Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.

I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them.

Most people need love and acceptance a lot more than they need advice.

Failure is just part of the process, and it's not just okay; it's better than okay. God doesn't want failure to shut us down. God didn't make it a three-strikes-and-you're-out sort of thing. It's more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.

You don't need a plan; you just need to be present.

Living a life fully engaged and full of whimsy and the kind of things that love does is something most people plan to do, but along the way they just kind of forget. Their dreams become one of those "we'll go there next time" deferrals. The sad thing is, for many there is no "next time" because passing on the chance to cross over is an overall attitude toward life rather than a single decision.

I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.

But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright.

The thing I love about God is He intentionally guides people into failure.

Grace works that way. It's a kind word from a gentle person with an impossible prayer. It's a force sometimes transmitted best hand to hand in a dark place.

Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That's what I want my life to be all about - full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.

I don't think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, the scripts we know offer a brand of security, of predictability, of safety for us. But the problem is, they only take us where we've already been. They loop us back to places where everyone can easily go, not necessarily where we were made to go. Living a different kind of life takes some guts and grit and a new way of seeing things.

I used to think God wouldn’t talk to me, but now I know I’m just selective with what I choose to hear.

I want to go barefoot because it’s holy ground; I want to be running because time is short and none of us has as much runway as we think we do; and I want it to be a fight because that’s where we can make a difference. That’s what love does.

That's what love does - it pursues blindly, unflinchingly, and without end. When you go after something you love, you'll do anything it takes to get it, even if it costs everything.

Whimsy doesn't care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.

It has always seemed to me that broken things, just like broken people, get used more; it's probably because God has more pieces to work with.

That’s because love is never stationary. In the end, love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put: love does.

For me, it's Jesus plus nothing-...

When you trust someone, you don't need to know everything.

That's one of those things about love. It always assumes it can find a way to express itself.

Jesus lets us be real with our life and our faith.

When you are in high school, you don't give much thought to what you can't do. For most people, that gets learned later, and for still fewer, gets unlearned for the rest of life.

I think God’s hope and plan for us is pretty simple to figure out. For those who resonate with formulas, here it is: add your whole life, your loves, your passions, and your interests together with what God said He wants us to be about, and that’s your answer.

...we need to stop plotting the course and instead just land the plane on our plans to make a difference by getting to the "do" part of faith.

If Jesus has taught me anything, though, it's that sometimes you can really want to know somebody and it takes them forever to want to know you back.

Whimsy...needs to be fully experienced to be fully known. Whimsy doesn't care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.

People who follow Jesus, though, are no longer typical - God is constantly inviting them into a life that moves away from typical.