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

Goff discusses the importance of discernment in choosing life's companions. He recounts a hitchhiking trip where joined a driver who claimed to be Satan. The van has a bizarre and tense atmosphere. Goff, feeling threatened, insists on being let out. Reflecting on this, he advises on the wisdom of assessing people’s direction in life before joining them, just as he later does with a woman driving to a wedding, symbolizing a safer and more aligned journey. Goff ties this lesson to the idea of mental and spiritual influence, cautioning that our associations can deeply affect our trajectory and well-being. He emphasizes that while everyone deserves kindness, not all should have a direct role in our lives, paralleling Jesus’s biblical dismissal of Satan and underscoring the control each individual has over their social choices and the paths they pursue.

One day, as Goff drove home, a car hit his Jeep, causing it to roll over and eject him onto the road. He found himself sitting unharmed on the asphalt, but his Jeep was left upside down, engine revving wildly. Instead of being upset, Goff found humor and awe in the experience, declaring to the other driver, an elderly woman named Lynn, that it was the most thrilling event of his life.