True allegiance is only given willingly.
There's always the danger that the extreme feminist will end up quite unfulfilled as a girl.
Of course you'll encounter trouble. But behold a God of power who can take any evil and turn it into a door of hope.
When the dream in our heart is one that God has planted there, a strange happiness flowers into us. At that moment all of the spiritual resources of the universe are released to help us. Our praying is then at one with the will of God and becomes a channel for the Creator's always joyous, triumphant purposes for us and our world.
Satan cannot create anything new, cannot create anything at all. He must steal what God has created. Thus he twists love and God's wonderful gift of sex into lust and sadism and myriad perversions. He disfigures the heart's deep desire to worship God and persuades us to bow before lesser gods of lust or money or power.
If your every human plan and calculation has miscarried, if, one by one, human props have been knocked out, and doors have shut in your face, take heart. God is trying to get a message through to you, and the message is: "Stop depending on inadequate human resources. Let me handle the matter. ".
Those who never rebelled against God or at some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all.
And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.
If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.
The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.
I have told myself a hundred times that painting - that is, the material thing called a painting - is no more than a pretext, the bridge between the mind of the painter and the mind of the spectator.