Love Changes Everything By Micah BerteauSample

Day Five

The Values of Your Heart

I knew a young man in high school who had an incredible gift for football. He chose his university carefully because he had aspirations of playing in the NFL. One time when I was putting together a flag football team for a game against some friends, I went to this football star and asked if he would play on my team. He was nice about it but replied, “As much as I would love to, I can’t play. I just signed my letter of intent to play Division 1 football. I can’t play because what if I get hurt?” 

Those last words struck me. This young man knew the difference between a meaningless game and a meaningful one. He knew he could not put himself in harm’s way for something that carried no value for his life. 

What you value the most is what controls you the most. You do not improve your life by running after what you deem to be right. You do it by living on and in God’s value system. 

It is difficult to know God’s values when we keep telling him ours. We pray that God will bless us with what we have deemed worthy. We pray our will over God’s will. We ask him to do his work in our timing. We become victim to our valueless desires and miss the invaluable system God wants to set up in our lives. 

When we do this, we begin overcompensating for what God has not given us. We make foolish decisions to get what we never really needed. We get into relationships for physical reasons because we are lonely. We succumb to divorce because sometimes it seems like the easy way out. We live our life to be liked, only to realize we have incarcerated ourselves in other people’s opinions. We are unable to define what is of value, especially when culture inundates us with toxic perspectives. As a result, God’s love becomes merely a good thought that changes nothing in our reality. 

How many times do we throw away our future for insignificant moments? How often do we choose immediate pleasures over long-term character and integrity? Once you know the value of your future, you will change the decisions of your present. 

If a stranger looked at your thoughts and activities over the last week, what would he or she say you valued the most?