God’s decision to reach out in such dramatic fashion as to lay all rightful privilege aside and be born into abject destitution tells us that His passion for us exceeds our desire for Him. And maybe we should commit to evening that up a bit.

A true leader never has to put his ‘big boy pants on’ because he’s never taken them off.

We’ve yet to comprehend the impervious reality that to gain ‘life’ we have to do the most scandalous thing imaginable, and that is to work ‘against’ the whole of our humanity and give everything away. And yet to give everything away is to work ‘with’ the whole of God’s character.

I would like to say that I’m sacrificial. But am I sacrificial enough to acknowledge the fact that I’m not?

You will find great leaders pounding the pavement of life instead of pounding the pulpits of their agendas.

If a father does not altogether embrace a life of uncompromised sacrifice as the core of all principles by which he nurtures his children, he is a father by birth only and no power on earth can ever or will ever make that sufficient.

A ‘good’ leader recognizes that they have been granted the uncommon experience of leading common men. A ‘great’ leader recognizes that of all men, they are likely the most common.

The essence of true leadership is our willingness to leave wherever we might be in order to meet people wherever they happen to be.

All too soon the garden of childhood is paved cold with the asphalt roads of adulthood. And while it is not within her power to halt this unrelenting progression, a mother can diligently guard this most precious garden and insure that the roads become gentle paths that wind through it instead of byways that kill it.