Going All Out...

If you are going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite the rejection & the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you are going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone, and the nights will flare with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is
(Charles Bukowski)

What A Disciple Is

*Someone who has decided to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is

*I am with Him, by choice and by grace, learning how to live in the Kingdom of God

*We are learning from Jesus to live our lives as he would live our lives if he was us

*I am not necessary learning to do everything he did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all he did

*My discipleship to Jesus is, within clearly definable limits, not a matter of what I do, but of how I do it. And it covers everything, "religious" or not

*If we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of the walking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy