Levi Lusko - Peace When Life's a Mess

My son, Lennox, who’s here with us, and I were in my Jeep driving down the road a few months ago and we weren’t going crazy fast, we were about to turn on a freeway so we would’ve gotten a lot quicker. But on this little road we were on, we were hitting about 40, 43, 44. And that’s when I started to hear it, that low level hum of a vehicle that’s not going so good, right? When something’s healthy, you almost always hear it before you see it. There’s a sound to healthy things, by the way, that’s why we praised God a moment ago because «Praise,» C. S. Lewis said, «is the sound of a healthy soul».

When something’s healthy, it has a certain sound. When it’s unhealthy, it has a different sound. That’s why doctors always wanna listen to your lungs, listen to your heart, because healthy things sound a certain way. Well, I could tell from the sound of my Jeep that it was not healthy, right? The sound, I started to feel it through my whole body. It was a vibration and then it was a rumble, and then it was, when I hit 45 miles an hour, it was a full-fledged wobble. And I felt like we were about to violently continue in this acceleration of shaking and we were gonna flip over.

So I immediately put the hazards on, braked, pulled over to the side of the road. I called the mechanic and explained what happened. He was nonchalant. He goes, «Oh, oh, sounds like you got a death wobble on your hands». A death wobble? Why are you gotta be calling it that, right? He said, «Just go slow. Did it happen about 45, 50»? I go, «Yeah, 45 exactly». He said, «Just go slowly, come to me». And we dropped the car off.

I got picked up, and later on he called me and I said, «What was it? What’s the deal»? He said, «It happens to Jeeps a lot for whatever reason». He said, «But here’s the deal. It was no one thing that caused your wobble. It was three things in your vehicle that have gotten worn down over time, and these three things worn down eventually made your car susceptible to it». He said, «I bet you hit a pothole right before it started». I go, «Actually, that’s crazy, I hit this bump». And he said, «Yeah, you hit a bump and it causes three worn down things to all of a sudden just weaken. And that’s what happened».

It wasn’t a big fix. He said it’s gonna cost like $641 and told me things that I didn’t even know existed, track bar, drag link, tie rod, right? I just bought the Jeep 'cause my dad had one, and it gives me nostalgia, okay? It wasn’t like I actually am about that yellow duck life and, you know, crawling and all these things. I mean, I’ll give me a Jeep wave just like the next guy. But I said, «Of course, I’ll pay the $600. I can’t have. Do you know how much caskets cost»? I mean, this was scary. I mean, it felt so out of control when this was happening. Just going down the road one moment, now feeling like I’m about to flip into oncoming traffic the next.

Now, I did have other options. I didn’t have to fork out the 600 bucks. I could have just burned the car on fire and bought a new one, I suppose. I could have just for the rest of my life driven only sub-40 miles an hour, the height of dysfunction. Like it’s just, «Hey, at least it’s not happening, at least I’m not gonna wobble». And of course, the better decision was to suffer the inconvenience and the expense and the setback to actually deal with what was going on under the hood. Matthew 5, Jesus tells us exactly what we need to do when our lives wobble, what we need to know. And of course, difficult seasons come in all shapes and sizes, right? Touch three people and tell 'em, «Where’d you get your wobble»? Right? «Where’d you get your wobble? Where’d you get your wobble»? All of us are gonna at times find ourselves feeling like, «What’s going on here? Everything is no longer normal. Things are shaking, I feel out of control».

But here’s what you need to remember in the midst of life’s wobbling seasons, it says in Matthew 5:3, «Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, not just a little bit glad, but when you’re wobbling down the road, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, supersize your gladness, somebody, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you». Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank You for Your Word, we love Your Word, we just realize what an honor it is to be able to open it up and consider it and let You speak to us. And we pray, God, that even if it doesn’t feel anything remotely close to something that we should rejoice over, that we would have our eyes open to see what a joy it is to go through hard things that cause our eyes to go to You. And we pray now You would speak to us loud and clear, and may Your blessing be upon this church not only thanking You for the past, but also anticipating what you’re gonna do in the coming days. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Essentially what Jesus is saying, to paraphrase the beatitudes, is blessed are the spiraling. That’s the title of the message. That’s the title of this book that really came out of a really dark, difficult two-year long period. I’m 43 now, about to be next year 44, right? That’s how time works. And it just sort of sneaks up on you, creeps up on you. It’s wild how that all takes place. But when I turned 38, I began, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, a period of wobbling, and it did not slowly sneak up, it was just bang, it hit me all of a sudden, like a freight train in the middle of the night one evening, when I began having panic attacks at bedtime, just feeling like I was about to have a heart attack. Like, I was literally losing my mind, going crazy. And that was the start for me of a two-year long period that I can see now to look back on as a classic midlife crisis.

