#startwithme

This Sunday’s sermon still echoes in my soul. It centered on David’s anguished cry in Psalm 6: “How long, Lord, how long?!”—a question that feels intensely personal, especially when prayers go unanswered and breakthroughs remain elusive. Yes, those are real and valid heartaches. But as a leader, what hit me harder was this: I scanned the morning headlines and found myself weeping—not for myself, but for a world unraveling. I cried, “How long, Lord?”

We beg God to fix the mess—corruption, conflict, climate, crooked politicians. We demand heavenly reform. But then I hear God’s quiet whisper; And heaven replied—not with thunder or lightning, but with a whisper: “Let us start—with you.”“Excellent idea. Let us start with you.”

Not the response I was hoping for. Like the disciples in Luke 9:54, we often want fire from heaven. What we get instead is conviction in the mirror. Philippians 2 does not call us to demand reform in others—it calls us to be reformed ourselves. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Christlikeness is not a platform. It is cruciformity—a daily dying to our pride, opinions, and self-importance. Real transformation is not loud; it is often lonely. It is not staged for applause, but shaped in surrender.

Jesus changed the world not with protests but with pierced hands. He did not post slogans—He poured water and washed feet. He did not seek a throne; He bore a cross.

So next time you plead with God to change the world, prepare to be the starting point. He may hand you not a microphone, but a cross.

Because when Christlikeness is the strategy, cruciformity is the path. You want a new world? Be a new creation.