I've worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I've led at Mosaic.

I remember in Indonesia, there was this actor in a film that got pretty big internationally, and he went to Hollywood. Seeing an Indonesian guy doing that when I was 13 or 14, it really motivated me.

God will take us where we have not planned to go in order to produce in us what we could not achieve on our own.

What God has begun in you, he will complete. Your destiny has already been decided. The One who decided it will give you all you need to get there.

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

Sethe, he says, me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow. He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. You your best thing, Sethe, You are. His holding fingers are holding hers. Me? Me?

The one set of plans she had made—getting away from Sweet Home—went awry so completely she never dared life by making more.

But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over.

God can take your most monstrous failures and turn them into triumphs such as you never could imagine.

Beyond that, God will sometimes take us down a different path or on a different journey than we could have conceived or imagined. The simple phrase we are asked to insert, "If the Lord wills," is pregnant with meaning. It is a statement of surrender under the lordship and rule of God. It is an acknowledgment that our plans are not to be our own. Rather, they are God's to make, and we are to follow.

When we overcome emotional strongholds, we let go of our need to understand everything right now. We trust God to make a miracle out of what looks like a mess.

When you or I surrender before our owner, the all-powerful Adonai, and lay our insecurities, doubts, and hesitations before Him, we will be amazed time and again as God shows up in the most unlikely places and uses the most unlikely people—you and me.