Having the eyes of a child does not mean that we are naïve. Rather, it means that we’ve become brave enough to believe in a great good while simultaneously embracing the reality of a great evil.

If you can imagine something, at least imagine it with legs so that it has a chance to go somewhere.

To make the ‘shadow’ the tree is to try and climb something that’s always flat and constantly moving. However, it’s something from which we’ll never fall. And maybe that’s why we live in the shadow of dreams rather than living out our lives actually climbing one.

Bravery is to acknowledge that we are cowards who have committed ourselves to keeping our cowardice on a very short leash.

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.

I think that the stories that God has told and the things that He has done seem utter implausible to us only because we lock Him into the tiny rubrics that the stories He has told and the things that He has done invite us outside of.

Have we ever consider the boldness of Christmas? For to craft such a daring story and to do so in a manner that it is sufficiently sturdy to stand up under the relentless scrutiny that is certain to be brought to bear against such a story is boldness indeed. And when God pens a story He does so not fearing scrutiny, but inviting as much of it as any one of us can muster up, for God does nothing that is not bold. Such is God and such is Christmas.

It’s less that we’re missing the gift of vision and more that we have the tendency to obstruct it.

A ‘good’ father will tenderly cultivate his children. But a ‘good’ father who is also a ‘brave’ father will let the children without cultivate the child within.