In the moment, I just thought I was going crazy. I didn’t understand and it wasn’t just panic attacks, it was also a sense of apathy. I didn’t have the same drive. I’ve had drive and ambition and fire in my belly to spare for my whole life. And the 20 years of doing ministry, pastoring, leading, writing, I’ve always had so much forward thinking momentum. But in this season of my life, I didn’t have the same level of care, I didn’t have the same level of strength, of fire. There was also just this incredible sense of dread, like I wasn’t in control, it was a terrible feeling. And of course, in the moment, I did not feel like it was a blessing. But according to Jesus, then what happens to us in these difficult moments is in fact a blessing.

Now, I don’t know if you can relate to my particular kind of crazy and whether you would relate to a midlife crisis or what is actually even more common, and that is a quarter life crisis or a later life crisis. What it really boils down to is that transitions are hard and scary. I have a friend who felt like he started spiraling when he brought his daughter to kindergarten for the first time. And that’s a benchmark that we all should be happy about. You’re excited about. That’s the whole point. You wanted your child to go to kindergarten, someone lost a child and they never got to. So you should be happy.

But he felt this sense of, oh my gosh, how were we as parents for the five years when she was just under our roof for the whole time, and now he’s playing it out and she’s graduating high school and already getting married and probably not even returning his phone calls anymore. And he’s just in this full blown existential crisis. But then added to that, he felt bad because he felt like he shouldn’t feel bad about the season that he should feel good about. I have another friend who sold companies later in life that he built, that he scaled, that he grew. And he said that the day that he affixed his signature to sell the companies, which was always the point, he said in that one moment he knew that not him nor his kids or even maybe his kids' kids would ever worry for money again. And yet he said it’s the most empty he had ever felt in his entire life.

He felt just this incredible sense of spiraling, this sense of where do I go from here and what now? And it can happen when you get married, you always wanted to get married, but then you get married and then they never go away, that person’s just there. You wanted to have kids, but then you have kids, you know, the feeling of hanging up your jersey and cleats for the last time after competing for so long, and being in sports or being in college at this pretend little life. And this is where you get your food and this is the sorority and this is everything, and all of a sudden it just changes, and the goal always was to join the workforce, you were never meant to stay in college forever. Praise God, right?

And yeah, sometimes when we get to these benchmarks that we longed for, that we looked forward to, they don’t always feel like what we thought they were going to feel like, and we’re not even sure about what’s next. And we hit these moments. And for me, it was just a sense of have I taken the organization or my own personal leadership as far as I can go? Are my best days behind me? And there was all sorts of difficult questions I was asking in that moment that don’t feel like the perfect time to rejoice. And yet, if what Jesus is saying can be trusted, in those moments when we feel like we’re stuck, or when we feel like we’re coming unglued, or we feel like we’re wobbling, we are right in the thick smack dab in the middle of the place that God wants us to be because we are actually capable in those moments of giving Him our undivided attention.

And sometimes when cruise control’s on and everything’s sunny and we’re just kind of sort of tracking it, we can take everything for granted, but we have to focus. And the blessing is that in those moments, in God’s upside down kingdom, when we’re hurting and when we’re scared and when we’re confused, when we’re spiraling, we are actually capable of receiving His blessing, of receiving His help, of receiving His assistance in a way that is not possible when it’s all blue skies and sunshine. And according to Jesus, we should count ourselves fortunate when we’re being reviled, when we’re mourning, when we’re not feeling rich in faith, but we’re feeling poor in spirit. And that’s life in God’s upside down kingdom.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, «He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it». Never forget God’s kingdom is flipped straight upside down like «The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,» right? It’s not how we think it should be. If you wanna have your life, you gotta give it away. If you want to be great in His kingdom, you gotta serve. So of course, we’re actually lucky, we’re actually fortunate, we’re actually blessed when we feel like we’re at the end of ourselves because that, beloved, is when we’re at the beginning of God, come on, somebody. We are actually able… Listen, we’re able to tap into the omnipresent God who loves to come near.

