Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.

Some who attempt prayer never have the sense of anyone listening on the other end. They blame themselves for doing it wrong.... Prayer requires the faith to believe that God listens.

Jesus did not give the parables to teach us how to live. He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions about who God is and who God loves.

Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter.

In China, where you can be arrested and imprisoned for your faith, getting together with other Christians is a lifeline and you'll risk anything for the privilege. No one attends church in China casually, or for a social advantage - quite the opposite.

A faithful person sees life from the perspective of trust, not fear. Bedrock faith allows me to believe that, despite the chaos of the present moment, God does reign; that regardless of how worthless I may feel, I truly matter to a God of love; that no pain lasts forever and no evil triumphs in the end. Faith sees even the darkest deed of all history, the death of God's Son, as a necessary prelude to the brightest.

The point of the Book of Job is not suffering: where is God When It hurts? The prologue (chapters 1-2) dealt with that issue. The point of the Book of Job is faith: Where is Job when it hurts?

If we insist on visible proofs from God, we may well prepare the way for a permanent state of disappointment. True faith does not so much attempt to manipulate God to do our will as it does to position us to do his will. As I searched through the Bible for models of great faith, I was struck by how few saints experienced anything like Job's dramatic encounter with God. The rest responded to the hiddenness not by demanding that he show himself, but by going ahead and believing him though he stayed hidden.

We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the "real" world and the unseen world as the "unreal" world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.

As I look around on Sunday morning at the people populating the pews, I see the risk that God has assumed. For whatever reason, God now reveals himself in the world not through a pillar of smoke and fire, not even through the physical body of his Son in Galilee, but through the mongrel collection that comprises my local church and every other such gathering in God’s name. (p. 68, Church: Why Bother?)

I say this with care, but I wonder if a fierce, insistent desire for a miracle - even a physical healing - sometimes betrays a lack of faith rather than an abundance of it. When yearning for a miraculous resolution to a problem, do we make our loyalty to God contingent on whether he reveals himself yet again in the seen world?

The bible never belittles disappointment, but it does add one key word: temporary - What we feel now, we will not always feel. Our disappointment is itself a sign, and aching, a hunger for something better. And faith is, in the end, a kind of homesickness - for a home we have never visited but have never once stopped longing for.

God reproduces and lives out His image in millions of ordinary people like us. It is a supreme mystery. We are called to bear that image as a Body because any one of us taken individually would present an incomplete image, one partly false and always distorted, like a single glass chip hacked from a mirror. But collectively, in all our diversity, we can come together as a community of believers to restore the image of God in the world.

A faithful person sees life from the perspective of trust, not fear. Bedrock faith allows me to believe that, despite the chaos of the present moment, God does reign; that regardless of how worthless I may feel, I truly matter to a God of love; that no pain lasts forever and no evil triumphs in the end. Faith sees even the darkest deed of all history, the death of God's Son, as a necessary prelude to the brightest.

The world is not against you, but the world is a place where bad things happen. It's just true. Airlines crash, people do evil things. A lot of bad things happen and it causes pain.

The presence of another caring person doubles the amount of pain a person can endure,

Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else.

The surgery of life hurts. It helps me, though, to know that the surgeon himself, the Wounded Surgeon, has felt every stab of pain and every sorrow.

To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice. Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

The problem of pain meets its match in the scandal of grace.

Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame-and pain-in a relationship...It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and fairness...But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive.

Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross.

It's too bad prayer comes bundled in a package of 'spiritual disciplines.' Really, we should see prayer as a spiritual privilege. We don't do it as a callisthenic exercise to gain points with God; we do it, because it is good for us in every way.

You are free to reject God. Make sure that you're really rejecting God, not some caricature of God that the church has shown you. But I, one, respect a God who not only allows us to reject Him but includes the arguments we can use against Him in the Bible. I respect that.

The borderlanders are people who are kind of caught in the middle. They think there must be another world out there. There probably is a God, but they are either turned off by the church or wounded by the church or wary of the church for whatever reason.

God endorses the confusion and even outrage that we feel when mysterious things happen.

He (Job) did not seek the Giver because of His gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver.

The people who related to God best--Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah--treated him with startling familiarity. They talked to God as if he were sitting in a chair beside them, as one might talk to a counselor, a boss, a parent, or a lover. They treated him like a person.

It's too bad prayer comes bundled in a package of 'spiritual disciplines.' Really, we should see prayer as a spiritual privilege. We don't do it as a callisthenic exercise to gain points with God; we do it, because it is good for us in every way.

As I read the Bible, it seems clear that God satisfies his "eternal appetite" by loving individual human beings. I imagine He views each halting step forward in my spiritual "walk" with the eagerness of a parent watching a child take the very first step.

We're concerned with how things turn out; God seems more concerned with how we turn out.

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort.

The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.

If your church conveys that spirit of condescension or judgment, it's likely not a place where grace is on tap.

Grace is a free gift of God, but to receive a gift you must have open hands.

... learning humility is a prerequisite for grace.

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more . . . And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less

If, like me, you believe that your taxes should be spent on your priorities in this country by politicians accountable to you then you should vote to leave the E.U.

Once we leave the E.U., we will be able to slash the £600 million of costs of Brussels bureaucracy that hold back our businesses.

With Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party and as Prime Minister, the United Kingdom, at long last, will have a Prime Minister who believes in Britain and is in tune with the views of the millions of people who voted - over three years ago now - to leave the E.U.

Too many communities are living in fear as violent crime rises. So we need to reform our justice system to keep our streets safe and protect the law-abiding majority. That means putting an end to soft sentences and punishing offenders by keeping them behind bars so that the public can be protected and the offenders can be rehabilitated.

Our aid budget has a crucial role to play in shaping the world according to our universal values of democracy, enterprise and justice.

As we exit the E.U. and reassert ourselves as a great global trading nation, we have a unique opportunity to redefine our relationship with Africa.

We must stand firm against the Left's nationalisation obsession.

Free to set our own laws, Brexit should act as a catalyst for a new era of prosperity for an outward-looking U.K. ambitious in removing barriers to trade, enterprise and economic growth.

Britain has a long and proud record of welcoming migrants. They have made many positive contributions to our economy. But the impact of uncontrolled immigration from the E.U. has placed new pressures on our country.

The U.K. alone cannot be left to help those who have lost everything.

The truth is that the E.U. constrains us in all manner of ways and throws reams of red tape around British businesses.

If you work hard, no career should be off-limits.

I want the country to be proud of our police.