After 20

After 20, success has very little to teach us.

Budgets

Budgets are moral documents.

"But I'm right!"

You're right not because others agree with you, but because your facts are right. - Warren Buffett

Abandoned by God

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting an double bolting from the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.

CS Lewis
A Grief Observed

The next chapter

You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

Your talent

Your unused talents give you no advantage over one who has no talents at all.

Living in Forgiveness

The penance of perpetual regret can be a cruel stumbling block. Despite acknowledging God’s forgiveness, you can’t forgive yourself. You must let go of attempts to “make up” for your failures and instead rest in complete forgiveness.  “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).  Let that renewal flow through you to others so that you become a channel of forgiveness, freeing others from the bonds you suffered from yourself.

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away. One at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" ‘No one, sir,’ she said. Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin.’ (John 8:3-11)

There was one man who had a right to throw a stone at her that day. Instead, he forgave and told the women to live in the knowledge of that forgiveness. Likewise, he forgives us and tells us to live in that forgiveness and not in condemnation.

The prison door is open. Will you walk out?

Stephen Goforth

Travelling within

Your circumstances.. shall not long remain if you but perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. - James Lane Allen

Your anger

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
-Buddha

Murder your future

You must choose a future—and then, one by one, murder all the futures you passed over. – Andrew Boyd

"I don't feel like it"

You can’t get too much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good. -Jerry West

There's a knock at the door

You probably won’t hear opportunity knock if you the television set is always on.

God in your own image

You may safely assume that you have created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.  -Anne Lamott

Fighting again

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. - Margaret Thatcher

Plowing your field

You can't plow a field by turning it over in your mind.