David McElroy

It was after midnight when someone tagged me on Facebook. I checked to see what it was.

“Came across this going through some old photos from about 5 years ago,” this person wrote as his caption next to big words on a picture. “Words of wisdom from David McElroy.”

I don’t remember writing the words, but it sounds like my voice, so I’m sure I did. As I read the words, I agreed with them, but I found myself painfully aware that I haven’t always lived up to them.

“You can’t force someone to believe you are worth making a priority,” I wrote, apparently about five years ago. “If you try, you will end up bitter, hurt and angry. If a person doesn’t value you enough to make you a priority, it doesn’t matter what he or she says — even if the words are, ’I love you.’ Love is lived out through priorities and actions, not words and wishes. If you wait and beg to become someone’s priority, you’re not showing how much you love someone else. You’re showing how little you value yourself.”

I remember what it feels like to be a woman’s priority.

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I sometimes disappoint myself. I guess we all do sometimes, but I don’t know what it’s like to be inside your secret thoughts. I can’t see the dark lust you might have hidden in your heart.

But I know the dark longings that come from my ego — and I often have to remind myself who I am. And what my values are.

I crave attention. I lust for success. I want money and adulation from others. Despite the insecure parts of me which question my value, my ego secretly whispers that I deserve all these things. Deep down, I believe I’m great.

In such moments of weakness, I have to remind myself what matters.

Let me tell you about an artist who I admire greatly. There’s an excellent chance you’ve never heard of Steve Taylor. He was a brilliant rock musician in the 1980s and early ’90s whose music was aimed at the Christian market. He rocked hard. His lyrics were razor-sharp and witty. He mocked sacred cows inside the church and in modern culture, too.

Only a small group of weirdos in the church understood what he was doing. Most people were scandalized by him or simply didn’t understand what it was all about. I loved his work.

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When a major earthquake is coming, there are often many small earthquakes that hit before the big one arrives. They’re like little warnings about what’s coming. That’s what is going on in the United States right now.

Big social and political changes start with tiny events. This latest upheaval started with the murder of a black man by a white police officer in Minneapolis. That launched riots and looting and destruction, first in Minneapolis and increasingly in other cities across the country.

This is another warning about what’s coming to this country. If you choose to ignore it and assume politicians will eventually fix things, you are placing yourself and your family at great risk. This is a serious warning sign — and it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to escape.

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