"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours"
- C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
"O, begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises...Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days...Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer"
- John Wesley "Letter to Mr. Jonathan Maskew"
"Fully immersed in this world, Christians belong to no world. Instead, while teased by each hope and every vision, they know them to be only hints of the new heaven and the new earth rooted in divine promises. And our yearning to become lost in God only intensifies our tears over the thought of leaving this life. Christian existence is a joyful nonsense. In a culture of self-realization, the Christian's call is to renounce self; in the face of noise, silence is the preference; in a world of competition, the Christian's declaration is that the winners will be losers and the losers winners; in a culture whose economy is intent on consumption, the Christian insists on simplicity; in a culture structured by possessions, the Christian insists upon a high standard of life; and at every point, the Christian exposes the emptiness of fullness for the sake of the gospel's fullness of emptiness."
- W. Paul Jones The Art of Spiritual Direction
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