​Oprah Winfrey estimates that she has interviewed over 50,000 people in her career. She says the one thing they all have in common: they all want to know that what they do and what they say and who they are matters.

Oprah says that's what we ALL have in common.

I find it interesting. Oprah has interviewed some of the most 'accomplished' people in the world. Famous people who have seen and done it all. And yet - there they are, still wondering if they matter.

Maybe they are the best people to help us understand what really does matter.

So many people don't get happy answers to the 'do I matter' question in their closest relationships in life, so they begin trying to force happy answers through their accomplishments.

They pursue prestige in their careers.

They pursue dominance in athletics.

They pursue large crowds with their performances.

Many people pursue those things and GET them, and yet, there they are - wondering - does what I do and what I say and who I am matter.

I was sitting under the shade of an umbrella at Cedar Point last weekend. I was eating cinnamon coated pretzels with my boys. They were laughing. They looked safe. And you know what, I could tell they knew they mattered. They had nothing to prove.

Neither did I. In that moment, I knew I mattered too.

The thing is, nothing in the world we do - nothing we accomplish - will answer the question 'does who I am matter.' Only love will do that. Only a love that says I see you, I know who you are, I am cheering for you - oh am I your biggest fan - only a love that says I believe everything you say and do matters. Only love answers the questions we ask the most.

The answers that keep us happy or keep us haunted.

No collection of trophies, no job title, no bank balance, no paparazzi - none of those things say you are loved.

People do. Or people don't.

You will interact with people today. Isn't it a beautiful thing to know that what they want most from that interaction is to know the interaction matters - is to know that THEY matter to you.

Don't make them try to impress you to matter to you. Let them know what they do will never matter to you more than who they are.

The reality is we all have one thing in common - we're all running around trying to figure out if we matter - when we should have something completely opposite in common.

We should all be running around with hearts that long to make sure everyone knows they matter.

So let someone know they matter today. Let's stop asking ourselves questions and start giving those around us answers.

​If you're not careful, you can find yourself waking up each morning looking to your past in search of your best days. It's a search that might be full of good memories, but when those memories begin looking better than today - and tomorrow - that's where you'll live. You'll live in yesterday. You won't be able to stop yourself from going there.

That's when true hopelessness begins to settle in.

I've been there. But this weekend I visited a place that was filled with hope. This weekend my eyes were pointed straight ahead, no looking over my shoulder.

Friday night my boys and I were riding one of the tallest roller coasters in the world. It was dark. But even still, at the very top of that ride, you could see the moon reflecting off Lake Erie. You could see all the tall roller coasters around the park lit up like an enchanted village. It was magic. Like Christmas - it was hope.

Then the ride dropped us out of the magic and into the dark night. We raced through it, seemingly out of control. But in that moment, life felt like it had more direction than it had had in a long time.

Maybe it was the screams in the seat in front of me. The boys loving every out of control moment. Their joy, an expression of hope in that moment and in their futures, not an echo from the past that could never measure up to right then. Right there.

We got off the ride and my Ian said, that was so worth the 8-hour drive. (I kindly reminded him that for him it was more 'ride' than 'drive' - but I got his point).

It wasn't lost on me that we had to drive a long way from home to find the joy. We had to put a lot of distance between where we'd been and where we arrived to find it. But sometimes that's what we have to do.

Sometimes where we've been is our enemy. It begs us to stay stuck there. Until we bravely climb 310 feet into the night sky, and drop, and hear the sounds of joy. Sounds you'll never hear desperately clinging to yesterday.

There is no better joy than right now joy. Sometimes we get too lost in yesterday to discover it.

​I came upon these words yesterday a friend wrote in her blog a decade ago: "Instead of questioning how I can repair the world if everyone else isn't repairing it, I'm going to assume they are."

What struck me most about those words was the reality a dear friend was wrestling with things a decade ago I find myself wrestling with today. How do you change a world so many people seem disinterested in changing?

What on earth difference will doing my part make if no one else is going to do theirs?

With HER ten year old words, my friend Rebecca confronts the two errant ways of thinking in MY right now words.

First, it gets easy to believe that because someone isn't doing a part that looks like the part I think needs done - they aren't doing a part at all. Too often, I think, my idea of someone doing their part to change the world is built on my personal beliefs about what in the world needs changed.

But the reality is, if I opened up a survey for you all to provide me the top five things you think need changed in the world, our answers would all look different. None of us are going to agree on what changing the world looks like.

So maybe, instead of spending energy trying to force someone into changing the world the way I think it needs changed, maybe I am better served assuming they are finding their own way to repair it.

Because in the end, repairing the world isn't a task thing, it's a heart thing.

Tending to the poor isn't about giving someone shoes, it's about having a heart for the shoeless.

Helping an elderly person across the street isn't about giving someone a hand, it's about having a heart for the person who needs the hand.

Wanting to end racist practices in our country isn't about ending racism, it's about having a heart for the people who've been oppressed by those ongoing practices.

And so when repairing the world becomes a heart issue, doing our part requires all the heart we can bring to the repair. Do I want to pour my heart into making someone perform the repairs I think need done - at the risk we may never agree - or do I want to have available to me my whole heart for the repairs my heart is telling me need tended to.

Because in the end, what I really want isn't a world full of people changing the world. What I want is a world full of people with hearts full of wanting to help the people in it.

Sometimes, it's easy to start thinking that because we don't see the changes, there are no hearts.

The heart is a risky thing to start judging. Because if I'm wrong about it, the heart that gets damaged most is my own.

So from now on, when I find myself getting frustrated that someone isn't repairing the world, I'm just going to assume they are.

That - I think - is the healthiest thing for my heart's desire to repair the world.

​I told someone the other day, some days I keep going because I'm on fire for where I'm going, and some days I keep going simply because I refuse to NOT keep going. Either way - I keep going.

The words in Psalm 126 promise us this commitment won't be in vain. The Psalmist tells us that even in our sorrow, even in our struggles, if we commit to keep pouring good into the world, joy is going to come our way.

And there's more. If we read the words closely, maybe the most important part of this promise is we're going to touch lives along the way in ways we never would have been able to without our hardship.

There is an old hymn based on this Psalm and it opens like this:

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

You know, if we're going through a hard time, and we withdraw from the world, the world will give us a pass. They will understand.

But on the other hand, if in that hard time we continue to pour kindness into the world, the world will take notice. Because in some way, that is what we're all looking for. The secret to keep being good in the world when our world doesn't feel so good.

Maybe that's where the joy comes from the Psalmist writes about here. Maybe our hardship turns to joy when we see our hardship turn to joy in others. When we see our willingness to keep going help someone else keep going, when we stand back and watch the seeds we've planted begin to grow, well - maybe that's where those shouts of joy come from.

Maybe that's the motivation we really need some mornings. The reminder that I'm not in the world to feel good about the world, I'm in it to do everything I can to help someone else feel good about it. Someone who can't wait for me to be in the right mood to do it.

Some days are heavy. But maybe the secret to unloading the heaviness in our lives isn't waiting it out. Maybe the secret is going into the world and lightening someone else's load.

Maybe that's when we shall come rejoicing.

Bringing in the sheaves.

​I've figured something out the last few years. Dreams don't come true when we achieve an outcome. Dreams come true when we begin tackling the processes that gets us there.

Too many of us see our dreams as an end result.

It's a dream job or a dream house or a dream bank account or a dream relationship. When we think of our dreams, we think of the finish line.

That can quickly become discouraging. Because each day we wake up and that finish line hasn't arrived yet, we get discouraged. The further we are into the dream without that dream coming true, the easier it is to start believing it will NEVER come true.

You know, I no longer dream of writing a book. I dream of getting up each day and writing an article that can be used to put in a book.

I no longer dream of running a 100 mile race someday, I dream of getting up every day and running the miles that will eventually help me physically and mentally cover that distance.

I no longer dream of a cabin in Montana, I dream of putting a little money away each day that will help me get it when that time comes.

When you dream about the process that will make a dream come true, you wake up each day with the power to make your dream come true. When each day is a step in the journey to a dream come true, each day gets to be its own dream come true.

Each day gets to have its own finish line.

Last year I stood at the finish line of the 35-mile Georgia Jewel. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work, a lot of failure along the way, a lot of dreaming of that finish line.

In the moment of standing at the finish line, I knew I wouldn't have given back any of the gut-wrenching days it took to get there. I wouldn't have given back any of the process - the journey. Because standing there, I knew I was worth that finish line.

I knew my dream came true because I never quit dreaming about what it took to get there.

The reality is, if you have a dream but you're not dreaming of all it will take to get there, it's not a good dream. Because the greatest feeling associated with a dream come true is the feeling of knowing I'm worthy of the moment. I EARNED this feeling.

Well, you earn that feeling on the way there, not when you arrive. You make a dream come true today, no tomorrow.

​After a long run yesterday, I treated myself to a local buffet. Lots of Japanese and Chinese foods. I realized these buffets are set up a lot like social media. They put all the similar foods together, so if you like one of them, chances are you'll keep going down the line and grab several of the others as well.

And like social media, I kept right or scrolling - and the food piled up.

Putting that helping of food on our plate - seeing that next picture on Instagram - it sends a little shot of feel good chemicals through our brain. And it leaves us longing for that next shot. It's our wiring.

So we follow the chemicals and add just one more helping, and we scroll to just one more picture, and the next thing we know we've eaten 4 plates of food and 500 instagram photo collages.

It's amazing how much easier it is to say one more minute on instagram than it is to say one more minute on the treadmill. But for a lot of us that struggle is real.

Seth Godin says, "Of all the buttons and all the swipes and all the scrolls on all the websites, is that one you’re going to click next the very best thing you could be doing right now?"

Sometimes I'm not every good at interrupting the flow of what feels good to stop and ask the question, 'is this next thing I'm going to do the very best thing I could be doing right now?"

Is one more plate of food really the very best thing for me.

Is one more picture really the best use of my time right now.

The brain is a powerful 'feel-good-seeker'. It's obsessed with us feeling happy. So it's always on the hunt for quick and cheap fixes that will give us instant shots of happy.

Shots of food. Shots of scrolling. Shots of alcohol.

But here's the thing, our minds and our hearts and our souls are more powerful than the brain. They are 'be-good-seekers.'

Be healthy. Be kind. Be productive. And it's in THOSE beings that we find ultimate and lasting happiness.

Unfortunately, more powerful doesn't mean easier. To put 'be good' ahead of 'feel good' isn't always easy. It requires us to stop and frequently ask ourselves: who am I and what do I want out of this life?

It requires us to intentionally choose what is best to get where we want to go in life and not letting the brain be in charge of telling us what will feel good in life.

The brain is a gas pedal machine. It is go go go.

But we all own brakes. All of us do. And sometimes we need to tap them. Or lock them up.

Lock them up and come to a complete stop and ask, is this the very best thing I could be doing right now?

​Long before you and I were created, God decided we were going to be a 'we' thing and not a 'me' thing.

There are many reasons why that is important.

It all starts with the idea that God had no interest in a solo act. Before you and I walked this earth, God the Trinity inhabited heaven. I have no idea how that came to be - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - three persons in one - all I know is there isn't a story in the bible about God going it alone.

It has always been the three of them.

From the very beginning, God has always wanted to be a we God, not a me God. God could have set the stage to say look what I made - but he instead chose to say "let US make...."

Maybe that's because God always knew the thing they would demand most of us - the thing they created humans for - is love. Jesus said the two greatest commandments - the two that ALL others flow from - are love God and love each other.

Maybe God anticipated that we'd hear those commandments and wonder, what do you know about love, God? And in response, there stands God. Jesus under one arm and the Holy Spirit under the other.

Oh, I know about love he can answer.

You know, after they created the first one of us, God said it wasn't good for us to be alone. The first thing God EVER claimed that was NOT good on this earth? Humans being alone.

Well, clearly he meant it. Because long before he said it wasn't good for us to be alone, he made sure that he wasn't alone.

That makes sense, right? Because if God's big deal in this whole creation project is love, that doesn't happen in being alone. The kind of love God longs for is not the kind of love that pours inward, it pours out.

In fact, some days I imagine the three of them hanging out - God and his Son and the Holy Spirit. I imagine the love they have for one another. And I imagine one of them saying, we need to create human beings to experience this. This love we have pouring out of us, we need to pour this into someone else.

I think that's why God said it's not good for humans to be alone. Because if there were no relationships, how could there ever be love? How could there be a love so strong that someone in that relationship would look at the other person and say, "we need to pour this love out on someone else"?

From the very beginning, God could have said 'I' - but he said 'us'. From the very beginning, God abandoned pride for humility.

We aren't and never were designed for being an 'I'. When I look at almost everything I would consider a problem in the world, it almost always traces back to people being unwilling to abandon pride for humility.

It almost always traces back to a desire to say me and not we.

Well, that doesn't work. From the very beginning God said it wouldn't. In fact, he was so sure about it that he made sure he was never a he - he was always a we...

And so are we. We are a 'we' - it's just too often the 'me' in us makes us blind to the we that we were created to be.

​When I read that quote from Andy Stanley this morning, "leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say" - my first thought was - "PEOPLE who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say."

