Anton

“There is more good news in that our season of life is not a barrier to spiritual growth. A mother in our small group suggested that it was easier for her to “work on her spiritual life” before she became a mom. As we talked, it became clear what she meant. To her, reading the Bible and praying were the only two activities that counted spiritually. As a mother she felt that “time alone” was an oxymoron. In this the church had failed her. She had never been taught to see that caring for two young children, offered daily with expressions of gratitude and prayers for help and patient acceptance of trials, might become a kind of school for transformation into powerful servanthood beyond anything she had ever known. Somehow having a “quiet time” counted toward spiritual devotion, and caring for two children did not. It took creative effort for this mother to carve out time for solitude and stillness, and even then she could not free up the amount of time she had in college. But as a mother she had new opportunities for growth she did not have back then. Our season of life — whatever it is — is no barrier to having Christ formed in us. Not in the least. Whatever our season of life, it offers its own opportunities and challenges for spiritual growth. Instead of wishing we were in another season, we ought to find out what this one offers. Life counts — all of it. Every moment is potentially an opportunity to be guided by God into his way of living. Every moment is a chance to learn from Jesus how to live in the kingdom of God.”
― John Ortberg Jr., The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People

“If we seek first the kingdom, we are better able to seek the welfare of our families. If we love Jesus more than family, we are freed to love our families more than we ever would have otherwise. If we give up our suffocating grasp on our family—whether that’s our idyllic view of our family in the now, our nostalgia for the family of long ago, our scars from family wounds, or our worries for our family’s future—we are then free to be family, starting with our place in the new creation family of the church.”
― Russell D. Moore, The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home

“We might think that the “virtue” were necessary only for this present life—that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger. Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here. The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His 64eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a “Heaven” for them—that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us.”
― C. S C. S, Mere Christianity

“We do not eat too much because we choose to, or because food is too delicious, or because of salt, sugar and fat. We eat too much because our own brain compels us to.”
― Jason Fung, The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss