One of the great illusions of our time is that hurrying will buy us more time.

sometimes we do not realize how much we have to be grateful for until it is threatened.

You can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known by somebody.

God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.

To become grateful, I must learn that I can handle disappointment and delayed gratification with grace and perseverance. This is why practices such as fasting and simplicity are such powerful tools for transformation. The experience of frustration and disappointment is irreplaceable in the development of a grateful heart.

I hate how hard spiritual transformation is and how long it takes. I hate thinking about how many people have gone to church for decades and remain joyless or judgmental or bitter or superior.

There is a world of difference between being friendly to someone because they're useful to you and being someone's friend.