Here's the reality: many of us today, you're going through a hard season. And the reality is, it's easy when we hit a hard season in our, in our spiritual journey, in our life, to give up on our destiny and dream, to just quit. But I want to remind you that hard seasons are very much a part of God's divine plan for your life. That sometimes easy and fun doesn't always mean fruitful. That sometimes, times the seasons of greatest growth and advancement for us are the ones that are hard.

Maybe you've lived through or are living through your own storm. The problem is that most people don't know how to profit from their problems. Most people never learn how to harvest their hurts, how to learn from their losses. Mature believers, though, they do those things. They advance through adversity. And if you don't do that, instead of becoming better, you're going to become bitter, and God's not going to be able to use you the way that he wants to. So you got to trust him in difficult situations. That even when it looks like everything is breaking down around you, if you trust in the Lord, you can experience incredible breakthrough and see God work in mighty, miraculous ways. When you feel and see nothing, believe by faith that God is up to something. You see, the struggle is a setup.

When Joseph was falsely accused and put into prison for 13 years, 13 years he was put into prison at a hard spot, hard season. This is what Psalm says about him in 105:18. It says that he was laid in chains of iron, and his soul entered into that iron. That's a powerful verse. What is that saying? That's saying there was something that happened on the inside of him when he was put into a hard place. Perseverance grew, his prayer life grew, his faith grew, strength grew on the inside. There was something that happened in that place when he was chained up, when he was in prison, that could only be solidified in him during that place, during that hard time.

What am I saying, friends? There are some things that only come to us spiritually the hard way. And they're not fun, and, and we don't like to praise and shout about it. But the reality is, is there is great hope knowing that though it's hard, God is up to something. That though it is hard, God is doing a significant work in my life. That though it is hard, God is preparing me for something that is ahead of me. If you believe it, can you say amen? "And though he slay me, yet shall I trust him."

You see, in order to develop real quality, it takes time, and it takes pain, and it takes endurance, and it takes grief, and it takes trouble, and it takes turmoil, and it takes destruction. And demolition. Demolition is a messy thing. If you get ready to remodel your house, expect to have some mess. Everything you're going through is preparing you for what you asked God for. You just got to quit tripping while you're in the process, because the process is necessary. You may not see it now, but when he gets you on the other side of it, you're going to see exactly why it went that way, and you're going to be okay with it. God is processing you. He ain't through with you.

And often, I, I'll see people, they go through hardship, they go through tragedy, and they make the mistake of running from God. They run from God, they get mad at God, they become disappointed in their situation, and they run from God. And I understand that human reaction. But my question would be, who are you running to? Who are you going to run to if you're running from the one person who loves you faithfully and actually has the power to help you and heal you? Who are you running to? That's a mistake. Don't run from God. If you're going through a hardship, turn to God. Draw near to God.

Romans 8:28: "And we know that God causes some things..." Is that what it says? No. It says, "We know that God causes what? All things to work for good for those who are in Christ Jesus." Or for those who are called according to his purpose. God has a purpose for your life, a distinct plan for your life that you are called to. God shaped a plan, and then he shaped you for that plan specifically. You are called according to a purpose, meaning that everything in your life has a purpose. God can use it. God can bring something out of there.

There are methods to your purpose being carried out. God uses methods to carry them out. He uses easy seasons and easy things and easy moments, things that come quickly, spontaneous, special moments that are fast and supernatural. But he also uses things that are difficult and that are hard, and they're just as supernatural, and they carry his purpose out. You see, hard is not the preferred method, but it's necessary at times. And this is so encouraging for us, because you'll go through many things in your life that are not good. Being laid off is not good. Going through a divorce, not good. Having a miscarriage, not good. Having your father in the hospital is not good. But when you put these things in God's hands, when you trust him, over time, you have the promise that he is going to work all these things together for good. That means that if it's not good, God's not done. He's still working. If you say, "Well, it's not good yet," that means God's not done. He's still working it together. He's still moving in ways you don't even see. Sometimes it's not till later that you look back and realize how he worked it together for good.

So, in the meantime, even when you, you don't understand what he's doing, trust in who he is. You know his heart. You know that he's faithful. You know that he's, he loves you, and he has a plan for your life.

I want you to see it almost like a seed. All of you have seeds in your life, dreams, and potential. Well, a seed doesn't germinate and grow just sitting on a shelf, nice and cozy and comfortable. A seed has to be taken, and it must be buried into a dark place. It must be buried into a hard place. It must sit in a place that's hard for it to germinate, for it to grow, for the potential that is on the inside of it to come to fruition. And the same goes for our lives. Is yes, there's mountaintop moments, and there's hills, and they're great, and they're awesome, and I love living there. But there are also seasons to our journey where we come into a hard place, hard season, lonely times. It gets, it's difficult. And it's in those seasons where God is wanting to bring something out from the inside. God wants to do something.

I want to encourage you, don't complain. If you're in a hard season right now, recognize the opportunity that is before you to allow God to do whatever it is that he's designed to do in this season. There is something significant that God is wanting to draw out of you in this hard time. You, if you're going through some dirt as a believer, be reminded that the dirt is necessary for the seed to become all it was created to be. There's got to be a little bit of dirt in our lives at times for God's promise to be fulfilled. And you are being planted, but you feel like you're being buried. Have you ever noticed that there is no difference in the motion between planting and burying? When you plant a seed, it feels buried. And even though he takes the seed and digs a hole and puts the seed down in the hole and covers it up with dirt, he's not a mortician, he's planted it, not buried it. And most of us think we are being buried when, in fact, we are only being planted. And when you are planted, that means you're going to get up again. And when you are planted, that means you're going to come forth again. And when you are planted, that means that this is not how the story ends. This is not the end.

Don't run from it. Don't hate from it. Don't duck from it. Don't dodge from it. Don't run trying to get away from it, because you are not being buried, you are being planted. Hard seasons, for me, honestly, have been probably the most significant seasons of growth for me in my life. It wasn't the great times, and it wasn't the good moments where I experienced the most growth. Now, listen, I'm not praying for bad times, and I don't love the hard seasons, trust me. And I'm not praying for hard seasons, okay? But I am just saying that when I look at my life, I have recognized already that the most significant growth has taken in places and seasons that were the most difficult. And so I'm, I'm changing and trying to change my perspective. Whenever I am in a hard season, whether it's relational, financial, whether it's about my purpose or my future, whatever I find myself, God, I'm changing my perspective because when I see and feel nothing, and it's hard, I'm going to believe in faith that God, you are up to something.

We never pray for pain, we pray for blessing and favor. But sometimes God's favor is found in suffering. It's through pain we found salvation. How? Well, it started with the pain that Jesus experienced on the cross. You couldn't have been saved without pain. It's when you hit rock bottom and you realize that God was all you have, that's when you decide, well, that's, that's who I really need.

Psalms 32:8: "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life." God says, "I will advise you and I will watch over you." It doesn't say, "I will guide you on the easiest and most comfortable path for your life." It says, "Right now, I will guide you on the best path." I, I'm wondering how many things God has kept us from while he's taken us on a harder path. I wonder how many things, as he's taken us on the best path, as we've prayed, how many people he saved us heartache from, even though it's taking a little bit longer. I'm wanting to learn to seek God's best path, not seek the easiest, because it's in God's best where you're discovering your full potential. It's in God's best that you, you're being prepared for what's ahead. It's in God's best where there is full grace and full protection. Right where you're at, God's watching you, and he's advising you. That's exactly how God works.

And we need to realize that, because sometimes we'll be in the middle of a storm, in the middle of a hard situation, and we'll be praying, "God, take this storm away." That's, of course, that's how we pray. Why wouldn't you pray that? "God, take the storm away." But what God does, he doesn't always remove the storm. Yet, he does promise to walk you through the storm.

David, in Psalm 23, famously says, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me to the still waters. And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." That's an interesting verse there, because David is essentially saying the same God that is leading me to green pastures and still waters is the same God that is leading me through the valley of the shadow of death. Same God. David is saying, "I am learning to trust God, not complain, not get bitter, not give up, not quit. I am learning to trust God that he's with me. He's not forsaken me." Though I feel lonely at times, though I feel like God has absolutely forgotten me, I am going to believe that just like he leads me to still waters, he is taking me through this hard season, and he is preparing me for something great. He hasn't left me. He's taking care of me.

Listen to what David would go on to say: "After you go through the valley, after the dark place, he says that God will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies; your cup will run over." That's a great promise, friends. Notice that you have to go through the hard season. You got to go through it to get to the table. If there's a struggle, something's being set up. If there is a struggle, God is setting up something. Don't give up on the way to your table. Many people give up, and they lose heart, and they lose faith. "Where is God? I don't see anything." And God is saying, "Listen, I've prepared the table. I am going to take you through this valley. Stay in faith. Anchor in hope that I'm working, and that I'm watching over you, and I'm going to provide for you, and I'm going to set up a table for you to be refilled and refreshed. I'm going to run your cup over in the presence of your enemies."

It's the hard seasons that bring the most out of us. And in the moment, we may not always feel it and see it, but in hindsight, we see it's in those moments where we're stretched, our faith grows, we become the people God's designed us to be, we become the people that he wants us to be. When we get to the table of blessing, the place where he wants to overflow our cup, recognize that Christ lives on the inside of you. And though the season is hard, you have supernatural power in you to bounce back, to walk through this valley, not just struggling to struggle, and I'm the victim, and I'm going to be bitter, and I'm going to complain. But no, put your shoulders back. Have hope in the hard times. Have hope in this season, knowing not necessarily that you're, you're going to figure out how the promise is going to come, that you're going to figure out how God is going to provide, but that you, you have hope because you know who your provider is. You may not know how you're going to get to the table. You may not know how you're going to get to the promise. You may not know how Goliath is going to fall. But you can rest assured and have hope in who is your giant killer, and who is the one that's going to escort you into the promise.

And we need to be reminded of this. We know that God, he is always working. He is Almighty, all-knowing, high and lifted up. His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. What that means is he's going to do things that we don't have the ability to understand. I mean, that's unfortunate. You always want to know what, what's going on, what's the plan. The thing is, with God, he doesn't reveal the plan to us. He doesn't give us a manual with all the directions and all the things that you're going to experience along the way. What he gives you, he gives you the end of the story and a lot of promises that you can trust him. What he gives you is an ongoing demonstration of his love for you. Like, "How am I supposed to trust his heart?" People ask questions like this all the time. "Why would God let this happen?" What they're doing in that moment is they're questioning and doubting God's heart. They think, "Man, if my situation isn't good, does that mean that God's not good?" But we got to trust his heart, because again and again, he has proven his love for you, starting with this: sent his only begotten son to live and die for you.

So don't fight the dark places. The hard times, grow in them. Don't fight them, grow in them. There may be dirt all around you. It's comfortable, but that dirt is not there to stop you. It's there to bring out the greatness in you. My encouragement: seek his best over easy. And when you do that, I believe that you'll reach your destiny. That in this season, when you seek his best and not easy, you will fulfill your destiny. You will go to new levels. You will pass tests. You will get what he was wanting you to get in this season for what huge things he has for you ahead. Let's trust him. Let's grow. Let's be mature believers. Amen.

"You're going to lose everything. You won't come out of this. You're not smart enough. You're not bright enough. You waited too late. You should have started younger." Those are the kind of voices that we all live with. Those voices are the kind of voices that stop you from buying into your own life. Sometimes the thing that's holding you back is all in your head. Some of you right now, you don't have what God wants you to have.

It is no secret that many of us are weighed down right now by, uh, some chronic fears or worries, negative thoughts that can maybe cause you, they just run away with you at night, and they spiral. And, and there's this anxious or toxic thinking. We even believe the lies of our enemy, Lucifer. "You're not good enough. You'll never change. You'll never measure up." Flat-out falsehoods that the devil designed to hold you hostage and keep you from the freedom and power that's your birthright as a son or daughter of God. The enemy's main tools are deception and lies. Your mind is the bullseye of his target. If he can control your thinking, he can control your life. You can't stop negative thoughts from coming, but here's the key: just because a thought comes doesn't mean you have to think it. You control the doorway to your mind. Ask yourself, "Where is this thought coming from?" If it's not positive, hopeful, encouraging, it's not from God. That's the enemy doing what he does best, trying to plant negative seeds, fearful seeds, inferior seeds.

God said here in Isaiah: "If you'll keep your mind stayed on me, I will keep you in perfect peace." What is your mind stayed on? What are you dwelling on throughout the day? How many of you know that it's very, very important that we make every effort that we can to be positive in life? Some people, to be honest, you could solve all your problems if you would just change from being negative to positive. The right approach is: "Yes, there's a lot of uncertainty. I don't know how it's all going to turn out, but God, I know you're my provider. Just as you take care of the birds of the air, feed and clothe them, you're going to take care of me." Steady of keeping your mind stayed on your problems, stayed on the news, stayed on doubt, stay, don't worry. Keep it stayed on what God promised you.

And what we've discovered is that most of life's battles are won or lost in your mind. Your mind is a battlefield. And as a Christian, you have a choice. You can believe Satan's lies to you, or you can believe God's truth about you. And the enemy always has some sort of tool or memory or situation that he uses to terrify you. Even though the good times are here, and, and the dream is there, and the blessing is there, and the goodness is there, but there's always this haunting, nagging defiance that says, "Don't you relax. You're not worth it. You don't deserve it. And it's not going to last because everything else went away. Maybe this will go away too." We talk about faith for bad times, but, but you also need faith in good times to actually believe the goodness of God is not going anywhere.

To silence the voices that keep saying, "You'll never make it. You're about to lose everything." Fear gets in your heart. You can change your outcome, but you have to stop talking to yourself the way you do. Because if you continue to talk to yourself the way you do, you will always be where you've always been. It is what you say within yourself that heals you. Yes. See, those voices that say what you can't do, what you can't have, what you can't be, what's not going to last, what's not going to work, is how the enemy pulverizes the promises of God in your life. To talk back to those voices shuts the enemy down. The pressure I was going through, I was causing because the pressure I was going through was coming from the things that I allowed to reverberate in my head. And I'm wondering if there are things echoing in your head right now that are stopping you from living your best life because you will not silence them by speaking back.

Many times the problems that we think we have with our lives are actually problems with our thoughts. Proverbs 4:23 says, "You've got to carefully guard your thoughts, because they are the source of true life." You are the narrator of your life. So we have to fix our thoughts. We have to fix our thoughts. Jesus wants to change your pattern of thinking and give you a new pattern. Amen. That's why Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."

So it's about the pattern. If you think negative thoughts, you'll become a negative person. You will likely find whatever you fix your focus on. If you decide to look for what's good in life, you'll find the good. If you decide to always look for what's bad about any given situation, you'll find the bad. That's true. And if you don't decide in advance to fill your brain with godly, positive thoughts, your human nature will be more than happy to revert to its default setting, which is looking for what's negative.

2 Corinthians 10:5: "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Listen, your thoughts are not in control of you. You are in control of your thoughts. You cannot have an obedient life without having an obedient thought life. I mean, I was a Christian for many, many, many years and loved God and couldn't figure out why I just kept having so many problems. And I, I didn't understand the stuff about the mind. I just thought that I couldn't help what I thought. "I can't help what I think." And I didn't have any idea that I could cast down wrong thoughts or I could shut my mind against thoughts that I didn't have to just receive everything that fell into my head and just take it as my own and roll it over and over and over in my mind.

Your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts. In other words, what you tend to think about comes out in your life. In fact, the wisest guy in the Bible, Solomon, in Proverbs 23, described it this way: "For as a person thinks in his heart, so is he." In other words, what do we know? The life you have is often a reflection of the thoughts you think. The life you have is a is a reflection of the thoughts you think. What you think determines who you become. In other words, if you think you can't do something, guess what? You probably won't. Right? If you think you can, by God's grace, you probably will try, or at least you will try. If you fixate only on your problems, you get up and you say, "Man, the world is bad. It's going to hell in a handbasket. Life is hopeless." Guess what? You will get overwhelmed by 8:00 in the morning. But instead, if you actually renew yourself in the Holy Spirit, renew your brain in scripture, if you believe with faith, "No, no, no, whatever comes today, it could be hard, but I can tap into God's strength. God has good stored up for me. Good works he's planned in advance." You will actually discover some solutions, and you're going to watch your faith grow.

See, if you always feel like you're a victim of your circumstances, guess what? You will probably live like a victim for most of your life. But if you actually take the truth of God and say, "No, no, no, I'm not a victim. I'm actually more than a conqueror by the love and power of Christ that work within me." You can overcome anything. The truth is, the life you lead is a reflection of the thoughts you think. Thoughts shape action, action shapes behavior, behavior shapes your destiny. Get your mind going in the right direction, and your life will go in the right direction. You're going to draw in what you're constantly thinking about. If you're thinking, "Can't do it," thoughts, "I'm not enough," "This problem's too big," you're drawing in defeat. That's making you weaker. Your gifts are being pushed down. Your faith is being diminished. How much further will you go? How much happier will you live? How much more of God's favor will you see if you'll guard your mind? If you'll be selective in what you're dwelling on? If you'll keep it stayed on him?

There are lies that the devil actually pedals to you all the time. Do you ever find yourself thinking, "You know, I, I just can't change. You know, even if I try, I'll always be overweight. My family's always struggled with that." Or, "We'll always be in debt. You know, my family, we're just not good with money." Or, "Marriage, like, I'm just, you know, it's just, she's never going to change. I'm no good at relationships. You know, whenever I start to grow close, I do something to screw it up. In fact, I'm a screw-up. You know, I can't believe God would care about somebody like me." Listen to me. That's the voice of your enemy. He's waging war on the battlefield of your mind to keep you captive. You know what Jesus called Satan? A liar and a punk. Listen to this: He said, "There is no truth in him. When he lies, this is the devil. He speaks his native language, for he is what? A liar and the father of lies." In other words, he gives birth to lies all the time.

So understand, Satan is an enemy, and he's always looking for a place in your mind where you may agree with a falsehood that is not true. The devil will get you on either side. His whole strategy is to get you to buy into something that is untrue about God or yourself to lead you away from God's freedom and healing and purpose for your life. Everything with the devil is "ever" and "never." "It's never going to change, and it's always going to be that way." His favorite thing is to tell you how no good you are, and how all you do is make mistakes, and how your life is over, and you're never going to get over your past, and nobody cares about you, and you're not going to get the job, and you're not going to get the raise, and you'll never have a new car. And before long, whatever thoughts you've been repeating, that's your default thinking. And if it's negative, it creates, guess what? A stronghold. Because if you believe a lie for long enough, and your mind starts to act like this lie is true, you get stuck in a rut.

I want you to imagine this. You guys see how this works? If, if you walked out in your front yard and you walked across your lawn in a certain pattern for a hundred days straight, same line, same path to your car, thousands of steps, what do you think's going to happen to your lawn? Right? You'll create a pathway in your yard. Same thing. If you think on a lie for a hundred days straight, you will start to believe the lie, and it will create this neural pathway for your brain just to run off with it. You can call it stinking thinking. It's where lies get lodged in your mind, and they create this stronghold. "You can't change." But with God's help, we're going to renew our minds. Like Paul says, we're going to actually stay off that old path. And you know what actually happens, by the way? If you stay off your lawn for a hundred days, what happens? The grass grows back. I've got to put a new pathway in my brain towards God's truth.

Paul says, "Do not conform to the what? Pattern of this world." You could translate that, "Don't be conformed to the pathways of the world, these wrong patterns of thinking." But "be transformed by what? Renewing of your mind." Paul's like, "Stay off that destructive, negative pathways of lies and replace it for God's truth." Here's a simple principle: When a negative thought comes, erase it and replace it. It's not enough to just not think negative, because once you dismiss it, once you make that decision, "I'm not dwelling on that. I'm not letting that worry in," that's good. The problem is, it'll come back in a few seconds. Once you erase the negative, replace it with a positive thought. Don't leave your mind empty. The thought comes, "Nothing good's in your future." Dismiss it. Don't give it the time of day. Then take the next step: "Father, you promised the path of the righteous, my path is getting brighter and brighter. You said my latter days will be better than my former days."

When the thoughts come, "It's problems too big. The opposition too strong. You'll never get past it." You can let that play and live defeated, discouraged, intimidated. Or you can replace it with what God says: "Father, you said when the enemy comes against me one way, you would defeat them and cause them to flee seven different ways. And yes, this may be too big for me, but I know it's not too big for you." Maybe you're here and you think, "You know, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not enough. My family wasn't enough. I, I'm not a good enough parent. Or I, I, I, I can never get it all done." And you're going to take the truth of God that says, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me what? Strength." Even when I'm weak, that's when Christ is our strongest. Maybe you feel like, "I, I'll, I'll never be attractive enough. I don't like the way I look." At the no, no, no, no, no. You are beautifully and fearfully and wonderfully made by the grace of God. He's given you beautiful gifts to make a difference in this world. Maybe you're like, "I, Tim, I'm just always going to be miserable. I'm always going to feel depressed." No, no. The joy of the Lord can be your strength. The moment the liar whispers to you, "You're going to be alone." I'm never alone. Christ has promised. Jesus will never leave me. Never forsake me. The devil whispers, "No, no, no, you're nothing but a victim." No, no, no, no, no. God's word says, "I am more than a conqueror through Christ who loved me and gave himself up for me." Amen.

You have to declare war. "I am not who others say I am. I'm not even who my own lying mind says I am. I am who God says I am." "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." You cannot have a positive life when you have a negative, fear-filled mind. What comes into your mind comes out in your life. And so Paul says, "Take it captive, every thought." Capture that lie. Name it. "I forbid you entry." Remove it and replace it with the truth of God. And by the power of God, you will break that stronghold, because Jesus holds the key that sets every prisoner free. Amen.

