The deepest desire of our hearts is for union for God. God created us for union with himself. This is the original purpose of our lives.

Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming.

If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.

Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

One of my realizations in such an earthy atmosphere was that many of the burning theological issues in the church were neither burning nor theological.

I have been seized by the power of a great affection.

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.