Obedience isn’t a lack of fear. It’s just doing it scared.

As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live--we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.

In so many ways I am the opposite of Jesus' lifestyle. This keeps me up at night. I can't have authentic communion with Him while mired in the trappings He begged me to avoid.

While the richest people on earth pray to get richer, the rest of the world begs for intervention with their faces pressed to the window, watching us drink our coffee, unruffled by their suffering.

When the jars of clay remember they are jars of clay, the treasure within gets all the glory, which seems somehow more fitting.

When we realize we can stop being Jesus defenders, we can start being Jesus representatives .

For Jesus, who lived so lightly on this earth, He didn’t even have a place to lay His head. I want so deeply to be like You.