Ribs and Hearts lined with cupcake icing.

As I sit here my ribs hurt.

They hurt because of the Ultimate Frisbee Tournament earlier this week. I took a few hard hits and spills and when you don't usually play that hard… you feel it the next day. The rush of competition and the adrenaline it brings comes with a small price. It may be the "man" coming out in me, but I think it is well worth it! I may feel it the next day, but I wake up knowing that I played hard.

Then, as I sit here and think about it all, my heart hurts.

It hurts for some of the guys I met on the field. Who seemingly embrace everything this world has to offer but in reality only helplessly grope for the wind. The guys who bow at everything one could imagine attempting to fulfill themselves, but walk away empty night after night.

At the risk of revealing my own selfishness I admit to making a couple comments like "yeah, that's why you pay for your friends" when someone would take a play a bit too seriously. But later as I drove home and as I sit here thinking back I look a bit deeper than my surface level selfishness.  

It could be compared to a rich man looking at a poor man and making fun of him as he begs and scrounges for food.

It would be foolish and pointless to stereotype any group of people any certain way so I refuse to.

But it goes further than just that single situation. It's all around us. People attempting to fill their lives with things that were never ever meant to fill them. It's like trying to survive on a diet of only cupcake icing. The icing is the "extra" stuff in life. (A nice house, good food, loving family and nice friends, car to drive, new Bible to carry to church, money in my bank account, being warm at night, etc…) Although we as a western culture may view that stuff as necessary, and inside of these things may actually find our very identity, that's something these things aren't capable of providing. The only thing in this life that will every TRULY satisfy is a relationship with the Creator.

The world who looks so full and satisfied, is actually starving and desperate.

I pray they are lead to the table and are given the ability to feast on the reality of who Jesus Christ truly is.

What am I trying to say here… nothing ground breaking or revolutionary. Just a thought I was meant to sit on for a while.

Somewhere in the midst of the last few nights I was taught something. I was given a chance to see the value of what I have in the face of what others are missing. The gift that identifies me isn't universal, it's personal.

And I thought it was a simple game of Frisbee…

 - JV