What can I do but stand with my mouth open, no sound emerging? My lips move and I wave my arms making gestures from the other side of the glass, which I can’t penetrate. …people can speak out of anything, though the struggle takes years. The prob...
My honey child, them housing projects Cannot contain her multitudes A sunbeam, hard upon her Just a fly strugglin’ through her braid loops Watch me prove to ‘em I’m more than nothin’ But a ragamuffin with homesick eyes Yes, when it gets to be...
Not the spectacular things are the important things - the unspectacular things are the important things, especially in the future.
And it was always the stories that needed the telling that gave us the rope we could cross any river with. They balanced us high above any crevasse. They made us be natural acrobats. They made us brave. They met us well. They changed us. It was in th...
Lord, you are God! You made us. Who better to know how to fix us when we've gone wrong? who better to set us to rights again? Who better to love us through the fire and refine us into something beautiful and useful despite our wrongs?
Jesus came for us, but that doesn't mean he came to please us. Jesus came for us, but he does not answer to us. Jesus came for us, but he will not subject himself to our agenda . . .
Let us put ourselves into His hands, and not be startled though He leads us by a strange way, a , as the Church speaks. Let us be sure He will lead us right, that He will bring us to that which is, not indeed what we think best, nor what is best for ...
Great was the work of creation, but greater was the work of redemption. Great wisdom was seen in making us—but more miraculous wisdom in saving us. Great power was seen in bringing us out of nothing—but greater power in helping us when we were wo...
Why does Jesus love us? Do you ever think about that? Why does Jesus, content and whole and complete and satisfied, love us? I don’t see how this would benefit Jesus. He has nothing to gain from us; we have nothing to offer Him. There’s nothing i...
Let us be bold. Let us be brave. Let us be together.
Race is used, by all of us, in the most manipulative ways, is often force-fit and reduced to something it isn't, to something that gives us a sense of comfort, a false one. Many of us thought - needed to feel - the whole business was 'settled.' But i...
The truth is God created us to have relationship with us. He wants to love us and take care of us, and He wants us to love Him. That's where our walk with Christ has to start.
The facts themselves do not compel belief. God will not force us to trust Him. God gives us the ability to respond and graciously allows us to choose how we will use the freedom that He gave us.
But let us laugh carelessly like other men. Let us be timid even among fools. Let us knot silence around our throats. For they would surely kill us.
To feel the joy too much: let us trust too much, let us love too much, let us hope too much and let us belong too much.
Reading stories forces us to exercise our empathy and imagination muscles, and that helps us conceive what the Bible depicts or demands, helps us connect with others, helps us illustrate what the text teaches, and helps us apply the text’s truths.
God sends us the meat, but it is the Devil who sends us cooks.
Whether you believe in God or are an atheist, you cannot deny that the empirical facts of science have nothing to do with whether or not freedom and good are real or worth destroying ourselves for. Meaning must come from the individual in touch with ...
God wants us to worry about our sins we sin; the devil wants us to worry we sin. God wants us to feel free after we repent (for we really are free then); the devil is a deceiver). The devil tempts us to cavalier pride before we sin and worrisome desp...
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be cal...
Choosing one thing over another doesn't necessarily mean we love the thing we choose. If given the choice to eat spinach or broccoli, you may choose broccoli. It may only mean you don't want to eat spinach. Heaven is not for people who just want to s...