The world loudly roars its woes and screams its discontent with a barrage of angry disappointment and a deluge of disharmony.

It spews hatred and violence, justifying its excesses with ancient grievances and unbending perseverance.

It insists, incites, dictates and entices. The lost and confused flock to causes, proclaiming the wrongs of this world right, and right becomes wrong.

Virtue stands across from vice and finds itself the lesser. Values and morals are branded outdated mandates from another era. The truth gets twisted into the lie, and the lie becomes the truth.

Labels transform into identity and a flag of superiority. Empty hearts fervently search for fulfilment and settle for temporary promises.

Words become missiles, and the fragile fall, some to never rise again.

Victory trumps compassion, and being right triumphs over being righteous.

The world says take and take, but the hollow soul remains hollow, and more is never enough.

The Quiet Voice speaks, but only the quiet heart hears.

When you work with certain materials, people make up their minds about you without even knowing you. They slap a label on you and blame you for all the world's woes. When you've been in the business for a long time, and yours is the only name they know, they don't care how many similar entrepreneurs operate illegally in the vicinity. Even if you tell them you are a Christian and do things the right way, it makes no impression.

We've come so far as a species, but our biases and ingrained beliefs often lash out at others with all the discontent and anger of a world that has embraced the darkness.

When I spend time on YouTube or other platforms for entertainment, Christian content, or research, it is sad how often nice wholesome content creators come under fire in brutal ways for not being perfect robots. Yet creators who go out of their way to exploit people and offer entertainment that leads people astray get lauded for their efforts.

Having often been at the wrong end of people's opinions, it hurts me to see how discontent souls hack away at others and how morals and values get twisted into knots.

How right and wrong get switched around until nothing is recognizable, and if it were not for my faith, navigating this world would have been impossible.

Honestly, it would have been easy to fall by the wayside if it were not for God and the Holy Spirit in me. But the power of my thirst for The Truth always brought me back, and God never let me wander off and didn't come after me.

Even when I didn't understand what it meant to be a child of the Living God and didn't realize what Jesus' sacrifice meant for me, I believed.

Whenever I did something wrong in my life, the Holy Spirit made me aware that this wasn't who I was created to be, and it bothered me.

Sometimes it shocked me how we, as Christians, can twist the bible to make wrong things right when we are in a bind, how we justify things to ourselves to gloss over something we see as a lesser sin. Something God would "understand," and I am not talking about skipping church or telling a white lie here. But at some point, God brings us to His truth, His way or the hard way.

Only when we've walked the broken road and felt the sting of purification can we fully understand and appreciate the gift Jesus gave us with His death, resurrection, and ascension. When the impurities have been removed, and the veil has been torn from our eyes, we can begin to understand the true nature of God as He reveals it to us in His word.

We come alive when we realize that Jesus loved us so much that He suffered and became sin for us, sacrificed His life for us so we could die for sin and be released from the chains that bound us. He came back to life to give us eternal and abundant life, returning to heaven to prepare a place for us.

Do you love anyone enough to be flayed to the bone for them? Would you let yourself be hammered to a cross for your neighbour? Would you die for the lady behind the counter at the grocery store? Yet Jesus loves you that much, and that is mindblowing.

Although the devil convinced me for many years that I was too sinful a creature for God to love. He convicted me of sins already forgiven, and I bought into the lie until life finally brought me to my knees, and I let Jesus in, for He will use all things for our good and His Glory.

We were wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. We were created to love ourselves, our families, neighbours, countrymen, the faithful, and even our enemies.

Our destinies lie in being the best version of ourselves as good as we are able. We were created to shine like beacons in the night and were not designed to offend or take offence at every little thing. We were not made to cast a shadow over the sun, and we were not fashioned to sit in judgment of others.

We were formed to help one another and build a supportive community. Above all, we were created to love our Father and serve His purposes.