We all have giants in our life. We're all facing giants. We are all, in fact, fighting giants right now. There's nobody here who is not dealing with a giant of some kind in their life right now. Giants like fear, giants like failure, giants like past mistakes, giants like lust, giants like bitterness and hatred. There's all kind of giants that we face in our life. You've been running away from the giant for too long. It's time to run toward the giant. When's the last time you ran toward your giant? When's the last time you ran toward your problem? When's the last time you said, "You know what? Goliath of anxiety, you're not going to get me. Goliath of despair, you're not going to get me. Goliath of the worst-case scenario, I'm not going to assume that I'm going to trust in the armies of the Living God." And consequently, you run in the direction with faith, with courage, because you have listened to the voice of God.

To defeat your giant, you're going to have to fight. It's going to be tough, fight. Anyone might be ugly, fight. Anyone might be difficult, fight. Don't wait for the giant to leave. Fight now. Fight today. Now, if defeating your giant matters, start now. That giant stands between you and health. That giant stands between you and your purpose. That giant stands between you and your destiny. That giant stands between you and your God-given potential. Fight. Quit trying to learn how to live with your giant. You don't have to learn how to live with fear. You don't have to learn how to live with pain. You don't have to learn how to live under the cloud of your past mistakes and your past failures. You don't have to learn to live with that habit that seems like it has you bound.

Number one, once you face your giant, the next step that you've got to take is, we're going to slay that giant. We're going to deal with that giant. We're going to do it in the name of Jesus. We're going to do it under the power of the Holy Ghost. The enemy wants you to think there's no hope. It's not going to change. God doesn't care. Prayer doesn't work. People don't love you. Your marriage can't get better. All those things. It's always going to be like this. God can help us slay the Giants. Remind yourself that the battle is the Lord's. It's, it's not just your battle. It's not just up to you. It's not just your ability. In all of life's battles, listen, it's the Lord's battle.

And here's the problem: sometimes when you and I are facing challenges in life, and some big Goliath faces us, something that we have a hard time with, sometime, you know, we never decide what we're going to do with it. We skirt the issue. We say, "Well, one of these days, I'm going to face that, but not right now." We'll never be able to conquer the Goliath until we say, "That's what it is. It is sin. I've got to face it, and I will repent of it. I will take care of that. I will settle that once and for all." As long as we don't resolve to do it and do it, Goliath will still be out there. Whatever it may be, it may be a habit, maybe a relationship, maybe some some idea, some attitude. I don't know what that Goliath may be in your life, but he'll still remain there until you deal with him.

And you see, getting in the word and getting on your knees and seeking the mind of God is a proven way to deal with any Goliath that comes into your life. And yes, your giant may be big, but Jesus is bigger. I am not minimizing the giant in your life. It is big, but Jesus is bigger. Jesus is bigger. And this is why Luke 18 tells us that what is impossible for people is possible with God. It may feel impossible for you to take down your giant, and you know what? You're right. By yourself, it is impossible for your giant to fall. But in Jesus' name, it's time for you to face him and move forward in life. It's not really a contest between the giant and me. It's a contest between the giant and the Lord. And though I wouldn't stand a chance against the giant, he doesn't stand a chance against the Lord. This is about learning to have more faith in Jesus than in your giant.

And what I want to say to you is, your future is on the other side of the giant that you are afraid to face. So don't let your giant hide your future. Come on. Just because he hasn't fallen yet doesn't mean he won't, in Jesus' name. By yourself, you don't have a chance. Your challenge is way bigger than you. But your challenge is not bigger than God. And the quietest whisper from God has more power than the loudest giant's roar. Come on. You are not defined by the giants you face, but by the God that you follow.

How are you looking at the giants that are facing you right now? Because in God's word, Red Seas can part, Jericho walls can fall down, the sun can stand still, the Jordan River can part. Giants have to fall. Everything bows. Every circumstance you're facing, no matter how big it looks, no matter the bills you got to pay, no matter how lonely you feel, no matter how far away marriage may look, or a healthy marriage, or a healthy family, whatever it is you're facing that's trying to tell you it's never going to change. You need to see your circumstances through the lens of God's word. That every circumstance, every giant, every mountain you're facing can crumble into the sea as you begin to move towards it with faith in God. You just keep moving forward. Don't you quit. Don't you give up. Don't feel like you got to know who the real enemy is. The real enemy is not your spouse. It's not your kids. It's not your in-laws. It's not your boss. The real enemy is the Prince of Darkness, and he's trying to bring strife. He's trying to get you distracted, fighting battles that are unnecessary. Keep focused on the right fight. Somebody needs to shift their attention away from the problem and turn their attention toward the provider.

Listen to me. He loves you. God loves you. He has not left you alone to face this on your own. He is with you. Remember His marvelous works which He has done. Keep a list of His world records. Has He not walked you through waters before? Has He not proven to be faithful? Have you not discovered His provision? I want to encourage you to write today's worries in sand and chisel yesterday's victories in stone. God is for you. And when God is for you, no giant can stand. No problem can continue. For there is nothing that is too big for God. Through the power of the Lord, every giant in your life falls.

Worry for a Christian is irrational because it is as a Christian, you're someone who says, "God, I trust you with all of eternity, with all of my life, all of my sin. I trust you with all of it. God, I just don't trust you with Thursday." He would say, "That's irrational." If it doesn't make sense, it's a human experience that grabs all of us, but it is an irrational thing. Just, "I trust you with it all, just not tomorrow." And not this worry. Worry is the destructive process of occupying our minds with thoughts that are contrary to God's love, care, provision, and protection. Notice, worry is a powerfully destructive process. It's never constructive. The word "worry" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word that means to choke or to strangle. And that's what worry does. It tries to choke or strangle us. Jesus reminded us that worry never changes anything. It's never productive. He said, "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

When we worry, we often envision the worst-case scenario. We take a little thing and make it a huge thing. We take a molehill and make it into a mountain. Worry gives a small thing a big shadow. And when we worry, we're almost always thinking, "What if?" And it's usually a negative future that we're envisioning. "What if I lose my job? What if my child starts running around with the wrong crowd? What if the doctor's report is bad?" And as a physician, I can tell you that worry is a toxic emotion that affects our health. When we consistently worry, it takes up our mental and emotional energy. In other words, worry exhausts us. Have you ever heard the expression "worried sick"? See, worry can make us sick, from ulcers in our stomach to sleepless nights to all sorts of illness that have illness that have been directly related to worry and stress.

Well, what do we do when we're faced with the temptation of worry? Let's look at our passage in Philippians 4, starting in verse 6: "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." This passage tells us that we shouldn't allow ourselves to worry about anything. Think about that. Nothing. Instead, we should recognize that worry is a destructive force that's coming against us. We should recognize that worry is a trap the enemy is trying to get a a foothold in our lives so that he can choke, choke us and steal our joy and peace. We need to simply turn the things that we're worrying about over to God. Talk to him about what we're going through. Tell him every detail of what we need. Turn your worry list into a prayer list. You'll never worry your way to a solution.

Paul said, "Don't be anxious." "Don't worry about anything." That sounds good, but if you're not going to worry, what do you do? "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving present your request to God." Everything means everything. The picture is, in your little anxious moments and in your monster anxiety attacks, approach at the same same way with prayer, Thanksgiving, and worship. That's not your normal reaction. You try to fix things and manage the crisis. And nothing should you worry, and everything you should pray. Too often, we do the opposite. We worry instead of pray. Little things cause you to should cause you to pray, not worry. Big things should cause you to pray, not worry.

