Paul was terribly personal. The books I like are the ones that make you feel like you are with a person who is being quite vulnerable, telling you all sorts of stuff that is personal, and that’s the thing Paul did that makes me like him.
Lucy doesn’t read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just is a dog.
You’d think God would come right out and tell us what to do in the Bible, but He doesn’t. He mostly tells stories, and He rarely stops the story to say what the point is. He just lets the characters and conflict hang in the air like smoke.
God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me specifically into the story, and He put us in specifically with the sunsets in the rainstorms as though to say, “Enjoy your place in My story, the very beauty of it means it’s not about you, and in time that will give you comfort.
What attracts us doesn’t always connect us. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who have been taken in by somebody sexy or powerful or charming but soon after find themselves feeling alone in the relationship. It’s one thing to impress people, but it’s another to love them.
Because the more we hide, the harder it is to be known. And we have to be known to connect.
When I say I love you and you don’t believe me, you’re being a jerk. Basically what you’re saying is I only love conditionally. You think you’re being self-deprecating and funny, but you’re really saying I’m not a good enough person to love you if you have a few flaws. It gets old.
It’s a phone call in the morning to pray about our day, a text-message to say I’m thinking of her, a handwritten note, a postcard when I’m out of town on business, remembering what drink she likes when we’re at a bar, asking follow-up questions about her friends, and not hiding behind humor when it’s time for a serious conversation.
Sometimes our identities get distorted because people lie about us and scare us, and sometimes our identities get distorted because of things we’ve actually done. The result is the same, though. Isolation.
The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.
I read through the book of Matthew this evening. I was up all night. I couldn’t stop reading so I read through Mark. This Jesus of yours is either a madman or the Son of God. Somewhere in the middle of Mark I realized He was the Son of God.
You can’t memorize poetry and stay a fake. Sooner or later, you start to understand what these poets are saying, and it makes you feel life has something quite special, with certain layers of meaning to it.
Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them.
To know there is a better story for your life and to choose something other is like choosing to die.
The great tragedy of our lives seems to be that we are smart enough to ask the questions of meaning but too dumb to really figure it out.
Every human being wakes up each morning and sees the world through the lens of a protagonist. The world revolves around us, regardless of how altruistic, generous, and selfless a person we may be.
I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I’m afraid. I’m willing to contradict something I’ve said before. I’m willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I’m willing to apologize. I’m perfectly willing to be perfectly human.
This means that when we ramble on and on about how we have the biggest manufacturing plant on the West Coast, our customers don’t care. Why? Because that information isn’t helping them eat, drink, find a mate, fall in love, build a tribe, experience a deeper sense of meaning, or stockpile weapons in case barbarians start coming over the hill behind our cul-de-sac. So what do customers do when we blast a bunch of noise.
What if some of the most successful people in the world got that way because their success was fueled by a misappropriated need for love? What if the people we consider to be great are actually the most broken? And what if the whole time they’re seeking applause they are missing out on true intimacy because they’ve never learned how to receive it?
I didn’t want to need his affirmation. But part of our selves is spirit, and our spirits are thirsty, and my father’s words went into my spirit like water.