In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation.

God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go.

If you're bored, one thing is for sure: You're not following in the footsteps of Christ.

God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.

What sets lion chasers apart isn’t the outcome. It’s the courage to chase God-sized dreams.

As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.

God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ. God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here’s the catch: The right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time.

Instead of complaining about the current state of affairs, we need to offer better alternatives. [...] we need to stop cursing the darkness and start lighting some candles!

God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him, either.

Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God.

One of the most paralyzing mistakes we make is thinking that our problems somehow disqualify us from being used by God. Let me just say it like it is: If you don’t have any problems, you don’t have any potential. Here’s why. Your ability to help others heal is limited to where you’ve been wounded.

Nine times out of 10, criticism is a defense mechanism. We criticize in others what we don't like in ourselves.

Faith is unlearning this senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive. It is far more complex than simply modifying behavior. Faith is rewiring the human brain. We are literally upgrading our minds by downloading the mind of Christ.

Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning.

Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical

Society's goal is to make us less foolish. From the cradle to grave the pressure is on: "Be normal!" Our inner fool may be shackled and caged by a world made to suppress it, but Jesus came to free the fool.

Dr. Neal Roese makes a fascinating distinction between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction.

The only God-ordained fear is the fear of God, and if we fear Him, we don't have to fear anyone or anything else.

To the infinite, all finites are equal.

Now here is what you need to understand: If you don’t turn your adversity into a ministry, then your pain remains your pain. But if you allow God to translate your adversity into a ministry, then your pain becomes someone else’s gain.

The author gives an interesting naval etymology of the word "opportunity". It referred to days in which sailing ships had to wait outside a port for the appropriate tide, which then was their chance until the next tide.

Even choosing to do nothing is still making a choice.

God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time.

Worship is forgetting about what’s wrong with you and remembering what’s right with God.

The genealogy of blessing always traces back to God-ordained risk.

They thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles.

Any detail can be magnified to reveal even more detail ad infinitum. The technical term is “infinite complexity.” Fractals are the theological equivalent of what theologians call the incomprehensibility of God. Just when we think we have God figured out, we discover a new dimension of His kaleidoscopic personality.

But what if, instead of spending all of our energy making plans for God, we spent that energy seeking God?