Across time and generations, books carry the thoughts and feelings, the essence, of the human spirit.

God formed an alliance based on the world as it is, full of flaws, whereas prayer calls God to account for the world as it should be.

We grow up hungry for love, and in ways so deep as to remain unexpressed we long for our Maker to love us.

True healing, of deep connective tissue, takes place in community. Where is God when it hurts? Where God's people are.

Grace is everywhere, like lenses that go unnoticed because you are looking through them.

Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization - Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism - Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet.

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.