When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

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That's the whole spiritual life. It's learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love.

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Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.

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No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.

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One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.

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Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.

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Waiting means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.

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All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.

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Praying puts us at risk of getting involved in God's conditions. Be slow to pray. Praying most often doesn't get us what we want but what God wants, something quite at variance with what we conceive to be in our best interests.

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I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.

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