The Gospel is not ultimately a defense from pain, it is the message of God's rescue through pain. In fact, it allows us to drop our defenses, to escape not from pain but from the prison of "How" and "Why" to the freedom of "Who?"

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.

There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God.

Thankfully, God's restraining grace keeps even the worst of us from being utterly depraved. The worst people who have ever lived could've been worse.

I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand why some Christians get mad when we say that the ultimate hero in the Bible is not Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, etc... but Jesus.

I've got three kids. I worry about them but the gospel freed me and freed my wife. We are not trying to make our kids think that we're super spiritual or we've got it all together. They see mom and dad being real people. What they hear dad talking about at home is not different from what they see from dad [at church]. That won't guarantee that they'll avoid the whole PK, MK thing. But we are hopefully not contributing to what normally produces that crisis, which is pretending.

A preacher who doesn't believe he's that bad will attract people who don't think they're that bad. And that's bad.