Awareness of your total depravity draws forth the hero.

Everyone eventually becomes demoralized. It takes a heroic effort to overcome demoralization. A demoralized person is unlikely to identify with the hero. The spirit of the hero only engages the demoralized person.

Engaging the desire for meaning is what connects you to your higher purpose, what connects you to Christ. In order to more deeply engage the desire for meaning, you have to go deeper into desire in general. This is what it means to be tempted by the devil on the journey to

The common person has no category for the Non-Christian who truly lives a high faith life. The two might as well be different species.

Rise and fall.

In this world, reality is going to tell you no over and over. The Christian story promises to deliver on whatever you ask for in the name of the son. It provides encouragement for you to make a stand against and defy reality’s rejection. If you’re going to just permanently

You have a practical part of yourself and a dreamer. If you want to seriously pursue the good life, then you need to manage the relationship between the dreamer and the practical. The practical has to be willing to both (1) give up the driver’s seat to the dreamer and (2)

Cain and Abel represent a progression in faith. That’s why they are brothers. Abel embodies the truth which says, “If you do what is right, then you will be accepted.” Cain represents a deeper level of faith which is why the story tells you he works the soil. His digging

Memory emerges primarily as a response to having lasting goodness (heaven) ripped away. Still, if you stretch your memory, you can recover intimations of that lost, lasting goodness.