Now figure that one out and you’re smarter than me. The omnipresent God who’s always everywhere, He’s in your tomorrow, He’s in your yesterday. He’s the worst person you could ever play hide and go seek with. I mean, it’s just a bad idea. Ask Jonah how that went. And yet, He says He can come near. And that’s the sense of His presence, the sense of His manifest presence, Theologians call it. Psalm 34:18, «The Lord is near, He’s always there, but can come near to those who have» what? Say it with me, «A broken heart, and saves such as have a wobble in their spirit». Those who are spiraling, He’s able to save you, He’s able to help you, He’s able to come near to you. So the first reason you’re blessed when you’re spiraling is because God is near, the second is because it’s proof that He’s trying to develop you. He’s trying to develop you.

Malcolm Muggeridge said that in his 75 years of life, looking back, he never was developed or grew in a time that was easy. He never, now we all want easy times, but that’s not when we grow. We grow when there’s adversity. We grow when there’s pressure. Come on, «Free Willy». You gotta keep your dorsal fin up by what? By being in the wild of the ocean, by having the pressure, by having the resistance, by having the difficulty. The life that we crave is the life that will cause our souls to shrivel. It will cause us to be weak. So God’s trying to develop you. And He wants to do this. He wants to put your spiraling to work. I love it, He wants to put your spiraling to work.

2 Corinthians 4:17 says, «For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. For our troubles,» He goes on, «Which are small and won’t last very long, are actually producing for you». See what I’m saying? They’re producing. God’s taking these spiraling times and these difficult times and these brutal times and He’s using them to develop your character, to develop your Christ-likeness. So the way I say it in the book is that you feel like you’ve smacked into a wall, but my counselor helped me to see in these difficult seasons, it wasn’t a wall, it was a stair step.

Come on. It was a stair step of growth. It was a stair step of development. It was a stair step of the next level, and then onward and upward we go. Growth isn’t just up into the right, it’s one difficult transition at a time. So these wobbling times are there for us to realize that God’s trying to develop us. So what that means then is that you can spiral up, not just down, you can spiral up, not just down, we always think about spiraling down, right? But how did Elijah the prophet get to heaven? God sent a whirlwind. Hello, somebody, God is capable of bringing us to His kingdom through a spiral. It’s His spiral. And so, how do we spiral up? That of course is the question. And I spent the last two years scooping up all the nuggets that God gave me in those previous two very difficult years, 38 to 40.

And so, the last two years of my life have been spent distilling it into this book. And obviously, with the time that remains, I can’t give you everything that’s in the book. So here’s what I’m gonna do. What’s gonna follow is gonna be just six big ideas. Consider them your Costco-sized sample. And if you like it, the chimichangas are on aisle 17. All right? So six things, jot 'em down. Number one, stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. The classic cliche or trope of someone in an existential crisis, midlife or otherwise, is really bad decisions, right? The gold chain, the Corvette, the divorce, the abrupt decision. Start unbuttoning your shirt to an uncomfortable level for everybody that’s… So what do we do when we’re in crisis or times of spiraling? We stick to the plan. We don’t make big decisions in the storm.

When we’re in the storm, it’s not the time to quit the job, it’s not the time to say I need to move, it’s not the time to make a big knee-jerk decision. Why? Because we can’t trust the emotion of how we’re feeling right now. Why? So for for me, if I’m honest with you, in the midst of my worst time spiraling I didn’t know if 10 years from now or even at this present moment, I’d still be leading Fresh Life Church, I didn’t know if I’d still be writing books. I didn’t know any of that. I had all kinds of feelings. Like, no way, there’s no way I could even keep doing that.

