Grace is upside-down, to-do-list wrecking, scandalous and way-too free. It's one-way love.

The more I focused on my need to get better the worse I actually got - the more neurotic and self-conscious and self-absorbed I became.

We don't need answers and explanations as much as we need God's presence in and through the suffering.

The desperate addict is closer to the heart of grace than the devout moralist.

My daily sins require daily distribution of God's grace. In that sense, it never ceases to surprise me because I don't deserve any of it. I mean, I deserve to be locked in a cage and for God to throw away the key.

Grace is the most dangerous, expectation-wre cking, smile-creating, counterintuitiv e reality there is.

In 'Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels,' I retell the story of Jonah and show how Jonah was just as much in need of God's grace as the sailors and the Ninevites.