The reconciling gospel is always at the forefront of the church’s social action, because a full belly is not better than a reconciled soul.

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.

It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone's mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.

Literature endures like the universal spirit, And its breath becomes a part of the vitals of all men.

What do you feel like you SHOULD be doing instead of writing? IF you have an answer, then you have guilt. The "should" of life are always linked to guilt.

It takes someone with a vision of the possibilities to attain new levels of experience. Someone with the courage to live his dreams.

That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.

I need the anesthetic qualities of the local fire water.

And I am pretty sure that's the point of reading fiction -- so someone else can say in a way you never would have something you recognize immediately.

Does that really work, converting someone with a bumper sticker? How weak of a mind do you have to have?

To practice NVC, it's critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into.

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.