Jon Acuff

A dream you don__ have to fight for isn__ a dream__t__ a nap. One changes your afternoon. The other changes your world. Keep fighting.

Pitting your dream against someone else's is a fantastic way to get discouraged and depressed.

Intentions are ambitious liars.

In order to survive, I came up with a five-step secret to getting it all done. If you're busy too, feel free to use it:1. Admit that you can't possibly get it all done.

Fear would have told the Wright brothers not to fly. Fear would have told Rosa Parks to change seats. Fear would have told Steve Jobs that people hate touchscreens.

We didn't try to force God's hand or do the "I just heard a sermon about David and Goliath so I need to quit my job right this second" leap of faith that's so popular in Christian circles. We took our time with the decision, like another guy in the Bible, named Jesus. He spent thirty years in obscurity before he started his adventure. Often, we're not willing to spend thirty minutes in preparation, never mind thirty years, especially when we come home from a conference and find our day jobs waiting for us on Monday morning. I'm not sure why Christians sometimes think the maturation of our own missions will be radically shorter than that of Jesus. But it happens and in the past I've certainly wanted to take wild, unplanned, possibly-not-inspired-by-God leaps of faith.

People who can't be questioned often end up doing questionable things.

I want the peace in knowing that is wasn__ for lack of hustling that I missed a target for my dream. I want to know that the one thing in my control was under control.

Sometimes when jerks become Christians, it's like a bully learning karate. Instead of having Christ transform our hearts and attitudes, we now have a new method with which to beat you up....what was once just 'forcing everyone to agree with my opinion' is now 'forcing everyone to agree with my opinion in the name of God.

Pastors are starting to get wily. When people tell my friend, 'I'm not being fed,' he replies, 'I'm prefectly happy to spoon feed my one-year-old. But if I'm still spoon-feeding him when he's five, we've got a problem. Here's a fork. Feed yourself.