Meaningful stories have lots and lots of conflict. If we avoid conflict, our stories won't be meaningful.

I am a person of faith, so I come from a community that's involved in 360,000 churches across the country, that is an institution that could, in a relatively short period of time, provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of positive male role models.

I'm just trying to make the point that the story we're telling ourselves is often very different from the story we're telling the people around us.

Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will.

If we knew how much God loved us and was for us, we’d talk to Him all day long.

I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.

There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.