All these sufferers wanted something better, and they looked forward to heaven as a place where their suffering or sadness would end.

The same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy, or point out loudly that you have a booger hanging out of your nose, is what is required to enter heaven. It is the opposite of ignorance – it is intellectual honesty: to be willing to accept reality and to call things what they are even when it is hard.

But you may feel differently. Maybe you’re one of those church members who get annoyed by the noise that comes with children or you get offended by the stains they leave behind in a perfectly clean church. If that’s you, I hope you’ll have the courage to reconsider. To start, maybe you’ll go to one of those marks on the wall or the stain on the brand-new carpeting and ask yourself this question: did Jesus die to save the carpet you’re standing on or the kid who made the stain?

If I’d let my mind roll with that boxing metaphor just a little longer, I might’ve followed it to its logical conclusion: In a boxing match, the fighters absorb some vicious blows because they’re ready for them. And usually, the knockout punch is the one they didn’t see coming.

When people are facing a trial, they find strength and support from others who have been through the same situations.

Sometimes I wonder, what do people do when they have no extended family and no church? In times of crisis, where does their support come from?

We know Satan uses people to hurt us, tear us down, but God uses people to build us up, to come alongside us and comfort us when we need it. Make it your goal to be those people he uses!

The Bible’s been attacked. What is truth? It’s relative.

If we put God front and center in our lives, if we give him more attention throughout each and every day, we may just find that the challenging times, when they come, are a little less challenging.

There are things God allows to happen because he knows the outcome is going to be greater than anything we could ever do on our own.