So what did I do? I just kept pointing people to Jesus at Fresh Life Church, and I just kept writing whatever I could that I did know, that I did believe, which is to point to Jesus. I didn’t know about my place in it or my purpose in it, but my calling came in a calm moment. My calling came because I heard God calling me, I heard God’s voice. I felt God sending me when I said, «God, here am I, send me». He said, «Go». Okay, so I’m not going to quit what He called me to do in a moment in the sunshine just because I’m standing in the valley of the shadow of death. You need to decide, I’m not gonna make a big decision in a storm, I’m not going to make what could prove to be a long-term decision based on what might actually just be a temporary emotion. I’m gonna stick to the plan. And while you’re at it, why don’t you put the label maker down, honey?

Look at what Peter says, «When life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner». Why are we not gonna make big decisions in the storm? Because glory could be just around the corner. Come on, we must not give up. We gotta trust Him. We gotta keep going. And so there has to be some level of healthy compartmentalization. There can be unhealthy compartmentalization. But I didn’t know a lot of things, I had a lot of big questions, but never trade what you do know for what you don’t know. I didn’t know how it’s all gonna turn out, but I said, «I do know that God is still good, so I’m gonna keep on trusting Him».

So first, stick to the plan. Second thing, peel away the extra. Peel away the extra. The extra what? Well, the extra extra for one thing. Just the extra extra, right? What do you mean the extra extra? I mean, in 1950, the average home size of a home being built in the United States was 984 square feet. Today it’s over 2,480 square feet. So we’re just extra extra, right? 1950 or 1940, McDonald’s opens, the largest soda you can buy, five ounces. Today, you can get 30 ounces and bigger. So just everything’s getting crazy. But I think one of the things the enemy does is he crowds our lives just full of so many things. The deceitfulness of riches, the cares of the world, the desire for other things. Why? He knows what you need to know, that a crowded life is the enemy of a fruitful soul and God wants your soul to be fruitful.

So you need to peel away the extra, the creep. I mean, do you really need Hulu, and Max, and Netflix, and Disney+, and Peacock, Paramount, a pogo stick, right? I mean just, oh my gosh, right? Just all the other things. And now we’re on these apps, trying to find something to watch just because we’re paying for 'em, right? So when you peel away the extra extra, but also peel away the extra, that creeps into your identity of how you see yourself. I started pastoring in my 20s, and after 20 years of it, I wasn’t old yet, but I wasn’t a young man anymore. And so I think part of the reason for the difficulty of that transition for me was that I was having to wrestle with a lot of my identity was based on being the young pastor, right?

I didn’t mean to, I didn’t intend to. I meant to just be a follower of Jesus Christ, but God in His goodness blesses us, and sometimes we can mistake the blessings of God or how God chooses to use us for how we see ourselves. And when what makes you you is anything other than who God is and the love that He set upon us, then we’re making a mistake because everything gets taken from our hands eventually, except for the love of God and us being His child. So peel away the extra that creeps into your identity before you feel yourself having the ground under you being messy because what makes you you is being taken from you, 'cause you made a mistake.

Thirdly, jot it down, interpret your struggle accurately. This is so important. Interpret your struggle accurately. What does that mean? That means, first of all, go easy on yourself. Be compassionate to yourself. You’ve never been here before. I got called to my friend’s deathbed, his name was Stu. He’s with Jesus now. And he had his wife call me because he was just sure it was the end, he was about to die. And so I rushed there, got there the next morning, after this happened, he was so embarrassed because he didn’t die. He’s like, «Oh, I wasted your time, I called you to come. I thought I was dying. I was being dramatic».

And I said, «Stu, how many times have you died before»? He goes, «I’ve never died before». I go, «How could you possibly think you’re good at it»? And I said, «Let me just tell you you’re not gonna be good at it. You’re gonna be really bad at it. But do you know who’s really good at deaths? Jesus. He’s been through a whole lot of 'em, and He is gonna be there with you as you die badly, and He is gonna override it to bring you to Him to accomplish His plan. So just relax». Listen, I said, I said this. I said, «You be kind to my friend Stu, 'cause this is new territory for him». And he sat back in his bed and he smiled and he fell asleep and he was with Jesus not too long after that.

