The Best Team Does Not Always Win,

Some Communities Don't Permit Open, Honest Inquiry About The Things That Matter Most. Lots Of People Have Voiced A Concern, Expressed A Doubt, Or Raised A Question, Only To Be Told By Their Family, Church, Friends, Or Tribe: "we Don't Discuss Those Things Here." I Believe The Discussion Itself Is Divine. Abraham Does His Best To Bargain With God, Most Of The Book Of Job Consists Of Arguments By Job And His Friends About The Deepest Questions Of Human Suffering, God Is Practically On Trial In The Book Of Lamentations, And Jesus Responds To Almost Every Question He's Asked With...a Question.

Suffering Is Traumatic And Awful And We Get Angry And We Shake Our Fists At The Heavens And We Vent And Rage And Weep. But In The Process We Discover A New Tomorrow, One We Never Would Have Imagined Otherwise.

I Believe God Gives People The Right To Say No, To Resist, To Refuse, To Reject, To Cling To Their Sins, To Cling To Their Version Of Their Story.

The Christian Faith Is Mysterious To The Core. It Is About Things And Beings That Ultimately Can't Be Put Into Words. Language Fails. And If We Do Definitively Put God Into Words, We Have At That Very Moment Made God Something God Is Not.

Do We Get What We Want? Yes, We Get What We Want. God Is That Loving. If We Want Isolation, Despair, And The Right To Be Our Own God, God Graciously Grants Us That Option. If We Insist On Using Our God-given Pwer To Make The World In Our Image, God Allows Us That Freedom; We Have The Kind Of License To Do That.that's How Love Works. It Cant Be Forced, Manipulated, Or Coerced. It Always Leaves Room For The Other To Decide. God Says Yes, We Can Have What We Want, Because Love Wins.