Always remain suspicious that God is up to something good.

When we fight back with joy, we awaken to the deepest reality of our identity as beloved, delightful children of God.

I had been searching for joy in the relatively good times of life, now I had to find joy amidst darkness and agony.

Joy emanates out of the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us.

Worry is a subtle way of telling God that He's fallen asleep at the wheel and that things aren't under His authority, but ours.

The seventh day of creation is the most eloquent and insightful as to the nature of God. From a literary perspective, the Sabbath forms the pinnacle of the story. Like the dramatic kiss of a soldier returning from war, this is the moment we’re not meant to miss. In choosing rest as the grand finale, God reveals himself as one driven by neither anxiety nor fear but one who finds gladness in both the work of creation and the creation of work.

Wide awake to the presence of God, I realized I had been so focused on asking why a good God allowed bad things to happen that I was missing out on the nearness of God all along. In becoming preoccupied with the why, I was missing the who.