Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.

So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence

Find a person who has embraced anger, and you will find a person with a wounded ego.

If we reject the Christian answer, we still have the problem. We're going to adopt some alternative, because the questions will not go away, the questions of, "What kind of person am I becoming?" and "What is my role in that?" and so on.

As Augustine say clearly, God being God offends human pride. If God is running the universe and has first claim on our lives, guess who isn't running the universe and does not get to have things as they please.

Understanding is the basis of care. What you would take care of you must first understand, whether it be a petunia or a nation.

God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are, and if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being "right," we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life.