Matthew 6:34: Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

What race are we running? When did the gun sound? Why are we so focused on a finish line that we fail to see what we are passing?

We each run the same race: life. Each one of us runs for a different finish line. Success, wealth, marriage, good Christian, etc. The thirst for completion drives us. But what about each step in the actual race? The way the earth feels as you land after each stride. The aroma of the outdoors. The sound of those cheering for each step; crying out for your success. The intensity of your heart as it accelerates, not only because of physical strain, but because it is pushing every last ounce of desire into your legs as it screams for victory. Your body resisting all the forces attempting to restrain you from your goal. How about the understanding that you have the physical ability to partake in the race?

Apply this to life. How much are we missing by focusing only on the finish line? Goals are not bad, but each stride in any race is critical. Without that step, we stumble. Each day God has graced our lives with is a stride. A stride that took preparation to get to. Just as a runner trains, life is lived in preparation for today’s stride. Yes, aspiration has been the driving factor, but each day lessons are learned, wounds draw closer to healing, scars fade further, hearts are changed, and lives are impacted. Feel the foundation of Christ and His truth. Embrace the aroma of God’s creation and our interaction with it. Be motivated by the lives of those you have touched and those that have touched yours; God has introduced them into your story for a reason. Refresh your heart by bringing it closer to the Heart of God; desire to be with Him and learn from Him. Accelerate your heart by pouring into people’s lives and allowing them to pour into yours. Resist the forces of the enemy that try to dissuade you. God has equipped you with a life, go LIVE it!

Love: I love it; I hate it. It’s a word far overused with much of its meaning diminished. One of the most powerful words, it can either loosen or tighten the chains of a heart. I have been built up by love. I have been broken down by love. Love has been my companion at incredible highs and terrible lows. What a word. What a feeling - the feeling of being in love. The warmth that comes from delicately placing your heart in the hands of another. Trusting another human with something so fragile, so critical to your existence. Allowing your hearts to be knit together with another, and each second, beckoning us to draw even closer to that person. A darkened life, brightened by the smile of a heart offering itself to yours.

I’ve experienced love at its pinnacle on multiple occasions. I have felt as if another day of this life could not crawl into existence without her heart beating for mine and mine for hers. Holding a person so close, your souls seem to intertwine. Unfortunately, in my life, these experiences have been an overture to brokenness and pain. At times of loneliness, the intentional painful memory is replayed, perhaps by a song or a picture. This poke to the heart is to ensure that it can still feel. That it is still alive. That maybe, just maybe, it will find love again, that it will trust love again. What is this word that envelopes us so deeply that we cannot break free from it? What a word to leave such damaging scars and gaping wounds on our most precious of possessions. The crushing feeling of a failed love. Left standing at the beginning of a once illuminated path that is now concealed in a thick, mysterious darkness, asking, “What now?”

So we hunt for the pieces of our heart that we may never fully regain. As we scramble to pick up the pieces, they only seem to slide further from our reach. We strive to recover them, but collapse out of pure exhaustion, the pieces slipping forever away. Love directs us into a world of mystery, with many places unforeseen. Where trials and trouble wander into places we could never dream.

These feelings exposed to this parchment, etched into forever, are but a tiny fraction of what the heart of God must experience with His children. If love has touched your heart or you can relate with any word on this page, then try to imagine a love far greater. A self-sacrificing love. There is no love on Earth that can match the Love that was crucified. A Love that cleansed a broken and filthy humanity. A humanity born into sin, but delivered by Love. Each shattered heart has crafted our lives. Each piece that was lost, has been renewed through Christ. When we feel as if our hearts are dead, understand that a greater Love exists, and it is knocking at our tattered door. Joining a human heart with another human heart is temporary. Knitting a human heart with the Heart of God is eternal. We are privy to a Love that will not only replace the missing pieces, but will renew the entire heart. This Love revitalizes our souls; it causes our hearts to beat stronger, to overflow with a love that will forever change our lives. Each beat will pump more love into others. Each scar will fade into a distant memory. It will be what we call our story. Our life, lived to be an example to others that we are human too. We have lived lives that have tread through pain. Lives that have experienced the emotions, graciously given to us by the Creator. We are not perfect. We have been broken by love, but most importantly, we have been broken by the One true Love that has renewed our hearts. He has resurrected a dead and faded heart. He is the reason each beat draws us nearer to Him and to our fellow man. His love flows through us. It refills our empty hearts, spilling into the hearts of those around us.

