If you want to write about the mountain - you have to experience the mountain.

To reach the top of the mountain was to experience everything that the mountain had to offer; to see the land below in all it's glory and the other mountains that joined in union. I was seeing the full picture; recieving the full gift that the mountain wanted to give...the reason it was there. We had endured the climb and reached the top, and this was our reward.

I believe that God gives each one of us our own mountain. God wasn't wanting to give me inspiration of the mountain by what it looked like but he wanted to give me the gift of the mountain by what if felt like to experience it.

Lorna Main. FANCY A CLIMB?

Making art now means...living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want means finding nourishment within the work itself.

Bayles & Orland. ART & FEAR: OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERILS (AND REWARDS) OF ARTMAKING.

"I began to see things about myself I'd never seen before, like how demanding I can be, and how little I trust Jesus with the details of my life. But you know what? My failures didn't seem to matter to him. He just kept showing me how real he wanted to be in my life."

"That's great! I know it is hard to believe, but enjoying that simple relationships will accomplish everything God wants to do through you."

Jake Colsen. SO YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY INTO THE REALITY OF THE FATHER'S FAMILY.

The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and “the lilies of the field”— simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.

If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live— yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.

Oswald Chambers quoted by Anne Jackson on flowerdust.net

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

Henry Adams. THE DYNAMO & THE VIRGIN

I'm reminded of a conversation with David McFadzean (co-creator of Home Improvement) a few years ago a when he critiqued an idea I had for a proposed nationally syndicated radio show. "Dick," he said, "you and I both know the electronic media has severe limitations. It does certain things well--entertain, inform, create awareness, BUT", David went on to say, "in my experience, transformation happens local, grassroots, in community..."

I suspect the truest influencers today are parents raising their kids, school teachers educating them, pastors in local churches where souls and spirits are nurtured, coaches of kids sports teams and countless others making a difference locally.

You won't see them on TV--they won’t make the news--they are the backbone of civilization.I'm not saying these TIME 100 newsmakers aren’t important--it is just that those drawn to the big stage and driven by ambition and a desire for notoriety seem like the influencers, but are really just the widely known--the rest labor in obscurity.

Dick Staub. STAUBLOG: TIME 100 Most Influential?

The essense of Jesus' prayer [in John 17: 1-19] is that the Father's pledged will be done in his life, in order that God might be truly known and that thereby eternal life might come to men.

D.A. Carson. THE FAREWELL DISCOURSE AND FINAL PRAYER OF JESUS.

Save me,
save me from the kingdom of comfort where i am king.
From my unhealthy lust for material things.

Save me,
save me from the kingdom of comfort where i am king
to this kingdom of heaven where you are king.

delirious? KINGDOM OF COMFORT

Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?

Eugene Peterson. THE MESSAGE. Galatians 3:5

There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from each other, or else collide with one another and do one another damage... The other is when things go wrong inside the individual--when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another.

C.S.Lewis. MERE CHRISTIANITY.