Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People

by Bob Goff

I’ve spent my whole life trying to make my faith easy. The truth is, it’s not. From what I’ve been reading, if we do it right, it will actually kill all the earlier versions of us. What I’m trying to do now is make my faith simple.

We don’t need to be who we used to be; God sees who we’re becoming—and we’re becoming love.

Love isn’t something we fall into; love is someone we become.

God’s idea isn’t that we would just give and receive love but that we could actually become love. People who are becoming love see the beauty in others even when their off-putting behavior makes for a pretty weird mask.

There’s a difference between good judgment and living in judgment. The trick is to use lots of the first and to go a little lighter on the second.

He gently reminds us who we are. He continues to rewrite our lives the way I rewrote my book—in beautiful and unexpected ways, knowing the next version of us will usually be better than the previous one.

God doesn’t just give us promises; He gives us each other.

“Love one another.” What is simple often isn’t easy; what is easy often doesn’t last.

When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.

Run back toward God, not away from Him.

Do lots of that. Find your way back to the people you’ve loved and who have loved you.

God isn’t wowed by fancy words; He delights in humble hearts.

These same people who are becoming love stop keeping track of other people’s tickets too. Instead of evaluating what others are doing, they see them as people who are on their own adventure with God. They don’t stop counting because they don’t care; they’re just so busy engaging in what God is doing in the world, it doesn’t matter anymore.

The promise of love and grace in our lives is this: Our worst day isn’t bad enough, and our best day isn’t good enough. We’re invited because we’re loved, not because we earned it.

People who are becoming love understand God guides us into uncomfortable places because He knows most of us are too afraid to seek them out ourselves.

We don’t decide who in line is in and who’s out, and we don’t need to waste any more time engaging in the kinds of arguments some people get sucked into. People who are becoming love don’t swing at every pitch.

We need to be careful where our minds dwell.

God doesn’t want us to get stuck scratching our heads or overanalyzing our circumstances.

What I’ve found, though, is when we’re looking for a plan, God often sends us a person.