And all he could say was that he did not know. He was guilty, therefore, of innocence. Was there anything so loathsome as a willfully innocent man? Hardly. An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore unworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.

They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hands that felled trees also cut umbilical cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and sacks rocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky ovals of innocence—and shrouded the dead. They plowed all day and came home to nestle like plums under the limbs of their men.

When one assumes that you can substitute license for freedom, when one assumes that you can use another's deficiency for one's own generosity, when one assumes that you can use another person's misery and nightmares in order to clarify your own dreams. When all of those things are done and completed, then the surrender and the betrayal of one's culture is also complete.

Unaligned, nobly interventionist, unbrooked by nations and political parties, private interests or public exhaustion, Amnesty International declares states, walls, borders irrelevant to its humanitarian goals, detrimental to its tasks, by summoning responsibility and refusing to accept a myopic government's own narrative of its behavior.

If I asked her in what ways you have adjusted your plans and schedule in the past month because you saw that she had a burden or a need you could help meet, would she be able to recall such times?

God wants the church to be a community where real people in real relationships are meeting real needs in real ways. God did not create the church simply as a classroom where you get instruction or as a theater where you come to watch a performance.

I've often found myself in circumstances that were too big for me. But I've never faced anything in life that was too big for my family.

Remember, God made us different because we needed suitable helpers. The more we understand and appreciate how we are different, the better we can draw on and receive the help that we need from one another.

You cannot understand how intense depression and anxiety can be unless you have been there, and not every chemical imbalance signifies a demon. Sometimes we need to give people permission to take medication if they need it—which, by the way, is a huge no-no in many Christian circles.

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).

God knew the man needed someone to join him in the walk of faith, to shoulder the burdens of the mission, engage in the struggles, watch his back, and stand with him against the Enemy. God had the perfect answer in mind.

The endless, unrelieved suffering of so many who are unable to deliver themselves is a reality we can no longer ignore.