Following Christ is a wild adventure full or risk, frustration, excitement, and setbacks. It is not an evening stroll in a planned community along a well-manicured path.

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.

We were designed to love and when we do, something good develops inside. We feel clean, rich, whole. Even better, we become less concerned with how we feel and more concerned with the lives of others.

I assume the Spirit is always whispering, "Abba", to God's children, assuring them that they are safe in His care. And he is continually calling them to become what God saved them to be, solid people, indestructibly alive, hurting perhaps, but consumed with pleasing the Father.

Godly people... nobly endure hard things. They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level in heaven. Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but deeply throbbing ache within them drives them not to compalint, but to anticipation and further yieldedness.

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.