches fifty years after the guns fell silent. 'Hundreds of tons of explosives are recovered every year in France alone. Thirteen old bombs exploded in France last year, killing twelve people and wounding eleven, the Interior Minister said. 'I've lost two of my colleagues,' said Yvon Bouvet, who heads a government team in the Champagne-Ardennes region that defuses explosives from both World War I and II… 'Unexploded bombs become more dangerous with time, Bouvet said. 'With the corrosion inside, the weapon becomes more unstable, the detonator can be exposed.' What is true of lingering bombs is also true of lingering anger. Buried anger will explode when we least expect it." - Barry McGee, Anderson, California

Anger

"Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive." - Oswald Chambers

"For a successful season of prayer, the best beginning is confession." - Charles Spurgeon

"The devil is in constant conspiracy against a preacher who really prays, for it has been said that what a minister is in his prayer closet is what he is, no more, no less." - Vance Havner

"The measure of any Christian is his prayer life." - Vance Havner

"The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting." - Vance Havner

"The purpose of prayer is not to inform God of our needs, but to invite Him to rule our lives." - Clarence Bauman

"We are all too busy to use the mightiest weapon God has given us - prayer!" - J. Sidlow Baxter

"God's promises lie like giant corpses without life, only for decay and dust, unless men appropriate those promises by earnest and prevailing prayer." - E. M. Bounds

"A day without prayer is a boast against God." - Owen Carr

"What isn't won in prayer first, is never won at all." - Malcolm Cook

"God has editing rights over our prayers."' - Stephen Crotts

"Those who pray most in private pray best in public." - R. Edward Davenport

"Many people pray as if God were a Tylenol. They only come to God with their aches and pains, never with their adoration and praise." - Michael Catt

"True prayer always receives what it asks for - or something better." - Byron Edwards

"You can do more than pray - but only after you have prayed." - S. D. Gordon

"Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine." - C. S. Lewis

"The less I pray, the harder it gets; the more I pray, the better it goes." - Martin Luther

"The best prayers have often more groans than words." - John Bunyan

"I am convinced that nothing in Christianity is so rarely attained as a praying heart." - Charles Finney

"Self-examination is the high road to prayer." - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"When you kneel in prayer, don't give God orders, just report to your Commander in Chief for duty." - Michael Catt

"Prayer is not only our approach to God, but also his approach to us." - E. F. Hallock

"Prayer is not monologue but dialogue. God's voice in response to mine is its most essential part." - Andrew Murray

"True prayer is born out of brokenness." - Frances Roberts

"Many a person is praying for rain with his tub the wrong side up." - Sam Jones

"I'd rather be able to pray than be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray." - D. L. Moody

"Books on prayer are good, but not good enough. As books on cooking are good but hopeless unless there is food to work on, so with prayer. One can read a library of prayer books and not be one whit more powerful in prayer. We must learn to pray, and we must pray to learn to pray." - Leonard Ravenhill

"Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name." - Thomas Benton Brooks

"Real prayer is taking His Word into the Throne Room and letting His words speak through our lips to Him on the throne, calling His attention to His own promises." - E. W. Kenyon

"Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness." - Hannah More

"There are particular things about which we ought to pray, for which we are commanded to pray; for all the saints, for the Word of God, for the Christian ministry, for all souls." - G. Campbell Morgan

"There is nothing that makes us love a man as much as praying for him." - William Law

"Intercession is simply love at prayer." - Henrietta C. Mears

Prayer