Doing Good for the Sake of the Gospel

In your teaching show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned…

Sometimes, we zoom in on the details of our lives and all we can see is the small picture -the problems, issues, and specifics of what we need to do today. These moments are real. They’re the heart of our lives. It’s good to stay focused and attend to them, but sometimes we need to step back and see the big picture, too.

p. 201, Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie

The high calling of our daily work.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.

Do everything in love.

p. 22, reflections on daily living, Howard E. Butt, Jr. of laity lodge

Open your heart to all you meet. If it is not safe, you’ll know. But don’t close your heart. Just move in another direction. Don’t worry about getting your heart broken. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it’s the price you pay for opening your heart, for taking the risk. But if it does happen, you can allow your heart to heal, then open it once again.

Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie

We need not know the unknown to know rest and peace in it.

Dennis Martin, Beside the Still Waters, volume 27, issue 4

Even the tallest tree, the one that reaches hundreds of feet into the sky has roots that go deep into the earth. The higher we want to travel on spiritual planes, the more we need to learn to ground ourselves. Our roots need to go deep into the earth too.

… You are a soul, a spirit, but you have a body too. Remember and nurture your spirit, but take time to attend to your body. connect with the physical, connect with the energy of the earth…

Journey to the heart, Melody Beattie

Be patient with yourself. It takes time to workout issues, to work through things. It takes time to learn lessons. The more important the lesson, the longer the cycle to work it out, to work it through.

We may live in a technical age but our souls aren’t technical. They’re all connected to nature. We grow and change as nature does. Study her seasons and cycles and learn those same seasons and cycles are in each of us. The process of change is like planting a seed and watching it grow and bloom into a flower.

Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie

Believing in life means we can trust – trust in the nature and rhythm of life with all its constant change. We believe in transformation, change, and purpose.

Believing in life means we’re not in bondage to the past. No matter what we’ve done, what decisions we’ve made, we set ourselves free to trust ourselves now. We trust what we feel, we trust what we know, we trust what we think we need to do next. Believing in life means we trust that the lessons we’re learning are real. They’re valuable and Divinely ordained…

p. 166, Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie

Every religious faith has it’s own language. Each has its own frame of reference. But most roads lead to the same destination: taking our place in the Divine rhythm of life, recognizing Divinity in all that is – in others, in ourselves, and in all the creations of the universe.

p. 129, Journey to the heart, Melody Beattie

We cannot possibly be ”the light of the world” if we are known to be dishonest.

Beside the still waters, Titus Yoder