Praise God for love! Each second of pain was shaping my heart to bring me closer to His. To experience the pain that He suffers as His children deny Him to seek solace in trivial nonsense is something I cannot imagine. But His love never fails. It never leaves us empty. It will fill what a human heart has destroyed. In my numbness, I feel Him. In my deepest sorrow, I feel Him. In my moments of soaring, I feel Him. He is with me. His hands are holding my heart. Though it may still be broken by some future event, His heart will rejuvenate mine. Darkness cannot quench His light. Glory to God!

I can’t shake this heavy heart. Stepped into the world and saw what it really is. Observed the world we live in and the people we share it with. These people need Christ. I found myself broken from the lack of value people have placed on themselves. They have devalued themselves to be a physical object of lust and temporary gratification. Identity is found in places where darkness flourishes, where temporary pleasures are the only treasure.

Isaiah 42:17 says this—“But those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back in utter shame.” The idol that most people worship is their own image. This image-idol is about how well you can portray your financial situation, your attitude, your social status, and your physical appearance. Image is important, especially for the Christian. But the image we should be portraying is the image of Jesus Christ. He is everything. People should see Jesus when they look at us. Since this world is starving for the love of Christ to fill these empty voids currently being filled with shallow pride and self-indulgence, image is critical.

Don’t be mistaken. This isn’t an excuse to become prideful or self-righteous. This is a reason to humble ourselves to allow Christ to work through us to show His love. I recently experienced a world I had said goodbye to a long time ago. A world I had not been surrounded by for quite some time. Being encircled by Christian friends and enjoying events put on my fellow believers has stifled my perception of the world we live in. It’s dark. It’s craving a reason to be valued. These temporary satisfactions are crippling our humanity. This is the world we live in. My heart breaks for it. People are worth so much more than this world tells us we are. 1 Corinthians 6:20—“you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

I sit anxiously awaiting my time to serve. I’ve decided to keep this opportunity to serve as quiet as I can. Only a few people know, because they are concerned as to why I will not be at church on Sunday morning. I’ve made my decision to keep whatever serving I do between me and God. Even though this opportunity came through the company I work for, I still want to hold to Matthew 6:3–“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” The last time I served with my company, I posted the number of lunches served on facebook. I like to think that I didn’t do it to boast- I just wanted to share. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see that it reeked of pride. Facebook seems to allow us to portray “humble” pride, of which I am the biggest offender. So why am I writing this if I want to keep my serving between me and God? Because Fox 2 news was at the soup kitchen documenting everything and interviewing several of my co-workers. So, this service opportunity I had desired to keep quiet will be airing on Fox 2 news from Thanksgiving until Christmas. But that is not the only reason I am sharing this story…

Crossroads soup kitchen is a very nice facility but heavily regulated by the health department. I love serving there because you are really put to work. This past Sunday (11-15) was a slow day. We served over 700 lunches. Think about that. This really tugged on my heart even more than the last time I worked in this same kitchen and we served over 1000 lunches. I don’t share this number to brag or try to convey that I’m all holier than thou. A slow day is feeding over 700 people. Over 700 people. That number is bigger than the Lighthouse Collective. And that’s a SLOW day!! I couldn’t help the crushing feeling of how selfish I have been. I have been so stressed and upset about all the stuff that has hit me in my life. There are people with REAL needs and TRUE pain. They don’t have time to concern themselves with trivial nonsense. No matter what I’m going through, I still go home to a nice apartment; I can sit down to a nice meal at anytime either in a restaurant, with my parents, or even just by myself. There is just too much of me in my life. God has really been working on my heart in this area. Matthew 25:45 continues to resonate in my head. “…I tell you the truth, whatever you did NOT do for the least of these, you did NOT do for me.” If 700 needy people is a slow day in a small area of Detroit, think about the mass need just in the United States. Expand that to the rest of the world, and it’s overwhelming.

I know we can’t do it all. But we can have an impact. We each have a different part to play as 1 Corinthians 12:12 reminds us. “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” We can serve within the church and we can serve on the streets. We can encourage and pray (REALLY pray) for those in the mission field and those they are helping. We can offer financial assistance to those in need. We can be the shoulder to cry on or the ear to listen. We can be the church. We MUST be the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27—“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”).

