One Sunday afternoon, the Reverend Mike Slaughter was relaxing on the sofa, reading the Sunday paper, when an advertisement for a BMW sedan caught his eye.

And then he turned the page.

There was a story of violence in the Sudan caused by the circumstances of civil war. He turned the words over in his head, Sedan, Sudan. Sedan, Sudan.

I wonder if Slaughter laughed when he realized the difference is the letter 'u'?

In the Christian tradition we are caught in a real paradox.

On the one hand, "It's not about you." That is the beauty of the first sentence of The Purpose-Driven Life that resonated so deeply with millions of Christians. God's story is bigger than us: bigger than our wants, our desires, our worst selves, bigger than even our best selves. And yet – the working out of the kingdom depends on you. It hinges on you. Do you see the paradoxical tension there? It's not about you. It is about you.

The very first word God speaks to a human being in the Bible is 'you.' God says to Adam ...