God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.

The church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others.

Prayer is a place where God and humans meet.

The bible never belittles disappointment, but it does add one key word: temporary - What we feel now, we will not always feel. Our disappointment is itself a sign, and aching, a hunger for something better. And faith is, in the end, a kind of homesickness - for a home we have never visited but have never once stopped longing for.

Individuals and societies are not helpless victims of heredity. We have the power to change - not by looking "down" to nature but "up" to God, who consistently calls us forward to become the people we were designed to be. A confused world urgently needs a model of what that looks like. If Christians fail to provide that model, who will?

For me, the world of nature bears spectacular witness to the imaginative genius of our Creator.

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort.