'Can you believe, as you walk through this forest of routine, that God is able to lead you out into clearings where the sun is shining, the air is tingling and life is pulsing with wonder? He can.'

'Suffering tempts us to become suspicious of his governance. Unanswered prayer makes us unsure of his care. We are tempted, as Lot’s wife, to look back.'

'Instead of being a threat to real joy, God often makes our suffering a means to even more.'

Both the grace of leadership and the price of leadership are real. So, how can we who lead find joy and renewal and energy along the way?

'The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to his sacrifice.'

He has watched, for thousands of years, while God has taken all that he meant for terrible evil and worked it for undeniable good.

'Having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.'

God is not indifferent to the sins that still afflict you.

It’s going to be everything we have always longed for. It's going to be even better than Eden.

'Like the long line of life-lookers before and after him, Thoreau identified vanity parasites that suck so much time and energy and resources out of people’s lives, but did not discover the essential essence or meaning of life.'