Speaker 1
And then you grew up. How's that going for you? Right? How's the belting going for you? How many of you wish you could, I wish I could go back as to eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and going to the playground? You know, you wanted to graduate, man. As soon as I get out of school, man. Oh, you got out. Is life less stressful? Is it easier now? Is it so much better? Is it everything you ever dreamed? You said, oh man, if I can just find the right spouse, the divorce rate is at 50%. So those people out there who didn't get divorced, they just found the right one, right? They're not struggling trying to keep it together. They're not intentionally fighting. They're just living in bliss every day. I promise you, that's not the case. I promise you, no matter what it is, that you think will take you to the place where you will feel less inferior, less stressed, less bothered, does not exist under the sun. The word utopia literally means no place. It does not exist here. So everything we're looking for to fill that void is not on planet earth. The hope we have is that there's a God who does have a utopia, a heaven, a paradise, and he's willing to allow us to join him there. And for a little while here, we will see dark days, but they won't all be dark, right? I went to Turkey with my wife and we went to visit Ephesus and they told me you have to see the women weaving on the loom. It's amazing. And we get to this Turkish rug store and the women are on the loom and they're weaving. And I was not impressed. I was not blown away. Matter of fact, what I saw was like, ask who? That's all right. And they said, no, no, no, no, great. Come to the other side of the loom. So I go to the other side and I see the design that is taking place from this woman's hands. And I'm like, oh, y'all right now we're on the side of the loom where it's not impressive. It's not pretty. And we're trying our best to make it beautiful. We're trying our best to make it absolute, the end all be all. It's not, but God is just saying, hey, hang in there. Because the other side of that loom is incredible. What God is weaving together is going to blow your mind. Hang in there. Start looking at things from God's perspective and things will become way more beautiful. When you remove the veil of all the worldly acclaim and pursuits and you start seeing things from the lens that God wants you to see him through and just being like, oh, shoot, you woke me up. I got life, I got lungs breathing, I got family, I got so much opportunity for growth and transformation. The God of the universe loves me on my worst day. Man, you start seeing that beauty being weaved together. It's all about how you're looking at it. My encouragement to you would be, look at things through God's lenses. You know, you gotta take those glasses off, put these ones on. The world's a lot more beautiful.