You know, you’ve never been to midlife before. I had never been 38 before. You’ve never been at this retirement spot before. You’ve never had an empty nest before. You’ve never dealt with this territory. So be kind to my friend. They’re dealing with uncharted territory. You know, puberty, remember that? That was awful, right? And every developmental puberty into its own new season is equally messy and difficult, and we can’t expect to be good at it. So be compassionate to yourself, and also, don’t catastrophize. We tend to blow things out of proportion.

This is much worse than it is, «No one’s ever experienced difficulty like I have». And the answer of course is that that’s not true. So interpret your struggle accurately. And I would also say, interpret it as something that deems the help and the care of other people in your life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called your pastor crying with difficulty. I called him not too long ago after my dad was diagnosed with cancer and just was weeping, just expressing. And he was showing such kindness to me and he was helping me to interpret my struggle accurately. Called him after my dad went home to be with Jesus exactly one year later from the day of his being diagnosed and he was there with me. He was helping me to interpret it correctly, to not overblow it. He was speaking in faith.

Of course this is difficult, you love your dad, but you’re going to get through this. It was a brand new season of spiraling for me. And in community, not in isolation, we’re able to come to the right conclusions about the difficulty that we’re facing. And so I honor you for that, and I thank you for your friendship to me and what that’s meant in my seasons of difficulty, pastor.

Okay, number four, we wanna retool for the current and the coming season. We wanna learn to retool for the current and the coming season. You know, we tragically don’t take the advice of the book of Proverbs, which says, «Go to the ant, sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. She has what she does when winter comes because she lays it ahead of time and it’s there for her».

Did you know that 68% of Americans don’t have an up-to-date will? What a shocking statistic, because do you know what percentage of Americans are going to die? All of them. And I talk to friends and they know they should have a will, they don’t think that the courts should be the ones deciding where their resources go, they don’t think that their minor children should have to face the indignity of the courts deciding and wrestling which guardian’s gonna be their guardian and take care of them. And we all mean to, right? But what are we doing? We’re not planning for the coming season with what’s in front of us. We’re not even facing up to the reality of our current season a lot of times when we’re not making stewardship choices that we should be making, but we need to, in life, be prepared for what’s in front of us while at the same time be taking wise steps for what’s to come.

So what does that mean? It means having a vision for your old age. I think a lot of us are trying to live like Forever 21, just like we just, we wanna rush to one current season of life and then try and pump the brakes and stay there as long as we can. But we need to be preparing for what’s next. Did you know that the Bible says, this is Proverbs 20, that «The glory of young men is their strength, there’s nothing wrong with that season of life, but the splendor of old men is their gray head».

Our culture does not give us a vision that speaks glory and God’s plan into the second half of life. It just wants to focus on the first half of life. But you don’t have to be afraid of aging in God’s hand. We need Luke Skywalkers and we need Yodas and praise God for both of 'em. And so we can have a faith and a belief that there’s a plan for the second half of life, so we don’t need to pretend like it’s not happening. We can embrace it, we can be excited about it, and we can retool so we’re ready when it comes. And I think part of the blessing of these spiraling moments is it gives us a chance to go into the locker room so we can retake the field differently. Why? Because new seasons require new strategies in Jesus' name.

All right, number five, we’re gonna attack the problem from all angles. That means that we’re gonna try and figure out from every side holistically. So I was meeting with my doctor in this season. Is there something imbalanced in testosterone and chemicals? I’m meeting with counselors, I’m calling Christian friends, I’m talking to my wife. I’m praying. I think sometimes in church we’re just like trying to pray the devil way all the time, right? Like, «Pray for me, pastor, I got headaches, but I drink nothing but diet Coke».

You know what I’m saying? It’s like there’s this little thing called water. Have you heard of it, right? We need to approach the problem holistically, dealing with it emotionally and mentally and physically and spiritually as well. Like I said, that wobble came from not just one thing, but three things that were all working together. So we need to triangulate the solution by looking at it from all sorts of different levels. And then lastly, we need to look for beauty. We need to look for beauty.

