1. You may be surprised to discover that, rather than changing your theology, these other voices deepen and expand it in ways that never would have happened if you listened only to the “approved” voices.
  2. There is nothing more appealing than someone telling me I can be whatever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, accomplish whatever I set out to accomplish. No boundaries. No walls.
  3. If there’s going to be a celebration, why not celebrate fidelity, obedience, hard work?
  4. Cindy’s tragedy was that she was blind to the Christ from whom all her good gifts came.
  5. We are fond of attaching our own résumés to our spoken or unspoken prayers. “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men, such as that lying, pathetic, husband named Abraham.”
  6. For the less we tell these stories of sin, the more it seems we are ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of bad people.
  7. I don’t mean simply that I “loved the darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil,” as Jesus says (John 3:19). While that is true, there was deeper magic at work. I loved the darkness because I feared all the good things in the light.
  8. Whatever numbers you want to plug in, ours must be greater than zero. We’re in a partnership with God, after all. We both do our part. We’ve got to meet the Lord halfway. If only he does all the giving, and we do all the receiving, the relationship is doomed to fail.
  9. But when I let my mind go there, in truth all I’m doing is this: bellying up to the bar of sentimentality to drink my fill of falsehoods that leave me intoxicated with feelings of saintly superiority.