To give myself over in the service of others may mean that I will forfeit everything that I want, but it also means that I will receive everything that I need. And if I am not big enough to let go of the former, then I am not yet big enough to handle the latter.

The greatest jail break in all of history occurred on Easter morning. Therefore, we must remember that whatever our prisons might be and however impenetrable they might appear, your jail break is just a prayer away.

Life is the march of all things resurrected and being resurrected. Behind each flower, every tree, each nesting bird, every breath that we take, and every cherished dream that we hold there runs this irrepressible theme of resurrection. For life is not so shallow or weak or inattentive as to permit the finality of an end.

If something as dark as death is inevitable, why is it that something as magnificent as eternity is any less inevitable? Maybe it’s because we’ve come to define ‘inevitability’ based on the apathy of fear rather than the anticipation of faith.

Have we ever considered that God is so enraptured with beginnings that He permits the pain of endings so that we can experience the exhilaration of beginnings?

Jesus died a criminal’s death surrounded by a handful of followers who refused to do anything other than a chase a God who, through His death at that very moment, was chasing them.

To imagine oneself playing a role in an epic story is exhilarating, but to actually step into an epic story is terrifying. And the problem is that imagination might be safe, but being safe doesn’t write any stories worth reading.

It’s not that God can’t rescue us. It’s that we choose not to be rescued because we’re too blind to see the necessity of it.

We have been granted an exclusive part in the greatest story ever told. And without a doubt, to walk away from that part would be to write greatest tragedy ever conceived.