We only get one shot at every season of life. Whether or not we learned anything becomes evident in the seasons that follow.

The desert always feels like a complete waste of time. It is only when we are able to look back that our desert experiences make sense.

One of our pastors, John Hambrick, has a saying that we've adopted organization-wide. He says, "We walk toward the messes." In other words, we don't feel compelled to sort everything or everyone out ahead of time. We are not going to spend countless hours creating policies for every eventuality.

For this reason it is the dark that provides the leader with his greatest opportunities. It is your response to the dark that determines in large part whether or not you will be called on to lead. For the darkness is what keeps the average person from stepping outside the security of what has always been.

We all pretend for a while or for a lifetime. But pretending is not living...I believe that God meant for life to take our breath away, sometimes because of the sheer joy of it all and sometimes because of the severe pain. To choose living over pretending means that we will know both.

You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors... What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you'd come to closed door number eight and you'd think, 'Great, I got another one out of the way'... Keep moving forward.

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

Political life is like a big wheel: constantly turning. At times you are up, at times down. But always, the wheel keeps moving.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I'm doing, I always tell myself, 'You can do better than this.'

Whenever you're going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing - continue to rock it - because obviously, God wants you here.