It's a mystery - you go out and offer whatever it is you have to give with your whole heart, you meet lovely people along the way, you see some unforgettable places, you think, I'm doing what it is I was put on this earth to do. You arrive home feeling like you've accomplished something... You get all the suitcases and guitars back into the house, and drop onto the couch in a state of exhilarated exhaustion. But then sooner or later ... Everything begins to fade to black and a door swings open and doubts walk in like they own the place. 

We're failures.    This is all a waste of time.     What were we thinking?    Who are we kidding? 

I don't know where the dark clouds in my head come from, but Karin and I have learned not to try to solve the world's problems when we've just returned home. I guess we just need some time for our souls to catch up with our bodies.

Linford Detweiler.

All that is not rooted in him...all hope or joy that does not turn its face upward, is an idolatry. Our prayers must rise that our thoughts may follow them.

George MacDonald. THE HIGHLANDER'S LAST SONG.

As a young man wants a regular allowance from his father which he can count on as his own, within which he makes his own plans…so they desired to be on their own, to take care for their own future, to plan for pleasure and for security to have a meum from which, no doubt, they would pay some reasonable tribute to God in the way of time, attention, and love, but which nevertheless, was theirs not His. They wanted to “call their souls their own.” But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.

C.S.Lewis. THE PROBLEM OF PAIN.

Love and faithfulness meet together;

     righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,

     and righteousness looks down from heaven.

Psalm 85: 10, 11