Let’s show the love of Christ—the love that has set us free from the chains of darkness—to all who are brought into our lives.

1 Thessalonians 3:3 — so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them.

What a fantastic reminder that just because we are saved by Grace, doesn’t mean our walk will be easy. The past couple of weeks have been extremely strenuous on my heart and mind. It has been attack after crippling attack. I’ve felt like I have been just limping along. The enemy is feeding me lies about how I’m not good enough for the Kingdom, that I’m worthless.

The truth is, I will never be good enough. That’s why Christ had to die for me and for all of us. To make us new and cleanse us of our sin. We need CHRIST to enter the Kingdom. In the same regard, I don’t have the strength to make it through these trials. Christ carries me through each one. By His strength I am able to see victory after each battle. It is to Him I give all the glory. We are NOT worthless.

Never forget: 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23 “you were bought at a price…” Let me say it again: we are NOT worthless; we were purchased by the Blood of Christ! Praise God for His grace!!

Matthew 9:28-30
“When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said. ‘According to your faith it will it be done to you’; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this.’”

I find the faith of these blind men amazing! It makes me think about my own faith. We are so burdened with all the things we can NOT do that we limit God’s infinite power to our own finite abilities. These blind men KNEW, without a doubt, that Jesus would heal them. Without a doubt. How many times do we ask God for something, but doubt that it is even possible? I know I’m guilty of it. A friend was praying that I would finish all of my work in a short time so that I could leave the office at a reasonable hour. I knew that the amount of work I had to do could never be done in the time frame she requested. It just wasn’t physically possible. That got me thinking and feeling convicted. I was limiting God to the physical world that we live in. If He wanted the computers to be completely repaired/set up when I opened them, why couldn’t they be? I know that God doesn’t HAVE to do anything we ask Him to do, but I felt ashamed that I would tell God what I didn’t think He could do. Where was my faith?

Why did I doubt Matthew 19:26 — “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’”? This comes from Jesus’ own mouth! The work scenario may sound ridiculous, but give that a thought. Why does that sound ridiculous? Why have we found ourselves limiting God to our own understanding? Is it possible to believe, without a doubt, that God could actually move that mountain if He so desired? It’s easy to say yes, but think about it. Really think about it. We serve the Creator of ALL things. He can do anything. Anything.

I cry for help in the night.
Drowned in unwanted pains
And unfulfilled desires.
Craving the undeserved.
I stand…..
Thunder-Death to silence;
Lightning cleansing darkness;
Fully drenched in the moonlight;
Rain kissing face.
Arms outstretched to feel Your embrace.
Contentment……contentment……
Treasures revealed as seconds;
Gone before spoken.
These priceless moments with You.
Weakened by Your Presence,
Humbled by Your Grace.
Forgive me for lack of gratitude.
I am not worthy of this precious trove.

There are things in my life that I struggle with on a daily basis. These battles are made evident when situations arise or just in conversation. I realize this most after I have spent an evening talking with people. I analyze my conversation and wonder why I said this, or why I said that. Do my conversations include moments where I seek pity because of some past experience or do I discuss the blessings? God has brought a lot of amazing people into my life. I have incredible prayer warriors. I’ve prayed over and over again asking God to take these struggles away. But what if I subconsciously don’t fully want Him to? What if the reason I struggle with these things is because they have become “woven into my identity”? I don’t want these struggles - I really don’t. I want to be rid of them. Why have I allowed myself to define who I am by my weakest moments? I’ve been lied to. Revelation calls Satan the one “who leads the whole world astray” (Revelation 12:9). What better way for the enemy to attempt to weaken my relationship with Christ then by convincing me that I am defined by who I was or what decisions I’ve made. That I’m not good enough to be with or serve Him.

John 8:44 describes Satan: “… He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” My character and my story has been shaped by my struggles and my experiences, but I am not defined by them. I am defined by who I am in Christ, not who I was. The things I fight are not a part of my identity. I can lay them at them at the cross entirely. I can release my grip on what Satan has told me; I can’t let go of without losing a part of myself. My prayer is to no longer believe the lies. I am forgiven and changed. I was purchased with innocent blood. My heart is made whole by Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:11
“In order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”