What is it about our expectations, plans, or ideas that hold such sway over us? It is as if we've written a script for a play of our lives that runs about a month ahead of actual life; if reality varies from what we've created in our minds we disengage or pout.

Conversion of our views of self in light of God is continual. We daily have to take the time to notice and trust in who he is in order to understand who we are. The book of Romans assures us that God's Spirit will fill each moment of our lives if we notice and trust the way he is repairing our humanity.

As those of you with children know, rational parenting is like the Loch Ness Monster. We all hope it's out there somewhere, but we don't know anyone who has actually discovered it (and if we do come across someone who claims to have found it, deep down we think that person is a little off.

We don't treat Jesus like a puppy, soaking in his excitement over our coming home and then leading him back to stay in the laundry room when we go out to begin another day.

We can make our own plans and judge them by our narrow expectations, or we can experience life as the boundless reality of the One who created it.

We don't practice hospitality to point other people to ourselves, our church, or even our beliefs. We practice hospitality to point people toward the ultimate welcome that God gives every person through Christ.

Yes, our goal as Christians should be to do away with the things in our world that keep people from knowing the love and freedom of Christ. Equally, and maybe more so, our goal should be noticing and doing away with the things on our own lives that keep people from understanding Christ as well. After all, don't the systematic injustices usually grow from the individual ones?

Compassion doesn't arise from the belief that the evil in the world is somebody else's fault or that it is a result of poor choices a suffering person has made.

Praise be to God that hope is much more than how we feel on a given day. It exists outside of us; it is an entity in itself.