Pleasure represents a great good but also a grave danger.

[...]women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift?

I have yet to find any support in the Bible for an attitude of smugness: Ah, they deserve their punishment; watch them squirm.

If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer.

A philosophy may explain difficult things, but has no power to change them. The gospel, the story of Jesus' life, promises change.

The presence of another caring person doubles the amount of pain a person can endure.

If we insist on visible proofs from God, we may well prepare the way for a permanent state of disappointment. True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will. As I searched through the Bible for models of great faith, I was struck by how few saints experienced anything like Job's dramatic encounter with God. The rest responded to the hiddenness not by demanding that he show himself, but by going ahead and believing him though he stayed hidden.