We all have goals and dreams. Those things that keep us up at night and keep us going, keep us putting one foot in front of the other, that drives us forward. Some are serious, some are life-changing.

We all, also, have those friends who are allowed to get all up in our business. We give them permission to point out things in our life that aren’t quite what they should be, they’re given carte blanche to our lives, nothing is held back. The best kinds of friends are those who take this responsibility, see it for the gift that it is and use it, not to wound us but to grow us. They willingly wound us to weed out the good for the best. They wound to weed out self and give us a clearer vision of Jesus.

Sometimes, at the best of times, these two mesh. Our friends and our goals. The best kind of friend is one who says “check your goals because they aren’t what they should be.” We are always wise to listen to that advice and offer no excuses.

I have one such a friend. This dear soul willingly risks the loss of friendship to speak the Truth. The old saying goes, “the truth hurts”, yes yes it does. But think of the value of one willing to speak it to your heart to point your focus back to Jesus?

Faithful are the wounds of a friend…Proverbs 27:6

Recently this friend encouraged me with these words, “Tonight you need to get on your face before Jesus and ask Him to crumble your goals.” I can count on one hand the number of people I allow to speak like that to me. I listen to everyone of them as I listened to this friend.

That very night I was face-down in the carpet praying for Jesus to crumble my goals. I asked Him to take the very things I was hotly pursuing in place of a hot pursuit of Him.

He has been faithful to answer that prayer. It has been immeasurably difficult to watch my goals crumble under His hand, in my years on planet earth I’ve had the pain of watching my dreams die rather than the joy of facing their fulfillment.

I’m walking a path of crumbled goals, dreams like shards of glass strew my way. When I look to the left or to the right my eyes only see death, dying and loss. But that isn’t where the focus is supposed to be.

The very One who crumbles goals grants freedom. He grants life. He fills and He fulfills. I don’t know what this will look like as I walk out this path He has marked for me. I only know it is a path I must walk with Him in Him because He is worth more. He loves more.

This is living out the truth of Matthew 10:34-38. Not that I am setting myself up as an example, follow the Truth. When we live amidst the rubble of crumbled goals and broken dreams we live out the reality of grace for this moment, the Truth of denying ourselves, taking up our own cross and finding His burden is light.