1. Life is really about loving people.  Without expectations.   We tend to love in order to receive love back.  It is admittedly discouraging when we love others who do not seem to reciprocate or fulfill our expectations.  But the solution to this issue, as stated by an unnamed nun, is not to rest or stop, but rather to keep digging deeper in our hearts to love more.  Can we love the people that hurt us the most?  Can we love the people that seem unworthy of love?  Very difficult. 

2. Shallow relationships and friendships destroy community.  Broken and hurting people around like they have it all together; either suppressing or ignoring the main issues gnawing away at their hearts.  The irony is that only in facing those issues can we discover our capability to experience peace and joy.  Doing otherwise is like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.  Jesus demonstrated transparency and humility when dealing with broken people.  After all, I think that all we really want is to be found and loved.  Not loved for the good things we are, but rather with the junk and baggage we carry around.  But our inability and reluctance to be open and honest take away our only real chance at true community.  This is not to mention the other forces of competition and jealousy that constantly hammer away at our lives. 

3. God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.  I thought about President Bush and how people make fun of him, how his family is pretty dysfunctional.  Probably not the greatest president to ever run the country, but it is hard to argue that he does not have at least some of our best interests at heart.   Some of the best people I have met here in Indiana are people that the church would easily condemn as sinners.  Homosexuals, divorced people, braggarts, couples who cohabitate.  To extend Philip Yancey’s thought, it is probably easier to find grace (albeit a false grace) in a prostitute, food, drugs rather than in a church.    

4. God loves us.  A relationship with Him is the most important thing, even with the issues that we may have with Him.