ravi zacharias

"in the corporate world, every major company formulates a mission statement. that, in turn, is invoked when measuring achievements & failures. if a company does not know why it exists, then it will never know if it is failing or succeeding.  how indicting, then, it is to all of us who will labor for hours to establish a mission statement for a company to sell toothpicks or tombstones but never pause long enough to write one out for our individual lives."

"just think of the alternatives our cultures have given us. pleasure, wealth, power, fame, fate, charity, peace, education, ethnicity - the list goes on endlessly.  and when none of these work, some amalgam of spirituality and pragmatism is embraced.  but these pursuits do not tell us why we are here in the first place.  these may be ways of ordering one's life, but is life to be defined by what i pursue, or must pursuit be defined by what life was meant to be?"

"somewhere in the midst of all this turmoil, the Hound of Heaven was on my trail. his footprints are everywhere as i look over my shoulder now.  he was indeed, nearer than i thought.  i can see now, in hindsight, the trail that is evident, even in the grimmest moments.  when you live in a small, two-bedroom home with four siblings and two parents, you cannot run for a hiding place. yet it is utterly amazing how one can hide within oneself."

-from the first few chapters of ravi's book jesus among other gods