Everybody is born free. Not everybody is worthy of freedom.

If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt....There is no believing without some doubting, and believing is all the stronger for understanding and resolving doubt.

I live before the audience of One-before others I have nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing to prove.

We are not primarily called to do something or go somewhere; we are called to Someone. We are not called first to special work but to God. The key to answering the call is to be devoted to no one and to nothing above God himself.

The question the doubter does not ask is whether faith was really useless or simply not used. What would you think of a boy who gave up learning to ride a bicycle, complaining that he hurt himself because his bicycle stopped moving so he had no choice but to fall off? If he wanted to sit comfortably while remaining stationary, he should not have chosen a bicycle but a chair. Similarly faith must be put to use, or it will become useless.

Followers of Jesus who count the cost and are willing to take up their crosses after him must have broad shoulders.

In other words, we are never freer than when we become most ourselves, most human, most just, most excellent, and the like.