Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.

Christianity offers not merely a consolation but a restoration - not just of the life we had but of the life we always wanted but never achieved. And because the joy will be even greater for all that evil, this means the final defeat of all those forces that would have destroyed the purpose of God in creation, namely, to live with his people in glory and delight forever.

I've heard plenty of Christians try to answer the why question by going back to the what. "You have to believe because Jesus is the Son of God." But that's answering the why with more what. Increasingly we live in a time in which you can't avoid the why question. Just giving the what (for example, a vivid gospel presentation) worked in the days when the cultural institutions created an environment in which Christianity just felt true or at least honorable. But in a post-Christendom society, in the marketplace of ideas, you have to explain why this is true, or people will just dismiss it.

If you aren't constantly astonished at God's grace in your solitude, there's no way it can happen in public.

A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God's.

If you have to run away from something that used to be an idol, you're actually still enslaved by it. It's still controlling you.

A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.