"I'm one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

That's what a friend told me when I asked why he shared his faith. Looking back several years I now know he was exactly right. I've learned life is messy and often very difficult. In fact, the more I'm in people's lives, the more I've come to realize that everybody has a story. Stories of triumph and tragedy, happiness and heartache, overwhelming joy and devastating loss.

Our lives are full of both extremes. I recently listened to a fellow pastor whose wife is struggling with breast cancer. In an open and honest letter to his church wrote:

"I use to think that life was a series of hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on."

I believe he's right. The question, and one I ask the people at SouthPoint is, "How do we live life walking between the railroad tracks?"

How do we live fulfilling lives between the constant parallels of happiness and heartache?

The key, for lack of a better word, is to know you need God. This may sound simple and obvious, but in reality it's not. In Jesus' greatest sermon, The Sermon on the Mount, he addressed this very issue. His first words were, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

That word "poor" means beaten right down to your knees in poverty. It doesn't mean what most people think, being physically poor or hungry. Jesus is talking abut the poverty of your soul, the poverty of your spirit, your poverty toward God. And in physical terms, when you're hungry, you look for food wherever you can find it. It's the same with your spirit, when it's poor you look to God to fill it.

What Jesus is trying to communicate to all of us, the worst state your soul can be in is when it thinks it doesn't need God. There is no one in worse shape than someone who is in great need and not aware of it. And most of us think we only in need God when things are bad.

But Jesus sees into our hearts like no one else, He knows we need Him more than we can fathom, every minute of everyday. In essence He's saying, "You're starving if you're not with Me." But here's the good news: The Gospel, if your heart recognizes that you need him. Not just when you're in a foxhole, but rather to walk hand in hand with Him down the railroad of life. Jesus says, "If you know you need me, I will fill your life and give you more than you can possibly fathom."

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."