There is a time to lament. There is a time to voice your questions to God. When Job was tested, he asked God why he was born if he was destined for misery, and God did not fault him. Yet, there is a time to consider the vastness, complexity, and terror of the universe, and say, “God created all this. He orchestrates every detail. He rules over every part. He is God, and I am not.” There is a time when you must stop lamenting and questioning God and simply trust him…

If you bring the salt water,
I'll bring the promise,
So wash my heart in the brine
That turns stoics into Psalmists…

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the words of an enemy” (Prov. 27:6). If you want to be loved by a true friend, read the prophets. In them, God will kiss you–yes, he will. But he will also wound you, because he loves you…

We are not perfect. It seems so often that I fail. How many times will Jesus forgive me? Distractions pull my attention. Worries crowd my mind. A thousand cheap pleasures dull my affections for God. A besetting sin asks for just one more rendezvous before sinking its teeth in deeper, and when I come to myself I wonder, Will he forgive me again?

“…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” That means you can take your deepest pains, add them together, and their height won’t be comparable to the joy of eternal life with Christ. Comparing your suffering to the joy of heaven would be as futile as comparing a gnat to an elephant. You wouldn’t need a scale to know which one is bigger…

And then, I realized something else I could say to God—something I didn’t want to say, something hard to say, but something bittersweet. I knew the sweet would outweigh the bitter, so I prayed it. “God, even if you don’t give me relief, I will still love you.” Something like that…

We are eternally satisfied to the core by God, and yet we are sometimes temporarily uncomfortable and even pained or confused when our little expectations meet his vast reality…

Stillness is the inflection point between worry and trust. If you struggle to trust God, be still; sit at his feet a while—and a while longer than you think you need…

Guiltless hands dripping blood-red,
Caught like a bug in a web—
While us sheep were so busy slaughtering lambs,
Our Shepherd broke in with a battering ram…