But then I took it one step further. I thought, relationships between people who don't listen will eventually become relationships in which people have nothing to say.

To speak and not be heard - that is a dream killer. It's a pathway to hopelessness. And eventually loneliness. Sometimes the best cure for that is silence.

Some people suggest laughter is contagious. I would suggest it's not as contagious as silence. Silence can become a place every bit as comforting - in some cases more so - than laughter.

Andy Stanely leads a large church. It's absolutely in his best interest to hear from his people - to listen to them. It makes them feel included; it opens himself up to hearing ideas that might make him and his church better and stronger.

Job and sports managers - it's in their best interest to listen to the people they lead. It makes the people they lead feel included; it opens managers up to hearing ideas that might make them better managers.

Spouses and friends and family - it's in our best interest to listen to the people we are in relationships with. It makes the people in our relationships feel included - and wanted - it opens us up to hearing things that might make us better people.

It opens us up to the only avenue to growing a relationship and not watching it fizzle away in silence.

Because silence is contagious. At first it fills the void of nothing to say. Then it becomes this space where there's no desire to say anything at all.

Listening on the other hand, there is no better way to fill a void. Listening will always ensure that someone will always have something to say.

​I think sometimes the noble dream of 'changing the world' stands in our way of changing a lot of individual worlds.

Before I went to bed last night, I listened to my friend Kel share an experience she'd had while traveling out west. She'd been driving a long time. She was tired. She was sad; it was her deceased mom's birthday.

Kel was in the middle of nowehere South Dakota. She pulled into a Love's truckstop and found the first spot she could find to get a little rest.

As she was sitting there, she noticed a woman in a car next to her. Kel got out of her car, got the woman's attention and told her, every year on my mom's birthday I give someone $100 whom I think might need it. Kel told the woman she wanted to give her the $100.

The woman got out of the car, embraced Kel in a hug that felt like it might never end. She was sobbing. Then she told Kel, I've been sitting in my car praying to God for a way to eat. It was 4:30 in the afternoon and the woman had not eaten.

Kel gave the woman the $100. Kel changed that woman's world.

Here is a powerful part of Kel's story. Maybe the most powerful part. Kel said giving the woman $100 helped her release the sadness she felt about her mom. Helping that woman helped her.

Sometimes I think we forget the power that's found in helping one another. We are not wired to change the world; we are wired to change one another's worlds. Maybe if we got as enamored with the call to change the lives of the individuals around us as we are with the dream of changing the world - that dream might actually have a chance of coming true.

There are a lot of people in the world who get forgotten when we look over them out into the giant, endless world we want to change.

I think it might be helpful to reduce the size of the world we want to change.

Maybe reduced it to your town.

Or the place you work.

Or your neighborhood.

Maybe reduce it to the size of the parking spot next to you at a truck stop.

I love the idea of changing the world. Maybe today we all pick one world we want to change.

​Is it possible to know you have a gift if you don't pour out that gift? What is a gift, afterall, if there is no giving of it?

Writing is one way I come to know God. Throughout the day, I'll read about God, I'll entertain thoughts God puts in my head, I'll feel things based on the prompts God puts in my heart - but they are all just ideas and information until I write them.

And share them.

Many days that is what you are reading here - my out loud journey to better know God. My attempt to give my gift in attempt to better know the ultimate giver. And in many ways, to thank the giver.

If someone gives us a recipe for a cake they baked and absolutely loved, we'll never fully understand the gift of that information until we bake the cake.

If someone tells us about an awesome trail they ran - it's the most beautiful trail ever, they say - we can never understand the beauty of that information until we've run on that trail.

If someone tells us about a song they heard - it moved them to tears - we can never fully understand those tears until we've listened to the song.

The point is, especially when it comes to a desire to know God, what we've been told is not nearly enough. What we've learned means nothing if the learning doesn't turn to making.

Making the things God has gifted us the chance to make. Doing the things God has gifted us the chance to do. Things he wants us to make because he wants the WORLD to see the gift he has given us. Things he wants us to do because he wants US to see the gift he's given us.

We can never have a meaningful relationship with anything - or anyone - unless we find a way to make that relationship come alive. My relationship with writing comes alive this morning as I make not so random thoughts real. My relationship with God comes alive as I thank him for making my random thoughts not so random.

But we have to make and we have to do to discover the gift. The gift we have inside us, the gift we have in one another, and the gift we have in God.

God doesn't want to be a gift we know, he wants to be a gift we make come alive. And that is impossible without making....

Because a gift really isn't a gift if there is no giving.