Every missionary I know is extraordinarily ordinary. Everything they do, they do by the grace of God.

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

God is awesome; he doesn’t need you to be awesome. He wants you to be obedient.

Love says: I've seen the ugly parts of you, and I'm staying. Our culture doesn't love love; It loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without the sacrifice.

If you’re a church person and not a Jesus person, my heart hurts for you. It’s like being engaged and never getting married. It’s miserable.

The more you make this world about you, the more miserable you will be.

Comfort is the god of our generation, so suffering is seen as a problem to be solved, and not a providence from God.

No change of job, no increased income, no new home, no new electronic device, or no new spouse is going to make things better inside of you.

God is at work in the mess. That's the message of the Bible. That's why the Bible is not pretty. That's why it's grimy, because God is working in the mess. He's working in the tears.

Faith doesn’t mean an absence of fear. It means facing fear and trusting that God’s goodness is greater.

God does not regret saving you. There is no sin which you commit which is beyond the cross of Christ.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

Human rights

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief.

Thinking visually is my starting point, and then the writing happens.

Disobedience is the vehicle of progress.

The present age ... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence ... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

If you're going to solve a weight-loss problem - or smoking problem for that matter - you must address both the psychological and physiological.