In this passage, Paul doesn't say that your concerns aren't legitimate. That is not the sense or feel of this. In fact, it's the total opposite. Paul says, "Go ahead, make the list. Acknowledge all of it. Everything that worries you and siphons off your joy. Make the list." But when you're all done with the list, change the heading. Instead of "Things I am worried about," "Things God can handle." See, because he looks at that whole list, and there's not one thing on there that has God nervous, intimidated, or afraid. He can handle all of that. Worry about nothing, pray about everything. Isn't it funny how you and I are comfortable making hundreds of decisions every day? We never talk to the Lord, Lord, one lick about. We never even attempted to. And then we wonder why we're encountering things that we are. God says, "I want you in everything by prayer and supplication." When you're anxious, here's what I want you to do: talk to God. You're not going to have peace any other way.

The verse clearly, and Paul clearly, is saying, like, "Hey, when you're overwhelmed, pray. Tell God, 'Hey, this is what I'm overwhelmed. This is what's going on. God, will you please change this?' And if not, I trust you." And you will experience peace. Peter says it like this: "Cast every worry you have upon Him, because He cares for you." And the psalmist says, "Cast your burden on the Lord, releasing the weight of it, and He will sustain you." You see, when we, when we pray, we simply cast the weight of our worries onto God. We release the weight of our worries from our hands and turn them over to God's hands.

When we're dealing with anxiety and depression at high levels, one of the first things that goes is hope. And we start to feel like we start to believe this lie that says, "You're always going to be that way. It's just your lot in life. You're never going to be able to change. Your loved one's never going to be able to change. It's just who you are. It's just who they are. We're just stuck." And I just don't believe that's the that's the case. And I want you to start to get something already on the inside of you today that goes, "I'm going to believe my God for more." Amen.

Listen to this: "May the God of hope." And I love this. "May the God of hope." Because like I said, hopelessness is one of the things that we start to experience first when anxiety gets bad. God says, "That's not what I have for you. I have different for you. I have more for you. I am the God of hope, and I want to fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him." Notice that's the opposite of anxiety. That's the opposite of depression. The God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. He says, "I don't want you to just get by anymore. I don't want you to just make it through your day. I don't want you to just eke through life. I want you to be overflowing with peace and joy and hope." Not only so it changes your life, but so that your life change starts to leak on everybody around you, and it begins to change people's lives everywhere you go. He says, "I got more in store for you." The promise we have when we choose to pray.

And cast our cares. Instead of worrying, the promise we have that when we choose to be thankful instead of worry is found in verse 7. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything that we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Receive by faith God's peace that exceeds anything we can understand. Have you ever experienced that peace that is absolutely indescribable? When the circumstances are screaming you should be overwhelmed and worry, and yet there is a peace that is beyond description. Friends, there is a supernatural peace that God has available to us that's beyond anything that we could ask, think, or imagine, or even understand in the natural.

So here's my encouragement to you tonight. When we're tempted, let's make a choice not to give into worry. Let's make our worry list our prayer list and pray and cast our cares on God. Even in the midst of difficulty, let's maintain our attitude of gratitude. And as we do that, by faith, let's receive God's supernatural peace and let it guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

Let me ask you a question. What is it that you're trying to control that God wants you to surrender? Our God can do way more through your surrender than you can ever do through your control. He can do way more. That which is on your heart is always better in His hand. You don't always have the power to control, but you do always have the power to surrender. And I promise you, God can do way more through your surrender than you can ever do through your control.

Where are you fighting God for control in your life right now? If you're like me, if you're like most of us, there's an area or two at least where we're still fighting for God, with God, for control. It may be that God's calling you to let go of something. Maybe it's something bad. Maybe there's a sin in your life that God's calling you to let go. Maybe it's something good that you're holding on to, and He says, "I've got something better for you." But you're going to have to trust me. You're going to have to let me rule. And we're fighting Him for control.

And so, when we have those places in our lives where we're fighting God for control, we have to learn to let go and trust Him if we want to step into the future that God has for us. At any age, we also have to be willing to let something go. A lot of times, this just means letting go of our strong desire to be in control. It's not easy. We honestly think we know what is best for us. We know the plans that we have, and we'll submit them to God and we'll say, "God, this is what's best for me, and I'm going to ask You to bless this, and I'm going to ask You to lead me in this." But we have to be willing to let go of our plans and just ask God to lead us into His future.

It doesn't mean we don't plan. It doesn't mean we don't think strategically. It doesn't mean we don't use our wisdom and judgment to move into the future. It's just we have to be willing to humble ourselves before God and ask God to direct our steps instead of asking God to bless the steps we want to take. You see, when I was in control at times, I made a mess of my life. But when I trusted God, what I have found is that God was faithful.

My desire to control is rooted in a lack of faith. The more I find myself trying to control, the more I overestimate my ability to control. The more I underestimate the power and the goodness of God. A simple thought to remember, but not a simple thought to live to live this out. It takes faith. But on the other side of your faith, let me promise you, you will always see the faithfulness of God. The God who is with you.

2 Corinthians 5:7 says, "For we live by faith, not by sight." We want to live that way. We want to follow it. But the reality is that more often than not, we want to really live by sight and not by faith. But if we're willing to let go of that sight, then there are blessings of faith that come to us. But it's a struggle. We have to let go of our need to be in control. Let go of what we can see, because you never see all that God is doing when you're looking at it. You only see that piece that He wants to show you right now.

You say, "Why won't You show me the whole thing?" So that you learn to walk by faith and not by sight. If you're trying to control the outcome and control the time frame, you're going to live worried. You have to release control. Release having to have it happen your way. God already has it figured out. He knows the end from the beginning. But here's the key: He doesn't give us the details. If you knew how everything was going to work out, it wouldn't take faith.

If He told you, "Three months from now, a big door is going to open. It looks like you're going backwards, but there's a shortcut that's going to put you ahead," you would relax and say, "Okay, it's all going to work out." Why don't you do that now? God has it all planned out. He's doing things you can't see. There are good breaks coming, healing, favor, the right people. They're already on your schedule. If you'll release control, then you can enjoy your life while you're waiting for things to change.

What's upsetting you? What's keeping you awake at night? God is saying, "Release it to Me. I'm in control. I'm ordering your steps. I'm working behind the scenes. It may not be good, but I'm going to turn it for your good." We know the Master. We don't always know the Master Plan. God is in control. It doesn't always look like it, but God is in control. That God is with you. You're never alone. And that God is for you.

When life feels so out of control, God is in control, no matter how things appear. You know, as followers of Jesus, I, and I think a lot of us, we know that God's in control in our heads, right? The problem is, sometimes there's a gap between what we know in our heads and what we feel in our hearts. Our ability to relax into that knowledge that God's in control. And so, the question that we need to ask ourselves is, how can we move our trust in God from our heads to our hearts?

Listen to me. You want to move your trust from God, from your head, and into your heart. You want to go from what we know to be true, that God's in control, to really feeling it. Here's what we need to focus on. We know God's in control because He turns obstacles into opportunities. He turns obstacles into opportunities. Those things that look like they're opposing His will, He uses to accomplish it. We see that throughout scripture. These things might have looked like obstacles to God's will, but the reality is, He's turned them into opportunities to do even greater things.

Listen to me. We know that God's in control because He turns obstacles into opportunities. Because, listen, church, the only safe way through chaos is trusting the only one who has true control. It's the only way through chaos. When it comes to calling it's trusting the only one who really has control. We have an illusion of control. We think, "Well, I could do this, I could do that, I could get control of things." But the reality is, we're spitting into the wind. We don't have any real control. And the people we look to, well, maybe they can control. No, they don't have that ability. Only God has true control. And only God can control you in a way that blesses you. The only way through chaos, the only safe way through chaos, is trusting the only one who has true control.

It's hard when you feel as if there's a situation going on and there's very little that you can do about it. But I just wanted you to know, if you feel as if life is out of control, if you feel as if God is not listening, I want to remind you: never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Don't be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

And so, when I cannot control something, when it's out of my control, I'm not going to panic. You'll discover you don't have to fear the future because you know who your Father is and that He is with you in the future. So I wonder today, how is God calling you to trust Him? Where is God calling you to stop fighting Him for control?

Our control issues can turn even our greatest blessings toxic. Our attempt to control our kids can drive our kids away. Our attempt to control our spouse can end up creating a wedge between us, so the marriage just fragments and it turns into something we never dreamed it would look like. Our attempts to control other people spoil the relationships. Listen, control issues can turn even our greatest blessings toxic. Control issues, they're stirred up by that fear of losing the blessing. Because here's the thing, listen: fear is rocket fuel for control issues. This is one of the big places that our control issues come from. They come from fear of losing something that we've come to cherish, something that we've come to depend on, something that God has blessed us with.

And I think this is actually very helpful in our own lives. It's also helpful as we look at other people. You might be in a relationship with somebody that feels pretty controlling, and it's easy to think, "Well, they're controlling because they're just bad people." But the reality is, fear is rocket fuel for our control issues. And it may very well be that the people who are trying to control you are actually people who are afraid of losing you. And you're like, "Well, this is a terrible way to show it." Yeah, I didn't say it was a good idea, but it's a very common issue.

Because when chaos comes calling, or when we think chaos might come calling, when we might lose a blessing, our control issues get stirred up. They get triggered, right? Fear is rocket fuel for our control issues. And I wonder, is there a blessing you're afraid of losing that's fueling your control issues? Is there something God has blessed you with, and there's a fear inside you that you might somehow lose it, and that's driving you to try to control it or to control them?

But what's the alternative? The alternative is trust. The alternative is trusting the only one who has true control. Because God's greatest blessings can't be seized. They can't be taken through control. They can only be received in a posture of trust. Because again, the blessings of God aren't rewards, they're gifts.

We try to control our own future, and all we're going to end up doing is worrying about how we're going to provide for it, how we're going to see it happen. What Jesus is saying is that the key, the answer, is to really just trust God for everything, and God will provide it. See, when we're willing to step out in faith, when we're willing to trust God, God will bless us. But what I've discovered now is it's a beautiful thing that God will do with a broken life if you give Him all the pieces. It's a beautiful thing that God will do if you give Him all the pieces.

Not only that, God is with you even when you can't see His plan. Number one, put God first. Put God first in everything you do. I didn't always stick with Him, but He always stuck with me. So stick with Him in everything you do. Can you say without hesitation that God is first? First in your life? It's silly to say that we don't have time for God. And if we don't have time for Him, that He's not first in our lives.

Do you think about God and His goodness in your life? Do you take time to thank God for your blessings, even little ones? Live to please the Lord. Make decisions that are pleasing to God. So, are you trying to find a place to put God into your schedule, or would you be willing today to say, "God, from now on, You're going to be first, and I don't care what else has to go, or what I have to change, what I have to make an adjustment in, I want to keep You first in my life in everything"?

Let me tell you, being a Christian just does not work out right if God is a sideline in your life. Never meet with other people before you meet with God. If you'll take time to acknowledge God, say, "God, I need You today. Lead Me. Guide Me. Keep Me on the right path." Not only will your day go better, but God will keep you from making mistakes. But until you find Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, there will always be something missing. You can't rely on you, because you will fail you every single time, just about. It's not about me. It's not about my ability. It's not anything about that. It's all about Jesus. It's not about what you have or what you don't have, what you wish you had or what you wish you didn't have. It's all about Jesus.

That no matter where you are in your life right now, if you ask God to forgive you of your sin and you repent of your sin, God will come into your life, forgive you of your sin. You'll receive His life, His blessings, His life eternal, and His life's plan for your life. Not my plan. I don't want my plan. Sometimes we just need to get over ourselves and actually realize that sometimes God actually has a better plan.

God allows things that we don't understand. But I want you to know, if you hold on to Him, He will hold on to you. If you trust in the Lord with all your heart, even when you cannot walk, He'll carry you. When you don't get a miracle, you can still be a miracle. But this is what I've understood in life: some people don't need you to preach a sermon, they need you to live one. And so when they see you living it, they can connect and identify with that.

One of the ways that you can take an ordinary life and make it extraordinary is to learn to do every single thing that you do with and for God. Raise your kids for God. Let your marriage glorify God. Let your attitude glorify God. Let God into everything that you do. God believes in you. He's got hope for you. He's got a future plan for you. And no matter how many times you've messed up, God is willing to give you another chance and another chance and another chance if you'll just be serious about your relationship with Him.

Don't listen to the lies of the devil. Don't listen to the lies of the enemy, as he would try to whisper to you, "God's not for you. God's against you." That's a lie from hell. I got news for you: God is for you. He's not against you. He loves you. He's on your side. Intellectuals are now jabbering that God and Heaven are far removed and far away. God is as close as your next prayer. Ask Him for things that are impossible, because with God, nothing is impossible. Ask Him to defeat the giants in your life, because our God is a giant killer. Ask Him to divide the sea before you and to bury Pharaoh and watch Him turn your enemies into fish food. Ask Him, ask Him to send fire from heaven as He did for Elijah, and He will. Ask Him to walk with you in the fire, in the fiery furnace, and be the fourth man in the fire, and He will. He said, "You will walk through the fire, and the fire will not burn you. You will walk through the water, and the water will not drown you." Ask Him. He's the God who cannot fail. He's waiting to show you great and mighty things. Pray, pray, pray.

God in heaven wants you to have that power. That power is the ability to move mountains out of the way. Too little is spent in prayer, and too much time is spent in talking about the problem. If people would just start to pray and stop talking about the problem, we would see phenomenal things take place. Prayer is the key that unlocks the gates of Heaven and closes the gates of Hell. Prayer has the power to cure sickness and disease. Prayer can shatter the shackles of misery and habit that are tormenting your life, or the life of your son or daughter, or the life of your husband or wife. Prayer does not need proof. Prayer needs practice.

People need to worship more. You need to take more time, not going to God in prayer. Oh God, Lord, we've got this problem, that problem, this problem, that problem. Forget about your problems. Go to God and just begin to worship Him. Begin to exalt Him. Begin to extol Him. Begin to call Him by His names. Talk about His greatness. Talk about how awesome He is. Talk about how mighty He is. All giants seem larger than they really are. You think you'll not be able to get control over whatever that giant is. It seems larger than it really is. It's not larger than our God. It's not larger than your Savior. Remember these five words: "The battle is the Lord's." The battle is the Lord's. There is no giant so great that He is not greater still.

It matters not where the road took you in this year, or how your year turned out. I'm encouraging you tonight by the word of God. The Spirit says, "Call on God." One more time. One more time. We have, if we're here today, if you're here tonight, it is testimony that you have a new opportunity. You've got a fresh start right here, right now. We get to reboot. We get to do it again. We will not cure what happened in the past, for the past is irretrievable. But the future is available.

See, the older I get, the more I realize that you can't take life nor moments for granted. I can deal personally. I can deal with death better than I can deal with regret. Whatever I got to say to you, I'd rather say it. Whatever I want to give you, I want to give it. Whatever I need to express, I want to express it. Because the next second is not promised. All you have is the fierce urgency of now. Right now. This present. You don't have long to get over whatever you're going to get over. Climb over your inhibitions or fear. The clock is ticking while you are thinking about it. You are running out of time. There's a rush to do it. You have. When you woke up this morning, God gave you an opportunity. What could be a better gift than to get an opportunity? And what a tragic waste it is to have an opportunity and not use it, not maximize it, not live it to its fullest, and to assume you have tomorrow. How arrogant of you to assume that you have tomorrow, when in fact, all you have for sure is right now. Right now, get it right. Right now, get it said. Right now, get it done. Right now, open your heart. Right now, write the letter. Right now, express the love. Right now, because if you don't, I can tell you from experience, coffins can't hear you.

You know, there's something really interesting about time. We all get the same amount in a day. Every day is 24 hours. And some people are very, very fruitful and effective, and some people just waste their time day after day after day. And that's a choice that we make. But there's one thing about time: once it goes by, you never get it back. So how tragic it is to waste any day of your life. I think we need to live every day like it was our very last one and live it to the absolute fullest that we can live it. And anything you want good, you can have. So claim it. Work hard to get it. When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up. Each one teach one. Don't just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.

Sometimes I find it difficult to put all my trust in God. Do any of you ever feel that way? I want to trust in God, but sometimes I find it a little bit more difficult to trust in Him. You might be able to relate. You might feel like, "I love God, and I believe in God, but I still feel so uneasy about the future." When you look around, there's a lot to feel uneasy about, isn't there? There's the tension all over our country. I don't know about you, but I want to trust God, but sometimes I just want to say, "God, it's difficult to trust in a God I can't see." There's a lot that I can see, right? I can see whenever my bank account goes down. I can see all the tension every time I read or watch anything in the news. "God, I want to trust in You, but it's hard when I don't really see You."

Or some of you might say, "How can I trust in God when I did trust in God, but He didn't do what I asked Him to do? I prayed, I had faith, I believed, and I trusted Him, and He could have, but He didn't." I really want to trust in God, but sometimes it's just not easy to do. We all go through things in life that don't make sense. A friend walked out of a relationship. The company's downsizing. They don't need us anymore. Business went down. Dreams are put on hold. Sometimes it feels like we're going backwards. It's easy to live frustrated and think, "God, why is this happening?"

But we're not going to understand everything that happens. God's ways are not our ways. He can see things that we can't see. Just because it's not fair doesn't mean that God is not in control. Your steps are being ordered by the Lord. If He allowed it to happen, He's going to bring good out of it. He promises all things work together for your good. On its own, it may not be good. It wasn't fair. You're uncomfortable. But when it all comes together, you're going to see how it works to your advantage. The difficulty, the delay, the betrayal, was all instrumental in you reaching your destiny.

You can choose to trust God right now, or you can choose to trust in the systems of the world. And you got to be very careful here, because if you make a choice to trust the systems of the world, those systems may fail. But when you choose to trust God, He never fails. "Lord, help me to obey even when I don't understand. This doesn't make any sense to me, but because You're asking me to do it, and because of who You are, God, I'm choosing to put my trust in You." And this action leads us to the conclusion that you don't have to understand completely to obey immediately. You don't have to know the end of the story to turn the first page of a story and be obedient to the one who asked you.

The question that never goes away: "Why?" And you can ask it all you want to, but it's the question that rarely gets an answer. Even Jesus said, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" The Bible doesn't say that God said anything back to Him. So the next thing Jesus said was, "Into Your hands I commit My spirit." I love that.

Proverbs 3:5 and 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." The word "acknowledge" comes from the Hebrew word *yadah*, which means to know. And in all your ways, know Him, and He'll make your path straight. In all your ways, you know Him. You know Him on the mountaintops, and you know Him in the valleys. When you know Him in the good times, you learn to trust Him in the bad times.

How do you know God? How do you know Him intimately? How do you know Him? Trust Him. Walk in Him. The only way that you can know Him is to be close to Him. And the way to be close to Him is to cling to Him. Not just to get close in proximity, but to hold on to and to not let go. Here's the key: in order to hold on to God, you have to let go of whatever else you were previously clinging to. In order to trust in Him, you lean not on your own understanding. Can I say for a moment, that's just hard? Tell me not to lean. I'm wired to lean on my own understanding. Some would say it's the strength that I can figure this out.

But when you get to the place where you let go of your own understanding, your own plans, your own desire, your own will, your own strategy, your own place of comfort, and when you cling to One who is a Rock, who will never fail you, you cling to the faithfulness and the goodness of the only One who really is good. Then anything else that brought you the illusion of security fades away in the presence and the strength of the goodness and the great grace and the presence of God. Don't let go. Cling to the promises of God.

"God, I thank You that I can cast my cares upon You because You faithfully care for me. God, I'm clinging to Your truth that You will provide all of my needs according to Your glorious riches in Christ Jesus. God, I thank and praise You that You're working in all things to bring about good, God, to those who love You, who are called according to Your purpose. God, I cling to Your truth that You will never leave me. God, You will never forsake me. God, that when I draw near to You, God, You always draw near to me. God, thank You, You are close to the brokenhearted. God, You save those who are crushed in spirit. God, You are my refuge. You are my strength. You are my help in time of trouble."

In order to cling to the goodness of God, you have to release that which you were clinging to before. Lord, help me to trust You. To cling to You even when I don't understand. God, help me to trust You and obey even the smallest of promptings, even if they don't make sense to me. I don't know the outcome. Got no clue of the outcome. And the good news is, the outcome is God's responsibility. Obedience is yours. Lord, help me to trust You even when I don't understand.

What I promise you is, God will prompt you in some way. He'll invite you to trust Him. And what you'll discover is that big miracles often follow simple acts of obedience. Trust is... think about these words. When I say this, it's reliance on the integrity, the strength, the ability, the surety of God. It's confidence. And here's what I really like to rely upon or to place confidence in, to rely upon. When you rely upon something, you lean on it. Who or who or what are you leaning on in the midst of hard times, in the midst of lack, in the midst of hurt, in the midst of sickness and disease? Who do you lean on the most?

And so, we rely on Him. When you say you trust Him, I trust God. That means I rely on Him. I trust God. That means I have confidence in His certainty. I trust God. I have confidence in His integrity. I have confidence in His strength. I have confidence in His promise. There will be times in life that you don't understand what God is doing. Things don't make sense. Trouble, delays, closed doors, people that betrayed you, prayers that haven't been answered. It doesn't make sense now. But don't worry. One day, you're going to understand. God is going to connect all the dots. He doesn't allow things that He doesn't have a purpose for. That trouble is not a surprise to God. The sickness didn't catch Him off guard. The child getting off course is not going to stop His destiny. God is still on the throne. He's still ordering your steps. You can't see it right now, but behind the scenes, God is lining up things in your favor. When it's the right time, when it all comes together, it's going to work for your good. You're going to see the hand of God. You'll look back and say, "If that hadn't have happened, I wouldn't have this position. If that door hadn't have closed, I wouldn't have met this person. If I hadn't have gone through that difficulty, I wouldn't have stepped into this new level."

