How do we develop the courage to walk in the dark if we are never asked to practice?

The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you," he said, "by the grace of God.

So of course when it came time to decide what to do with my life, I decided to go to seminary. What else do you do when you are in love with God?

Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right, and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails. Wise people do not have to be certain what they believe before they act. They are free to act, trusting that the practice itself will teach them what they need to know.

I have found things while I was lost that I might never have discovered if I had stayed on the path. I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead.

Reverence requires a certain pace. It requires a willingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan.

Then one night when my whole heart was open to hearing from God what I was supposed to do with my life, God said, "Anything that pleases you." "What?" I said, resorting to words again. "What kind of an answer is that?" "Do anything that pleases you," the voice in my head said again, "and belong to me.

It is a great thing to see something familiar from an unfamiliar angle for the first time, even if it is because you have been worried and lost for longer than you would have liked.

Most of us prefer to remain on our cow paths, where we know the language and we do not need maps because we know the way by heart. Some of us even stay behind our own fences because we do not want to be mistaken for interlopers in other people's pastures

I have lived through parts of life that no one in her right mind would ever willingly have chosen, finding enough overlooked treasure in them to outweigh my projected wages in the life I had planned. These are just a few of the reasons that I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead.

What we realize is number one, people want to know what the Bible says. In their heart, they want to know the Bible but it is just hard to understand the big picture of it. And number two, they want to know where they plug in.

Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks.