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Monday 6:30pm - 8pm Sunday 10am - 11:30am

http://www.GraceLifeSarasota.com/

GraceLife Sarasota, 1201 North Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL (2026)

05/31/2026

Monday Morning Reflections w/ Lori Griffith

I think about how what I heard, what the lady on the other side of the church heard, and what the man sitting alone in the back heard could all be three completely different things. The Scripture didn't change, and the message didn't change, but God speaks to each of us right where we are.

We all go through things in life. Life lifes, and we are certainly living in enemy territory. But like we heard in the message, the Gospel gives us everything we need to navigate this life and make it to the Promised Land.

No matter what season we're in, God's Word is alive and powerful. It meets us where we are, gives us hope when we're weary, strength when we're weak, and direction when we feel lost. What a gift that is.

Praise & Worship 🙌

I was in the front row at church this morning, right where I always sit. Praise and worship filled the room. It was loud, powerful, and alive.

Behind me was what sounded like a choir of angels. In front of me, people were on their knees at the altar. My hands were raised toward Heaven, friends beside me, and tears streamed down my face as I prayed.

There is something so powerful about being surrounded by the family of God. Brothers and sisters in Christ, all seeking Him together. In those moments of worship, when the noise of the world fades and His presence feels so near, the connection with God is almost indescribable.

It's a glimpse of Heaven. A sacred reminder that no matter what we're facing, we were never meant to walk through this life alone.

Pastor Joes post on socials this week:
Why are you looking for a new word from the Lord when he’s already spoken clearly?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my life. My story. The things I've survived and all the "whys" that came with them. Other peoples' situations too.

Sometimes I find myself looking up at the sky, fist raised, asking, "WHY?!" Seriously God!?!

Insanity in rehab was defined as doing the same thing over & over and expecting a different result.

Something happens, I try to control it, I suffer. Then... something happens, I try to control it, I suffer 🥴.

Life happens right? Thats never going to change. But do I have to keep suffering? No.

Below is a compilation of word vomit that has recently come out of Lori's mouth:

"I don't want to wait so long for the next test."

"9/28 is too far out for the next test!"

"Put me on the waiting list for an opening that could be sooner!" (I unkindly told the scheduler on the phone last week).

"These next two tests better not be for nothing!"

"Surgery better work!"

"I'm tired!"

"This is stupid!"

"Why?"

"WHY?!"

"Are you kidding me!?"

"Why me?!"

"I can't do this anymore!"

🚨 WEEWOOO! EGO POLICE! WEEWOOO! EGO POLICE! 🚨🤣

Excuse me, ma'am. You're under arrest for failing to run to the Gospel and place your full faith in Jesus Christ.

The charge: Trying to control things that were never yours to control.

The sentence: Unnecessary suffering.

And sorry to spoil the ending, but Saul's request for a retrial was denied. God already spoke. Saul broke His law. The evidence wasn't circumstantial. No new trial. No jury. The gavel drops.

HALLELUJAH.

Like Pastor Joe reminded us today... there is good and evil, right and wrong, up or down. Judgment is coming. The answer to everything is the Gospel. The way to the Father is Jesus.

And like Pastor Keith told the children while ministering on the platform steps, "The answer is the Holy Spirit, every time, every time."

No matter the question. No matter the fear. No matter the diagnosis. No matter the waiting. No matter the suffering. No matter the "why."

The answer is the Holy Spirit. The answer is the Gospel. The answer is Jesus.

I don't have to suffer. We don't have to suffer. Run to the Father.

I'll continue to ask God every morning to help me live in His will, not Lori's. I'll show up every Sunday and lay all my troubles at the cross. I'll pray daily, turning things over to Him. I'll stop trying to control things because it's a waste of time.

When I raise a hand toward Heaven, I don't want it clenched in a fist demanding answers or a "new word". I want it open, ready to receive what He's already given.

God is so good.

I love y'all.

05/31/2026

There are moments as Christians when we know exactly what God is asking of us… but if we’re honest, we don’t really want to hear it. 😬
Forgive that person.
Tell the truth.
End the relationship.
Confess the sin.
Have the hard conversation.
Walk away from what’s pulling your heart from Him.

Most of us don’t say, “God, I don’t want to obey You.” That would be too obvious. Instead, we delay obedience…
“I just need more clarity.”
“I’m waiting on the Lord.”

And sometimes that’s true. But other times, we’re not waiting on God at all — we’re expecting Him to wait on us. ⏳

Today’s passage takes us into the final, sobering moments of one of the darkest personal stories in the Old Testament… and it might reveal something in you that needs your attention. 🔥🙏

05/26/2026

The Sound of Silence by Samantha Yve Spiegel

Is there anything worse? Anything louder? Not for me. I can’t even do dishes without background music playing. I was so impatient that I treated prayer like a drive through. I expected my needs met in the space between the ordering window and the hot fries at the next. So selfish that my voice needed to be the first He heard. The only voice that needed to matter. Like a crying baby that demanded attention, when in fact I needed to be left alone.

I still have my moments and God knows I still have needs. But I have learned, by sitting in community on Sundays at Gracelife with my church family, to wait. I always joke and say God doesn’t wear a watch. While I’m trying to be funny it’s true.

He hears us. All of us. Our voices are heard. Our prayers are answered. Not on our time but His. Don’t allow your heart to harden in the waiting. Don’t give up on Him. He didn’t give up on you.

05/24/2026

Monday Morning Reflections w/ Jared Griffith

The sermon preview on the socials:

“When it feels like God is silent, your response reveals whether you want His presence, or just His help.”

As I listened to this beautiful sermon on a fine Sunday morning while on vacation, I found myself relating it to several things in my own life.

My wife and I came away to escape the monotonous routines of daily life. After taking a few rides on the Orlando Eye and praising His name through the Bluetooth speaker in our cabin, we started searching for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. All the meetings were far away, and I had already done a lot of driving. Sitting in more traffic felt frustrating, and I started thinking, “Ehhh, oh well… I’m okay. I don’t really need a meeting today.”

But God sometimes speaks through other people — and through circumstances.

A few weeks earlier, while planning this vacation and looking for a place to rest and relax for a few days, I found the Caribe Royale in Orlando. It seemed like the perfect quick getaway with plenty of amenities. On Saturday morning, while wiping the sleep from my eyes and heading to breakfast, I noticed a familiar symbol out of the corner of my eye.

That symbol was CA.

Later, we found out that we had unknowingly booked our stay during the CA Annual World Convention.

Once again, God spoke to me.

“We’ve gotta register.”

While Pastor Joe was speaking about silence and waiting for God’s voice or an answer, I couldn’t help but think about my years in active addiction and how desperately I tried to silence the noise in my head — what I now recognize as the enemy — with drugs, and lots of them.

I remember someone in an early recovery meeting once saying that when you can drive in complete silence — no music, no podcasts, just you and your thoughts — you may have finally found true serenity.

I tried for years to find that serenity in a silent car.

It never worked.

Early in recovery, I didn’t really believe in a specific higher power. Then I went through a traumatic season of sickness. I was lying alone in a hospital bed one night, praying desperate “foxhole prayers,” just like Pastor Joe described the soldiers on the beaches of Normandy praying.

The next night, I had a hospital roommate who was suffering from painful kidney stones. Meanwhile, I was close to sepsis, in terrible pain, and honestly afraid I might die.

He introduced himself and asked, “Hey, do you mind if I play some worship music?”

In my head, I thought, “Oh man… here we go.”

But I said, “Yeah, sure, man. Of course. I love music.”

At the time, music was just noise to distract me from my thoughts.

I can’t even remember what song he played because I was too busy sobbing and weeping.

But I do remember hearing a message.

That night, Jesus spoke to me.

That was the night I realized I had been following Him long before I even understood what it meant to truly be a follower.

Even though I didn’t start attending church consistently for a few years after that, it became a defining moment in my life. It was also the moment I began to feel comfortable in the silence.

What a beautiful thing it is to be on vacation and unexpectedly find yourself surrounded by believers and like-minded people. Those moments — both then and now — continue to draw me closer to Jesus.

Today, those moments of peace and solitude are gifts from Him. That silence — the once deafening silence — now brings me peace and clarity, allowing me to truly hear His Word.

I no longer believe in coincidences. I believe God reveals things to us through His Word and through the people and moments He places in our lives. Through church, family, my wife, and the incredible fellowship of NA, I’ve found a path that continues to lead me closer to Him.

I was so excited that the hotel had a casting feature on the TV so I could watch my GraceLife family and Pastor Joe while away.

Thank you to the amazing tech team that makes that possible for people who cannot physically be present at church.

Praise His name, and much love to all.

This is the first reflection I’ve ever written for church, but this is what I took away from the sermon.

And thank you to my wife, who encouraged me to write it.

05/24/2026

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you’ve had those moments when you desperately wanted God to speak… but all you got back felt like deafening silence. And in those moments, it can feel like life—and even your faith—is starting to unravel. 💔

It might be a diagnosis.
A betrayal.
A child making destructive choices you can’t stop.
A marriage hanging by a thread.
A financial situation you can’t fix.
A temptation you thought you were past suddenly roaring back stronger than ever.

So you do what Christians are supposed to do. You open your Bible. You pray for wisdom, direction, clarity… for God to make the next step obvious. But instead of clarity, instead of direction, you get what feels like silence from Heaven.

And that silence can mess with you.
It can make strong people weak.
Confident people anxious.
Faithful people start asking dangerous questions:

Did I do something wrong?
Is God disappointed in me?
Is He testing me?
Has He forgotten me?
Lord… are You even there?

But here’s the truth: those silent seasons are powerful opportunities for faith to be exposed, strengthened, and deepened. Because what you do in the silence reveals more about your heart than almost anything else in your life. 🔥

Do you run to God… or do you start looking somewhere else?

Saul, sadly—and not surprisingly—looked somewhere else.
But you don’t have to. God does some of His deepest work in the quiet. 🙏

05/19/2026

Monday Morning Reflections w/ Lori Griffith

I woke up Sunday morning and didn’t want to go to church. In fact, the week before, I stayed home and fell asleep halfway through praise and worship. I didn’t rewatch it to write a reflection, and I hid from everyone who might ask me about it.

Yesterday, I threw on some clothes and showed up anyway. Jared reminded me, “Move a muscle, change a thought.” He also said to dress how I want to feel. Thank God for him. ❤️✨

I spilled it all to Dani as soon as I walked through the doors, and she said, “Oh boy, you’re in for a treat today.” And boy, was she right. God really knows what we need when we need it. 🙏🔥

Saturday, I did my 3rd Step with my sponsor. “Step 3: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

The character defects I identified throughout this step work session were fear, anxiety, lack of faith, isolation, and not turning things over to God. I give it away and take it back… over and over. I am so tired. Powerless. 😞💔

I’ve been putting my trust elsewhere and avoiding God’s people. Isolating at home. Not answering the phone or texts. It seems easiest at the time, but honestly, it has separated me from God. Life only gets harder and lonelier this way. 🥺

I sent a message to Pastor Joe this morning saying that I didn’t want to write reflections anymore, telling him everything above and that it stresses me out because I overthink it. He said, “This is perfect.” I wrote it and didn’t even know it lol. 😅😂

Anyway, I know what I need to do. I also need to quit complicating things.

I have a problem. Turn it over. Use my support network (God’s people). Move a muscle, change a thought. Show up even when I don’t want to. Dress how I want to feel. 💪❤️‍🩹

Today has been a great day! ☀️🙌❤️

🙌

05/17/2026

We’ve all had those moments where we knew what God said… even believed it… but somehow, it just didn’t feel like enough. Not enough to fully trust His promise. Not enough to build a decision on. Not enough to hold you up when real life got heavy. 😔

So you didn’t walk away from God—of course not. But you did start looking for “other options.” Something a little more practical. A little more immediate. Something you felt like you could make work. 💡

And honestly… it did work. For a while. It eased the pressure, made things feel manageable, maybe even brought a little earthly success. But somewhere in the middle of all that… something felt off. Because deep down, you knew you were building part of your life on something that wasn’t true. 🧱

You didn’t stop believing in God—you just quietly started trusting something else more. And the scary part? That shift almost never feels like rebellion. It’s subtle. Reasonable. Logical. It feels like you had no other choice.

That’s exactly where we find David in 1 Samuel 27. A man who loved God… but let fear nudge him toward a plan that wasn’t God’s. 📖

There’s a lot to learn from this one.

05/10/2026

We’ve all had certain moments that seem powerful & spiritual. You hear truth, and you feel it. It lands on you, maybe even hits you hard. You agree with it, you know it’s right, and for a moment, it feels like something is going to change… but then life keeps moving, and somehow, nothing does change. If we’re honest, most of us have a growing collection of moments like that, powerful moments that slowly fade into the background. And over time, truth that once felt urgent starts to feel familiar. What once stopped you in your tracks doesn’t even slow you down anymore. And here’s the uncomfortable question that comes with that: How is it possible to hear the truth, recognize it, even feel the weight of it… yet remain completely unchanged? We tend to assume that if something is clear enough, explained well enough, or felt deeply enough, then change will naturally follow. But experience tells us that’s not always true. There’s a kind of hearing that doesn’t lead to obedience, a kind of conviction that doesn’t lead to repentance. If that’s true, then the real issue isn’t just whether we’ve heard the truth… it’s what happens in us when we do. That’s what we see in today’s passage.

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