"I guess I'm looking for what any guy is looking for. I want a companion, you know. Just someone to share life with. I want her to be my biggest fan and I want to be her biggest fan, too. I want us to raise kids in a home where they know their parents are in love with each other, with them, and with God. I guess that's all I want."

"You know what I want in a woman, Paul?" "What's that?" "A friend. A true friend; someone who knows me and loves me anyway. You know, like when I'm through putting my best foot forward, she's still there, still the same."

"Worship is not just something we feel, it is something we sweat."

"Living with a woman is going to be really tough. They tend to be really domesticated, you know. They fold things and clean things and know what they are going to have for dinner several hours before it's time to eat."

"It does not escape me that I am blessed to be included in this tale of a billion human conflicts and singular resolution."

"Sometimes I think these self-righteous labors are attempts to impress myself rather than sincere strides toward God."

"No poet, in his greatest imaginings, could conceive of anything greater than the real;"

"This is a James Taylor moment and we are stuck with a piano player who wants to sound like Enya and a southern funk band that, somewhere along the line, fell into thinking Alabama is a sweet place to call home."

"There are two types of men in this world--one is looking for a woman to make his life complete and the other is looking for a woman to join his complete life."

"All this beauty makes a person realize how insignificant they are," Paul says. "How insignificant I am. You're the insignificant one" He grins real big as he realizes how his words sounded. "I didn't mean it like that," he chuckles. "No, I know what you meant, bud. I was just thinking kind of the same thing. I was looking at all this depth and it came to me how very shallow you are." "Ha, ha," Paul chortles. He takes a few steps down the trail and turns. "You know, Don, I was just looking at this little flowery cactus here and thinking how nice it looks and it made me realize how ugly you are." "Is that right," I say. "Well, I was just considering how smart these rocks look and it made me realize how dumb you are." With that I give him a little kick in the backside. "How smart these rocks are?" he heckles. "Well, I was just looking at that cloud up there, reflecting on its beauty and stuff, and it hit me how much you smell." "Is that right," I say. "The cloud made you realize that, huh?" Paul distances himself a little and keeps turning to see if I am going to kick him again. He's got this grin going like he got the last laugh. "You know, Paul, I was just looking at this pebble and it made me realize that I'm going to tackle you and throw you off the ledge." "I see. That's real deep, Don. The pebble; you got that from a pebble?"

"But I think that God does not so much take us from point A to point B in the physical world as He takes us from not knowing Him to knowing Him."

"It gives me great confidence and pride to think that, had the Israelites been influenced by German engineering, Paul and Timothy might have journeyed in an old Volkswagen camping van."

"I need more than a bedtime story, I need more than a youth group God.I am looking for a savior. A guide. An existential answer to my questions about purpose and meaning. I want true fulfillment in my Christian faith. I am looking for joy."

"It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless."

"Well, a lot of times we are looking for a sign that tells us we're godly. We want to preach, or be a missionary or whatever, all to help ourselves believe that God is using us. We look everywhere but to God to make us feel godly. We try to convince others we are godly so that we can convince ourselves we are godly. The bottom line is that godliness is about relationship, not about image"

"Could we, with human reason, process the finality of death, we would be very different souls, giving more than we take, forgiving easily, and listening with all that is in us for the answers to questions we would not have otherwise asked."

"Cupid is fat and slow and can't hit moving targets."

"A man is not really a true man until he owns his own home, and they that own their homes are made more honorable and honest and pure, true and economical and careful, by owning the home."

"There is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of someone else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow."

"To make money honestly is to preach the gospel."

"Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money."

"I say that you ought to get rich, and it is our duty to get rich."

"Truth is an antidote against error. Error is the adultery of the mind."

"Just so is the case of many; God gives them precious time in which they are to provide for a kingdom, and they waste this time of life and cut it all into chips. Let this excite violence in the things of God. It is the main errand of our living here..."

"When zeal like incense burns, first the lamp of knowledge must be lighted."

"Truth is unerring; it is the star which leads to Christ. Truth is pure (Psa 119:140)"

"Though heaven be given us freely, yet we must contend for it, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might" (Eccl 9:10). Our work is great, our time short, our Master urgent. We have need therefore to summon together all the powers of our souls and strive as in a matter of life and death, that we may arrive at the kingdom above."

""The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved" (2 Peter 3:12), but not that truth which came from heaven (1 Peter 1:25)"

"That preaching is to be preferred which makes the truest discovery of men's sins and shows them their hearts."

"Truth has noble effects. Truth is the seed of the new birth. God does not regenerate us by miracles or revelations, but by the word of truth (James 1:18). As truth is the breeder of grace, so it is the feeder of it (1Ti 4:6). Truth sanctifies: "Sanctify them through Thy truth" (John 17:17)."

"...too much leniency emboldens sin..."

"In Adam we all suffered shipwreck and repentance is the only plank left us after shipwreck to swim to heaven."

"The first sermon that Christ preached, indeed, the first word of his sermon was 'Repent'."

"O that we would therefore, while we are on this side of the grave, make our peace with God! Tomorrow may be our dying day; let this be our repenting day."

"Repentance is a pure gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance; there it was, sin and die. Repentance came in by the gospel. Christ has purchased in his blood that repenting sinners shall be saved."

"We may read many truths in the Bible, but we cannot know them savingly, till God by his Spirit shines upon our soul."

"Repentance is never out of season."

"The two great graces essential to a saint in this life are faith and repentance. These are the two wings by which he flies to heaven."

"Repentance is a grace of God's Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed."

"Though the way of religion has thorns in it with respect to persecution, yet it is full of roses with respect to that inward peace and contentment that the soul finds in it."

"There is nothing that can hurt the soul but sin; it is not affliction that hurts it, it often makes it better, as the furnace makes gold the purer; but it is sin that damnifies."

"Seriousness is the Christian's ballast which keeps him from being overturned with vanity."

"Obedience carries in it the life-blood of religion."

"The excellence of a thing is the end for which it was made; as of a star to give light, and of a plant to be fruitful. So the excellence of a Christian is to answer the end of his creation, which is to hallow God’s name, and live to that God by whom he lives."

"...the vinegar of the law, then the wine of the gospel..."

"Though heaven be given us freely, yet we must contend for it, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might" (Eccl. 9:10)"

"God gave necessities to man, that all men might need; and several abilities to several persons, that each man might help to supply the public needs, and, by joining to fill up all wants, they may be knit together by justice, as the parts of the world are by nature."

"Let no man appropriate to his own use what God, by a special mercy, or the republic, hath made common; for that is both against justice and charity too; and by miraculous accidents, God hath declared his displeasure against such enclosure."

"...for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens..."

"...since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit."