Six Favorite Quotes

One of Mama Kat's writing prompts this week is your six favorite quotes.  I certainly do have favorite quotes, but it's kind of odd sharing them.  I think this because what strikes you may have no meaning for anyone else at all.  So, with that in mind, here are quotes that have made a difference in my own life.

1) "All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf.  This is my life quote that is in both The Fellowship of the Ring movie and book.  It comes when Frodo regrets having the ring laid on him as a burden.  A good reminder that we can't choose our experiences or circumstances, but we can decide how we're going to handle them.

2) "We don't need more of God, we need to act on what we have." -Chuck Swindoll.  I wish more Christians realized this.  It's silly to say we need more of God.  God has already given us himself.  We need to stop wishing for the more that we already have and act in our faith.

3) "Faith is both a decisive act and a sustained attitude." -Alastair Begg.  There are two ways to understand faith's role in our lives.  Faith means trust and we trust in Jesus when we take the step of becoming a Christian.  That's a decisive act.  But faith doesn't end there.  It keeps moving in our lives as we sustain the attitude of trust.

4) "A Bible in the hand is worth two in the bookcase." -Catherine Martin.  Oh my, yes!  Get it out and read it instead of collecting them!

5) “Holding the Bible in my hands, I knew that I was hoping to turn all my writing towards my Maker, to write for the sake of the Creator, and not for this small servant who struggles with words in order to serve the Word.” -Madeleine L'Engle.  Said way better than I could, this expresses my own desire in my writing.

6) "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. 'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'" -Sherlock Holmes. My all time favorite Sherlock Holmes quote that appears in the middle of a story where Holmes waxes eloquent.  I love his reasoning for the goodness of Providence.