If grace is to be free - which is the very meaning of grace - we cannot view it as something to be repaid.

The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours.

It is a myth that man in his natural state is genuinely seeking God. Men do seek God. But they do not seek him for who he is. They seek him in a pinch as one who might preserve them from death or enhance their worldly enjoyments. Apart from conversion, no one comes to the light of God.

Taken as a whole, the story of Ruth is one of those signs. It was written to give us encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. They do not lead off a cliff. In all the setbacks of our lives as believers, God is plotting for our joy.

God is not a killjoy; he just opposes what kills joy.

We can be content with simplicity because the deepest most satisfying delights God gives us through creation are free gifts from nature and from loving relationships with people. After your basic needs are met, accumulated money begins to diminish your capacity for these pleasures rather than increase them. Buying things contributes absolutely nothing to the heart's capacity for joy.

One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.