Spiritual rest can occur, even when a storm is raging.

The best way to start praying, therefore, is actually to stop praying. To pause. To be still. To put down your prayer list and surrender your own personal agenda. To stop talking at God long enough to focus on the wonder of who he actually is. To 'be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him'.

By stopping to be still in the ways described above, prior to opening my Bible, I can prime my heart to hear from God in a focused way with far fewer distractions.

When the dust clears and in the quiet of your own heart, what kind of God do you believe in, really? And why?

Our experiences of God matter—those sacred moments that defy the very rational capabilities we are so keen to rely on.

Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude.

We do not honor the Lord nor do we uphold the gospel by playing make-believe. Neither are those who engage the kinds of issues discussed in this book necessarily on the slippery slope to unbelief. Our God is much bigger than we sometimes give him credit for. It is we who sometimes wish to keep him small by controlling what can or cannot come into the conversation.

This is how they connected with God—in their time, in their way.

The darkness does us a favor by exposing control as an illusion. When everything is removed, "Where can I take back some control here?" eventually ceases being the active question and is replaced with a plea: "Lord, help me let go of control. Help me die. Help me trust.

I've learned to be fine with not knowing.

Think of it this way: the same wisdom that was with God when God "ordered" creation (Gen. 1) is available to us as we seek to "order" the chaos of our lives.

And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.