The faster you go today, the more you’ll miss. Haste really does make waste.
“[L]ove and hurry are fundamentally incompatible.” Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
“Be very careful how you live.” Ephesians 5:15
back-to-back
When you promise yourself that you’ll start (or stop) doing something, it’s easy to lose heart and quit. When you promise a buddy, too, it isn’t.
“Though one may be overpowered, two can stand back-to-back and resist.” Ecclesiastes 4:12
“Those who succeed in forming a new habit do so, not because they never fall down, but because they keep getting back up.” Unknown
open wide
When the present is squeezed between your past regrets and your future fears, you don’t have much breathing space (or joy).
“I have lived [as] the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.” Ann Voskamp
“[B]ecome like little children. . . .” Matthew 18:3
dry and drooping
One of my houseplants was dry and drooping this morning, so I watered it. In an hour or so, it will perk up again. That’s what happened to me yesterday when a friend listened.
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping and then, with the breath of kindness, blowing the rest away.” Dinah Maria Craik
Father, thank you for giving _____ a listening heart. From 1 Kings 3:9
every small chance
When you’re looking for every small chance to say or do something good for the good of the people around you, you’re not looking at yourself (which is its own reward).
“[D]o good . . . expecting nothing in return. . . .” Luke 6:35
“You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” Henri Nouwen
against the world's weather
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a person is to imagine him unafraid.
“The original shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead, we live out of all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather.” Frederick Buechner
Father, please help me to see _____ through Your kind eyes. From 1 Samuel 16:7