There is a sense of call to take leadership roles. You're serving people and submitting to God as best you can.

Leadership is an act of submission to God. To be a leader means listening to all kinds of people and situations. Out of that listening, we are hoping to discern the mind of God as best we can. This is the price of leadership - it's an act of sacrifice. So leadership is part and parcel of the work of submission to God.

Pride is one of the socially acceptable sins in some corners of the evangelical culture. It's just straight-out ego gratification - how important I am; whether my name gets on the building or on the TV program or in the magazine article.

I think of Pope Gregory the Great. He wanted the cloister. He wanted to pray and study, and yet he was thrust into this administrative job, and he submitted to that. And in that submission, he became a great leader. You could say that the only person who is safe to lead is the person who is free to submit.

I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die, die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.

I hold onto the Scripture that says, 'Be anxious for nothing, but in all things give thanks.' I'm not saying I don't have problems or that I don't worry, but I try not to be stressed. I manage my anxiety through prayer. Worry shows up on your face, and I don't want that!

Trust me, I would love to have a wife and kids. I would very much enjoy that. But I also know that you have to be in the right place to do that.

If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.