| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: her, as she is such a numskull anyway; so she got a lot of them
out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep
warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day, and I don't
see that they are any happier there than they were before, only
quieter. When night comes I shall throw them out-doors. I will
not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant
to lie among when a person hasn't anything on.
Sunday
Pulled through.
Tuesday
She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear to
pieces that monster called self-righteousness. As long as a person thinks
he is right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and presumptuous.
He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and ignore the
promises in Christ. The Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins through
Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.
This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff-necked beast, needs a big axe.
And that is what the Law is, a big axe. Accordingly, the proper use and
function of the Law is to threaten until the conscience is scared stiff.
The awful spectacle at Mount Sinai portrayed the proper use of the Law. When
the children of Israel came out of Egypt a feeling of singular holiness
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: Such was the situation of affairs, and of people's minds in the house
of Madame de Dey, while along the road, between Paris and Cherbourg, a
young man in a brown jacket, called a "carmagnole," worn de rigueur at
that period, was making his way to Carentan. When drafts for the army
were first instituted, there was little or no discipline. The
requirements of the moment did not allow the Republic to equip its
soldiers immediately, and it was not an unusual thing to see the roads
covered with recruits, who were still wearing citizen's dress. These
young men either preceded or lagged behind their respective
battalions, according to their power of enduring the fatigues of a
long march.
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