By Grace Through Faith

There is a lot of brokenness in the world. If you are in a public place right now, look at all the different people around you. Not one of them is alike. You don’t know what any of them are dealing with, personally. The girl with the perfect body could be struggling with an eating disorder. The guy dating that pretty, popular girl could be falling apart inside about his terrible relationship with her. The older man in the room could have a dear friend in the hospital. You never know what is happening in someone’s life, and sometimes, it seems that no one wants to find out.

A thing that I have noticed lately in the young generation that I live in today is that we don’t know how to talk to strangers. Yes, we do know how to talk to someone and ask “hey, hows it going” but normally it all ends with “oh I’m fine”. But we don’t open up. Why? One word, FEAR.

We live in so much fear and don’t step out of our comfort zones. (And by we, I especially mean me as well) We care too much about what the people around us think about our outfit, our body, our personality, etc. We are so comfortable in our little bubble, which includes our friends and some acquaintances, but thats it. We don’t talk to the stranger in front of us at the Chick-fil-a line or the girl that gives us the notes in history class. Our generation just lives behind a phone or computer screen.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love technology ALOT. Google and social media are like two of my BFFs. However, we have to realize something:

There is connectivity with technology, but there is lost in our community.

When you look at older people such as your grandparents, do you notice how they talk to people? For instance, take my grandmother. When she goes to Kroger or the beauty salon, she has a 5-minute conversation with anyone she meets along the way. She asks people how their day is, and whats going on in their life, and people respond with more than “its good”. That’s how she was raised. As she was growing up, she didn’t have all of the technology blocking her way to meet people. She shows kindness and a joyful heart to anyone she comes in contact with, and that is how we are suppose to live.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” – 1 Peter 4:10

God wants us to live wholeheartedly for Him. That’s not “oh, I will do my quiet time with Him whenever I want”. It’s also not “I did my quiet time this morning, let me check it off my list”. Sometimes, we go through life and are just checking things off our list. We all have super busy schedules, and we just check off our to do list off. I do this all the time, but I can’t do that with God. He isn’t just something that can be checked off the list.

“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” – Ephesians 6:7-8

A friend of mine once told me that “Seeking the kingdom of God shouldn’t just be another thing that we have to fit on our priority list. It shouldn’t even be on the top of our priority list. It should be wrapped into every priority on our list because we should seek Him first in everything that we do.”

As Christians, we are called to show His love to others. We need to be the light that He wants us to be. We are His disciples, and our mission is to tell others about Him. You can do that on a college campus, at a high school, in a work place, or anywhere on this Earth.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  – Matthew 5:14-16

So, I want to challenge you. Step out of your comfort zones. Break down the walls. Go and tell this broken world about the true One that can fix everything. If we don’t, who will? Forget about all the earthly things that are stopping you from achieving this because at the end of the day, living for wholeheartedly for Jesus is greater than anything else this world could ever give us.

Love always,

Claire