Craig D. Lounsbrough

The voice incessantly quelled in the chorus of human voices will always be the voice of God. And given a reality of this magnitude, I would be well advised to cease my babbling and encourage those around me to do the same.

We are quick to surrender that which we deem as long dead, when God is quick to restore that which He deems as never really having lived.

The greatest men stand on their values and pray on their knees.

In the thoughtlessness of my incessant hurry, I have made God an __ddendum in_ my life verses the __genda of_ my life. And what I need to hurry up and realize is that with these priorities positioned as such, what I am hurrying to is my own demise.

If I must know something in order to believe in it, what I am able to believe in will be severely limited. If I choose to believe in something in order to know it, then what I believe in can be boundless.

The worst of me is the raw material from which God molds the best of me.

If I can somehow focus on the pain of not focusing on my pain, I will soon find that pain healed simply because I forced myself to do the exact opposite of what my core humanity demanded I do_I sought to heal the pain of someone else instead.

If my decisions constantly heed the voice of the world, I can be completely assured that I__ going to end up in a __orld of hurt._ If my decisions heed the word of God, I can be completely assured that this __orld of hurt_ isn__ anywhere near my solar system.

The worst defeat of all is to surrender without having been defeated. And it is Christmas that obliterates both.

The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we__e holding on to that which we__e climbing, or we__e letting God hold onto us.

I cannot create greatness as I can only create weak facsimiles. And in sorting through the innumerable facsimiles around me, I will only happen upon true greatness when I happen upon the true God.

I have yet to learn that I am not designed to carry the burden of men. Rather, I am designed to carry the love of God so that I might soothe the burden of men.

Is my faith so terribly pathetic that I have diminished God to the point that I doubt His ability to survive in the very world that He came to save? Indeed, I have done exactly that. And all I need to do to beat that mentality is to remember that a baby born in a manger with every disadvantage imaginable stills lives today.

To only see __eath_ in death is to somehow assume that death itself is a barrier so abrupt that God Himself is halted by it. To see __ife_ in death is to understand that death is a sprawling horizon to a new beginning that God created long before death ever thought to show up.

The worst thing that I can do is humanize God. The second worst thing that I can do is deify myself. And the best thing that I can do is to avoid both.

The most formidable way to lead is to serve. And while the perplexing oxymoron of such a grinding statement absolutely cripples us, it birthed a Savior.

Rarely do I truly understand the disease which ails me. Therefore, rarely do I truly understand the fix that would cure me. And so maybe I should truly contemplate how rarely I recognize that God understands both.

The yardstick that we frequently use to determine if something can be restored is based on the handful of inches that we bring to the process, when God shows up with an infinite amount of miles.