Following Christ is a wild adventure full or risk, frustration, excitement, and setbacks. It is not an evening stroll in a planned community along a well-manicured path.

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.

I find it much easier to counsel than to be counseled, to reach out to a friend in my small group who is feeling insercure than to reveal my own inseurity. The truth is we don't much like being dependent. We don't enjoy admitting how desperately we long for someone's kindness and involvement. It's so humbling.

In order to meaningfully repent of the ways in which we violate love, we must recognize them. We won’t recognize self-protective patterns of relating as sinful violations of love until we face the disappointment in our soul we’re determined never to experience again.

Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.

The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we'll shift our direction.

We have made a terrible mistake! For most of this century we have wrongly defined soul wounds as psychological disorders and delegated their treatment to trained specialists. Damaged psyches aren't the problem. The problem is disconnected souls. What we need is connection. What we need is a healing community.

Maturity involves two elements: 1) immediate obedience in specific situations and 2) long-range character growth.