I went to Golden Corral once. It was overwhelming. For the uninformed, Golden Corral is a buffet-style restaurant with every imaginable kind of food you could possibly want. You can have sample a little bit of a lot of different kinds of foods (and even fill your plate with nothing but greasy fried foods if that’s your heart’s desire). It’s up to you.

That’s how my thoughts are tonight. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and they don’t necessarily go together. And you might or might not need some Tums tablets after reading them. But here they are.

1 John 4:7 says that God is love. Not the mushy, touchy-feely kind of love that gets pushed around in books and movies. Not the needy, grabby kind that is just lust in disguise. Not warm sentiments and Hallmark lyrics.

God is the love that does everything possible to bring out the best in the beloved. That’s you. That’s me. God is the ultimate pursuer of hearts who longs for his people to know him more than anything.

I keep pinching myself lately and wondering how I got so blessed. I am around some amazing people all day long, from family to friends who inspire me on a daily basis to strive after Jesus. I don’t think I’d be nearly as mature in the faith without them. In fact, I probably would have quit on the faith a long time ago without them.

It’s amazing that when you set your mind to look for the blessings in your life, you find them everywhere. When you stop concentrating on what you don’t have and focus on what you do have, you realize you have a lot. And those things you don’t have don’t seem as important anymore.

If you only remember one thing out of all this, remember that God loves you and is for you and wants you and won’t ever give up on you. Okay, that’s like four things, but they’re all in one sentence, so that counts as one thought, right? It’s never too late and you’re never too far gone for God to find and rescue and redeem.

I told you my thoughts were all over the map. They should probably make pills for this, but hey, at least I make life interesting.