When I talk about losing myself, which I did, it's losing my idea of who I was and my idea of what I was supposed to be doing and the idea of what my value was to God. I lost all of that at least.

The effort to untangle the human words from the divine seems not only futile to me but also unnecessary, since God works with what is. God uses whatever is usable in a life, both to speak and to act, and those who insist on fireworks in the sky may miss the electricity that sparks the human heart.

The church grew, and I gained a reputation for preaching, and people came, and it was a wonderful community. But we had a building that seated 82 people, and with a congregation then approaching 400 we were up to four services on Sunday, and everyone was tired.

Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.

The boundaries became constrictive in what I was doing, and if my faith grew, it was because I pressed some of the boundaries in ways I hadn't felt comfortable or responsible doing that before.

I'll do my best to always put God and neighbor ahead of ego, but I want to find myself, and if finding myself means losing my ego self, I'll go there.

With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.