Ego is borne of the need to ‘prove’ oneself instead of making the choice to ‘be’ oneself. And so maybe we need to begin curbing the birthrate.

Most of us spend ourselves trying to be something that we’re not. And if we’d just spend that energy on growing into who we are, we’ll rather quickly discover that who we’re not is something that we’ll be glad we’re not.

What excites us the most or likewise scares us the most is when something is exactly what it says it is. And when it comes to Christmas, we’re going to end up finding ourselves on one side of that line or the other.

Do we dare embrace an authentic faith stripped bare of everything that we have spoken into it and ripped entirely clean of everything that we have built upon it? And are we willing to embrace something that inexpressibly potent, that unashamedly demanding, and that shockingly unfamiliar? Yet maybe the better question is, do we dare to not do that?

Authentic love is deciding to live on a one-way street where all the arrows point down the street and not a single one of them point back up to where I’m standing.

To live a fantasy is to avoid a life.

I cannot create greatness as I can only create weak facsimiles. And in sorting through the innumerable facsimiles around me, I will only happen upon true greatness when I happen upon the true God.

I have diligently disciplined my life to search out life’s gifts in the very places where society mistakenly says life stores its scraps. And I am constantly amazed that in the treasure trove that surrounds me, I stand in the company of so few.

Such is the power of truth that even the slightest whisper of it can handily drown out the most boisterous of lies, which may explain why in many instances God only needs to whisper.