If we choose to listen, however, to the positive thoughts, we will see they bring with them a power the lies do not have. They also bring wisdom, insight, and a strange comfort.

We must never think God does not receive us if we all we have is sorrow.

The real God isn’t going to step in front of us and keep our sins from hurting us. No, this God is going to invite us to step in front with Him and join Him in this great war between good and evil.

We think we can condemn other people, become cynics ourselves, and pretend it doesn’t have any harmful effects.

Our sufferings slip through our fingers and hit the ground with a thud, but not because our sufferings are less or more. Jesus isn’t playing a game of one-upmanship.

In some extraordinary way, this is where miracle rests in harmony with the ordinary. This is where water is turned into wine. This is where we begin to change.

Sitting beneath the Juniper is sacred ground.

Miracles are what happens when grace soaks through our hard-heartedness, when we make a connection despite our blindness, when our need is met in a way that we realize was not just our doing.

Is it time you leaned into God?

Why do we ask for signs?

So, now, God must prove himself. We cross our arms, keep our distance, and dare him.

Just try this: Ask God to see as God sees, and not only mean it, but DO it. Dare to DO it. Come out of such a prayer and expect to see differently!