There’s a «Psychology Today» article that says that human beings actually crave awe, and they were citing a University of California study that was done on the effect of awe on the human body as defined by what you get to feel when you’re out in nature, when you’re looking at a beautiful painting, or when you’re in church in the midst of a worship experience. Awe, awe. When we’re going through difficulties, one of the things we need to do is we need to remember that in the 150 Psalms that exist, just about every time you turn the page, there’s something about an ocean wave, about a deer giving birth, about the cedars of Lebanon. There’s so much of an appeal to normalize our current moment by remembering the creator God who’s taking care of all these things.

When Job was spiraling, what did God say? «Hey, have you checked out Leviathan lately? Have you looked up at the stars that I call out personally by name»? It right sizes us to remember where we sit in the grand scheme of things. So the next time you’re spiraling, check out a snail and see what’s on its shell. Next time you’re in a difficult moment, go ahead and get outside and look at a plant like this aloe vera here. Or you can even Google it and look at a storm, lift your eyes to what Hubble sees, what the James Webb sees, the galaxies. And of course, what these all have in common is they’re all spiraling according to God’s plan. God’s design. Storm, cloud, snail, they all even have in common with what the great works of art have.

Did you know that they say that the dimensions of the perfect spiral, the Fibonacci spiral, which is the exact spiral embedded all across nature, is also the same ratio used in certain works of art that caused us to be moved like the Mona Lisa, like the Hokusai wave. But it’s also found in architecture, buildings like the Parthenon, the same ratio to be found in the great pyramids of Giza as well, spiral in an art, spiraling, God tucked it in, into His creation, into everything He spoke out.

What I find so fascinating about this is you also find it in one particular animal, the ram, the ram’s horn, which has a biblical name, it’s called a shofar. And all across scripture you find the children of Israel in difficult moments like the walls that need to fall and they’re to blow the shofar, spiral. You find Gideon in his 300 outmatched, oumanned up against a battle, spiral. What I’m trying to get you to see is that there’s not just blessings hidden in your spirals, but there are spirals hidden in your blessings. And God intends for you every time you get into a crisis of pain, to blow a shofar of praise, to lift up your praise, to lift up your worship.

And so Father, we thank You for the fact that there are hidden spirals everywhere.

Like, I don’t know, how about in the five, six points we had today? How about the hidden spiral that was there the whole time? Why? Because I put it there. I hid the spiral there. Just like your God, thank You, God, hid a plan in the difficulties we’re facing. If all of our churches, if you would say, «I needed this today. I need to choose praise in my pain. I need to lift up my shofar of worship to believe I’m blessed to go to the next level», I’m describing, just raise up your hands all across the church, whatever spiral you’re in, whatever caused you to wobble, thank you, God bless and heal.

Touch these, help them to see, God, that things aren’t careening out of control. They’re right according to Your plan. You’re moving them closer to You with every step. May they lift up their praise in the midst of their difficulty.

You can put your hands down. I wanna now talk to those of you at every single location and church online. And you’re here today and you haven’t made the most important decision. And that is to give your life to Jesus. And the same God that painted the spiral onto every single snail shell and the whirlpool galaxy, all of this, that God loves you and that same God, His name is Jesus, He carried the cross for you and He rose from the dead. And He is willing to come into your life and take all of the difficult moments and work them together for your good, for His glory. But it starts with you giving your life to Jesus. And I believe for many of you, that’s why you’re here, that’s why God brought you into this moment so you could surrender your life to Christ. So you could live forever. So you could have His peace and His hope inside your life.

And if that’s you I’m describing, and you would say, «I wanna open up the door of my heart to Jesus,» I want you to lift your hands up to Him right now. And we’re praising God for every salvation all across the church with hands going up, every single person trusting You, every single person in every single location trusting God. We praise God for you. If you could put your hand down, I wanna pray with you. I wanna pray with you as you give your life to Jesus, say this with me, every single person at Life Church praying with us together. No one praying alone, all of us praying together, say this, say:

Dear God. I’m a sinner. I can’t fix myself. But I believe you can. Please come into my heart. And make it your home. Help me to live for you. Thank you for the cross. And thank you for the empty tomb. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus name. Amen, amen.