As I drained the cup of grief, a remarkable thing happened: In the distance I heard music and dancing. I was the prodigal son limping home—not a spectator but a participant. The impostor faded, and I was in touch with my true self as the returned child of God. My yearning for praise and affirmation receded.

Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.

Death is not the total dissolution or our identity but the way to its fullest revelation.

Thus, our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine.

It is as if we have been wandering in a foreign land looking for peace and purpose in our lives and a true sense of who we are. Jesus stands in our midst and beckons us home so that we can be restored to our true selves.

The more capable you are of mourning the loss of the old place and letting go of the pain that lies there. You cannot mourn something that has not died.

A prayerful life, then, is one in which we convert the world from darkness, people from mere roles to persons.

You have come to realize that you must leave it (the old country) and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

This world is but canvas to our imaginations.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.