We cannot carry the gospel to the poor and lowly while emulating the practices of the rich and powerful. We’ve been invited into a story that begins with humility and ends with glory; never the other way around.

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.

I see a strategy for fracturing humanity well in play: just keep people separated and let them reinforce invented boundaries in their imaginations. Because when people come together and really listen to each other, doing the hard work of human kindness, virtually every barrier is breached.

Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from.

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

Adoption is an answer to a tragedy that has already happened, but may it never be the impetus for one that hasn’t.

Our children are humans and deserve to be treated respectfully. Discipline doesn’t include raging, screaming, abusing, neglecting, humiliating, or shaming our kids. God never treats us like that. That sort of discipline never “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.