The pain cleared my vision, and once it was taken away, I realized just how much I'd been relying on the endorsement of others to make me feel like I mattered.

Our default faith mode is to trust, above all things, our own ability to create a safe, controllable, predictable world.

In the Old Testament, we are continually told that our good works are not enough, that God has made a provision. This provision is pointed to at every place in the Old Testament.

Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace.

The passive righteousness of faith frees me from passing final judgment on myself.

People who know they are not good make the best messengers of grace because they are desperately aware of their own need for it.

We must reacquaint ourselves with the biblical weight of the problem that we less-than-perfect human beings contend with in the face of a holy and righteous God.