The Bible is full of stories of men and women who've found themselves in frightening situations but who chose to look up rather than look down - look up in faith - and God got them through it.

If anybody understands God's order for his children, it's someone who has rescued an orphan from despair, for that is what God has done for us. God has adopted you. God sought you, found you, signed the papers and took you home.

There is something about keeping Him divine that keeps Him distant, packaged, predictable. But don't do it. For heaven's sake, don't. Let Him be as human as He intended to be. Let Him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let Him in can He pull us out.

In a sense we're all children of God - Jesus is called the one and only Son. Monogeneo is the word, God's only "genetic" child. He bears the very essence of God. What we say about God we say about Jesus. So the promise rises and falls on the identity of Jesus.

The strength of a story is that it stays with people and it gives an opportunity for that story to connect with people where the Holy Spirit intends for it to do so.

I just love preaching.

You can endure change by pondering His permanence.