It's one thing to be discouraged. It's another thing to have despair. Despair is when you think there's just no end to this [suffering]. There's no solution for this. Despair is when you think that your suffering has no purpose, and your suffering has no end.

The Christmas message itself is that God chooses common people to do the most uncommon things. No matter how common you are, and no matter how simple you are, God has a plan and ability to come into our world and do something unusual.

[ Christianity], in and of itself, sets itself apart inherently, and so, for somebody to say, Well it just seems to me like you can pick between all these religions and still have the same thing. Its kind of like somebody saying, You could pick between 80 bananas and one apple and say you have a banana. You cant call that apple a banana.

Be patient. God is using today's difficulties to strengthen you for tomorrow. He is equipping you. The God who makes things grow will help you bear fruit.

I'd like to think I'm going upriver in talking about world-view topics rather than particular political or controversial topics.

From my perspective, most of my life has been dealing with the day-to-day, kitchen-to-bedroom-to-living-room-to-garage life with people. Most people are just trying to figure out how to love the people in their world, to love their God and to deal with some of these questions about God.

Ggrace is God's best idea - it's His decision to ravage people by love, to rescue passionately, and to restore justly.