Between writing, traveling, speaking, preaching, and doing my best to be a good husband to my wife and my three kids, that's about as much as one man or at least this man can do.

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.

The good news of suffering is that it brings us to the end of ourselves - a purpose it has certainly served in my life. It brings us to the place of honesty, which is the place of desperation, which is the place of faith, which is the place of freedom.

I actually think one of most profoundly and deep pastoral moments between a pastor and his church is what happens between them before God in the context of preaching.

Since Genesis 3 we have been addicted to setting our sights on something, someone, smaller than Jesus.

I was spending too much time thinking about how I was doing, if I was learning everything I was supposed to be learning during this difficult season, whether I was doing it right or not, taking my spiritual pulse, etc - my inner lawyer was working overtime.

The deepest fear we have, 'the fear beneath all fears,' is the fear of not measuring up, the fear of judgment. It's this fear that creates the stress and depression of everyday life.