I understand true life doesn't happen when I constantly gaze backwards, mulling over all the injustices others have done or I have done to others.

When the world careens out of control, we can rest in the fact that God spun this world with a simple word. Matter from emptiness. Beauty from void. Community from chaos.

We grow when the walls press in. We grow when life steals our control. We grow in darkness.

Jesus wastes none of our stories, even our tales of woe. He transforms them into epic adventures where we dare to face our past for the sake of our present.

We may not understand the pathways God lays out before us. We may not even like walking the journey. But even in failure, we can trust that He’ll do more than we expect.

We cannot let the haters of this world define us. Or frighten us into no longer being ourselves.

To abandon all is to take our hearts, place them before the One who created them, and dare to believe He can live life powerfully through our surrendered lives.

The Gospel isn’t a life management program. It shouldn’t merely be the crutch we fall on when life gets ugly. It should be the legs we walk on, the air we breathe.

God's heart…is not that we escape our lot, but that we learn to thrive in the midst of it.