Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.

When the world asks if there is any hope, we can say absolutely! No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment- God himself was not exempt. Jesus offered no immunity, no way out of the unfairness, but rather a way through it to the other side.

Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy.

We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey than about the ultimate destination.

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.

God operates by different rules of time and space. And God's infinite greatness, which we would expect to diminish us, actually makes possible the very closeness that we desire. A God unbound by our rules of time has the ability to invest in every person on earth. God has, quite literally, all the time in the world for each one of us.

If Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him.