Come with me.

We are living in a time where social media has made everyone a paid actor.

Where nothing is real. Every scenario staged. Relationships have become contracts. Audiences have been purchased. Friendships have been reduced to endless cycles of simply liking posts, but never talking. Human lives are no longer sacred because they’ve all been monetized.

And we are all just one more Instagram reel away from falling into despair.

Where souls that are bleeding out are covered under the guise of a well-timed photo dump. Perfectly curated comments, masking wounds. Marriage is now a show and children are the props. And those suffering in isolation can hide behind daily posts of “life lately.”

Where what is rare and pure is trampled by the algorithm of attention seeking. And community is now shrouded under a mask of indifference and jealousy. 

It’s been hard to show up here, because none of it feels real. 

I see faces, but they are all strangers.

Like a town you used to know, but when you come back to visit it is no longer recognizable. And while they call it growth…it has lost everything that once gave it charm. Now it all looks the same. It has become endless rows of manufactured houses and dead end cul-de-sacs.

But how can we keep ignoring the lifeless eyes staring back at us through every photo?

The wounded ones, bleeding out in every Instagram story, desperately hoping for someone to see them — but refusing to say anything real; because that’s the lie of a filtered safety blanket that only lasts for 24 hours. 

The alligator roll of culture, drowning everything in its wake, until every person is held captive to the bondage of tolerance.

But maybe business as usual isn’t the order of the day.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is stand up in a room, where no one even knows our name, and break the despondency with the sound of a voice like one crying out from the wilderness saying, “This isn’t what life is supposed to be. And maybe we’re not okay.”

To be one who lights a candle, handing it to another saying, “I don’t know it all, but I know the way out of here.”

Because what I cannot do is show up and pretend I don’t see all the death. 

And we should be known for the things we love more than the things we hate. And to that I say, amen. 

But to love life, is to hate death. To love freedom, is to hate bondage. To love Christ, is to hate sin. To love Truth, is to hate the lies that try to cover it, to counterfeit it. 

Love sometimes looks like calling out the evil that is killing everyone; though they’ve grown a taste for the poison. 

Love can be aggressively pulling people out of the abyss that’s trying to consume them. 

Love isn’t always meek. Love can be bloody and it may look more like a crucifixion than a hug. Like crying out, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do” instead of looking the other way.

Love is telling the Truth at a time when all the world is a stage and the masses are merely reciting memorized lines that demons wrote. 

Love is a takeover. And takeovers can be messy, hostile. 

And in all of these things that I observe through the weight of a heavy-laden heart, hope burns in me still.

Hope that while I may not have all the answers, I have searched the scriptures and I know the One who does. And the only way I know how to show up here is to share a warm smile and lovingly say, “Hey there, I see you. I know someone who wants to meet you. Come with me. I’ll show you the way.”

Some may come with you. Some won’t. And that’s okay.

And if Jesus asks that my life be like that of an usher…shining my humble light in a dark room, looking at your ticket and making sure you get to the right place, then in that I rejoice!

Because my life was never about creating a “need” for me. It was always about being a loving and trusted face on the journey, who had a well-timed light in a dark place, illuminating the path that took you straight to Him. 

This place, it is not your end. And this tomb you’ve been tormented in, there is a way out. You don’t have to be a captive anymore.

Because I know the One who sets them free.

Come with me, I’ll show you the way.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30