Of Chapters and Choices

Plan the various forms of your life’s ministry in chapters.
Chapters are divided by various things - age, strength, singleness, marriage, employment, children at home, children in college, grandchildren, retirement, etc.
No chapter has all the joys.
Finite life is a series of tradeoffs.
Finding God’s will, and living for the glory of Christ to the full in every chapter is what makes it a success, not whether it reads like somebody else’s chapter or whether it has in it what only another chapter will bring.

Always develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short, that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that the love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all your might and maximizing your joy in ministry to people’s needs.

~ 'A Prayer for Women' by John Piper