Happy Elevated Friday! Today we highlight a story of giving that embodies the spirit of God completely. We all remember the massive $1.6 billion lotto jackpot a few weeks ago. One group of nurses from Mercy Children’s Hospital in Missouri pooled their money to buy a bunch of tickets. While they didn’t win the jackpot, they did win a $10,000 consolation prize! However, rather than divvy it up evenly amongst themselves, as most would do, they looked to who in their hospital cou

The rate at which news moves these days is blisteringly fast and one unintended consequence of a fast news cycle is that stories that anger us do not ever get resolved, they just get replaced by a new outrage. When our anger and frustrations are never calmed or remedied, we end up living in a state of perpetual bitterness at the “other side.” So right now, we all can probably think of several things about the other political side that angers us or that they or their leaders h

By mid-week, many of us are already exhausted by the toils of work, life’s stresses, and countless other factors. The weekly fatigue on our bodies and minds is a reality of life. However, when our bodies and minds are weighed down, our soul is often dragged down, too. We were not meant to live lives of ease and relaxation, but we also were not meant to live life with a downtrodden spirit as well. There is not a burden too heavy or work too toilsome that can weigh down the sou

Is forgiveness still something we do today? It seems, if we watch the news, that forgiveness is a skill that does not happen in public life anymore. Holding grudges, taking offense, and “clapping back” is now the norm in the political realm and that has real consequences in our lives and the lives of the most impressionable in our society. Too many say that they cannot forgive the other side because they care too much the future generations. But if we forget how to forgive, w

Some days it can be very difficult to feel compassion for those we disagree with or who are different from us. Try as we might, our own thoughts and prejudices hold us back from truly connecting with others. God wants so much more for us than for us to just live life with people just like us. He sent his Son to show us how to break free from such an existence. In 1 Samuel, God says, “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on

Happy Elevated Friday! Today we highlight a true hero who refused to let thoughts of his own personal safety trump the safety of others who may have been helpless. Dane Ray Cummings has been driving the same garbage route in Butte County, CA for the last eight years, and in that time, has gotten to know the people along his route. As the wildfires began encroaching on his county, his boss told him to stop driving the route and flee. However Dane knew that he had many elderly

Happy Thanksgiving! Today’s message is a simple one – give thanks for the many blessings of God. Instead of saying just “be thankful”, we instead say “give thanks.” Is there a difference? Not particularly, but the act of giving is a much more active state of being than just simply “being.” When we give thanks to the Lord, we are actually giving all that is within us – our heart, mind, and soul – to the Lord in gratitude. Paul wrote, “You will be enriched in every way so that

As we all look forward to the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, what we are thankful for is likely on our minds. The Lord has blessed all of us with much but yet so many have a hard time finding happiness in life. There are countless places to search for happiness in the world but only one place where it can be truly and completely found: in Jesus. Living with Jesus within us causes us to be more thankful and less envious of others. Thus, living happy is living thankful. In Psal

Thankfulness is a quality the world can always use more of. It is no small wonder why there is so much anger, greed, jealousy, and sin in the world when so many have such a hard time being thankful for what they have. We are born into this world with vastly different circumstances, but we all have one thing in common that makes everything else possible: life. And though that life will certainly have times when we are triumphant as well as desperate, if nothing else we can alw

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up this week, it seems only right to begin the week by being thankful. We each have so much to be thankful for, from our families to our jobs to the roof over our head and food on our table. It is only by God’s grace that we have these and so many other blessings in our lives. These are typically the things that come to mind when someone asks us what we are thankful for. But there is one more thing that supersedes all these: our forgivenes