Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.
We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.
Prayer allows us to wait without worry.
It’s better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.
God sees with utter clarity who we are. He is undeceived as to our warts and wickedness. But when God looks at us that is not all He sees. He also sees who we are intended to be, who we will one day become.
Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.
Make your life about something bigger than your life.
Jesus is mysterious not just because of what we don’t know about him, but because of what we do know about him.
The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.
Habits eat good intentions for breakfast.
Biblically, waiting is not just something we have to do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be.
Who you become while you’re waiting is as important as what you’re waiting for.
The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he’s coming down.
One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.
God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you’re sitting in as you read these words.
Grace is the offer of God’s ceaseless presence and irrational love that cannot be stopped.
God wishes to be seen, wishes to be sought, wishes to be expected, and wishes to be trusted.
Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.
For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God.
Every human being who has ever lived has suffered from a messiah complex-except one.