Now, you may not feel like God is changing you or doing anything in your life because it happens just little tiny bits. And sometimes, when you've got a mountain of problems, you may go five years and feel like you haven't changed that much at all. But really, you have. It's just the devil wants you to focus on what's still wrong with you, instead of looking at how far you've come. Don't look at how far you have to go. Look at how far you've come. And don't look at what you don't have. Look around you at what you do have.

You see, Christians have a tendency sometimes to lean on their understanding instead of completely leaning on God. And so, you got to decide that when it comes to trusting God, am I going to trust Him all the way, or am I going to trust Him 30% of the time and then trust something else 70% of the time? What are you giving your attention to the most? What you giving your attention to the most? It may be because you trusted the most. And I'm sure it's so tempting to trust other things, other people, other systems. Satan is doing everything he can to try to get you to trust him. Then, more than that, he wants you to not trust God and to not need God. The root to all evil is when you no longer trust God, and when you no longer rely on God, and when you no longer think you need God. And now you think that money and things and people, you think that those things will serve you better than God.

When you trust God, you will decide to keep your attention on that which you trust. I trust God, so I'm going to keep my attention. I'm going to attend to the Word. I trust God. I'm going to give my attention to God. I'm going to fellowship with God. I'm going to practice the presence of God. I trust God. I don't... As I trust God, I'm going to keep my mind. "Whose mind is stayed on Thee, because you trust Him." When you trust God enough to give your attention to Him, He says, "That'll keep you in perfect peace." It'll keep you in perfect peace.

You may not understand what you're going through. You could live worried, discouraged. Try a new approach. "God, I don't understand it, but I trust You. I know You're in control. You're working all things for my good. So I'm not going to live upset. I'm going to stay in peace, knowing that You will get me to where I'm supposed to be."

Have you committed your cares to Him? That's why He said, "Cast all your care on Him, because He cared for you." Have you committed your trouble to Him? Have you committed the persecution to Him? Have you committed the lack to Him? Have you committed the relational discord to Him? Have you committed the hurt and the brokenness and the pain to Him? Because you trust Him, you will commit your ways unto the Lord.

It's very freeing when you can say, "God, I don't understand it, but I trust You. It doesn't seem fair, but I'm not going to live bitter. Had some bad breaks, disappointments, but I'm not going to go around sour. I know You're still in control, and You will work out Your plan for my life."

Worry is a trust issue. You worry because you don't trust that God is in control of your situation. You worry that He will fail you in your time of need. Trust comes when you place your confidence in someone who knows better than you. You trust God because you believe He knows everything about your situation and will somehow make everything work out for your good, even when it doesn't look good at all. Trusting God with your life is the cure for worry.

Listen, nothing should make God's people worry. And yet, we try to overcome it ourselves. Now, the world has no way they can deal with worry. That's why drugs, alcohol, they need something to dull themselves to it. But the child of God has a divine deliverance. It's not something you can do in and of yourself. It requires the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

Jesus says that you and I, as Christians, are different. One of the reasons you do not have to worry is because you have a Heavenly Father. You're not like the rest of the world who doesn't have anyone watching and looking out for their back. As Christians, who have a Heavenly Father, who are children of God, the Bible teaches, have someone, have a Heavenly Father who's caring, who's providing, who's concerned, and is promised to look after their needs.

And sometimes, when things go wrong, you forget the strength and the power of the God that we serve. You think that you have to come up with the answer. You get depressed when you forget the power of God and instead try to handle things on your own. Fight depression by getting in the presence of God. This fight is not about our strength. This fight is about our God's strength. This fight is not about our strength. It's not about me getting strong enough to pull myself up by my bootstraps and power my way through this. This one's not about my strength. This one's about my God's strength.

Ephesians 3:20 says this: "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us." I love that verse because it reminds me God wants to do things in our lives that we can't even imagine possible. And when you're really dealing with anxiety, and when you're really dealing with depression, put your... there are days when if you put me on a polygraph test, I would have to admit, I don't see a better future in store. I can't imagine being set free from this stuff. I can't imagine living a better life. And God says, "I got something in store for you that you can't imagine, and it's not going to be by your power, it's going to be by My power." So son, daughter, let's go. It's not about our strength. Thank God, it's about His.

Realize when we choose not to worry is a step of faith. We simply say, "God, instead of worrying, I'm going to choose to trust You. I don't need to know how it's all going to work out. I don't have to have the blueprints of how You're going to deliver me. I don't have to intellectually or logically reason things out. I don't have to have the specific timetable. I just know that You're a good Father, and I'm in the palm of Your hand, and that You're in control of my life, and You're well able to take care of me." So like a little child, I choose to trust You and not give in to the temptation to worry. Trust God to take care of you.

George Mueller, that great man of faith, said this: "Worry starts where faith ends." Worry and faith don't coexist. Because if you're worried, you're not trusting God. And if you're trusting God, you're not worried. Do you know what the most commanded... most repeated command, I'm sorry, in all of the Bible is? "Do not fear." "Don't be afraid." "Don't worry." "Fear not." Even by saying "do not worry," He is implying, "I got you." By saying "do not worry," He is implying, "I got you." And if He's not, He's not a good God.

What do I mean? If He's saying, "Hey, don't worry," but you know, "I don't really have you covered," He would not be a good Heavenly Father. What kind of God says, "Hey, don't worry," and then says, "But you're on your own"? Does that make any sense? He's clearly saying, "I got you. I'm promising to provide for your needs." He's already proven it. The lengths that He'll go to to provide for your needs, including your ultimate need, includes giving the life of His only Son, dying in your place. That there is no greater amount of love someone could have. There is no even ability for us to comprehend the love that God has for us. The Bible says it's literally something you have to pray, "God, will You help me to comprehend more of it?" Because you're such a God who loves me so much, I cannot on my own comprehend it. That's Ephesians chapter 3.

But if we are honest, most of us often fail to believe that. Struggle to believe that, "Man, God, you really love me more than any human love I've ever seen expressed towards a child." And the God who's there says, "I got you. I promise I will provide for you." As it's been said many times, we do not know what tomorrow holds. As Christians, but we are the only people in the world who know the One who holds tomorrow and every tomorrow after it. And He said, "I got you. You can trust Me. I got you."

Maybe one of the most encouraging truths in all of scripture is that you belong to God. You are His. He will be there for you. He is not ashamed of you. He is proud of you. He loves you and He will embrace you and sustain you. You don't have to be afraid because you belong to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you." You will face trouble. There's no avoiding that. It's going to happen. But listen to me, it is not going to destroy you. You won't drown in the flood because you are going to make it through. You will persevere and you will overcome, not because you are talented or strong or smart or special, but because you are not alone. God is with you.

When the doctor gives you a bad report, God is with you. When your spouse leaves you, God is with you. When you lose your job, God is with you. When your friends turn their backs on you, God is with you. When your bank account is empty, God is with you. When people treat you wrong, God is with you. When your car breaks down, God is with you. When tragedy strikes, God is with you. When the stock market crashes, God is with you. And that's why you don't have to be afraid. No matter what happens, no matter what you face, God promises to be with you.

And then there's more: "When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. The fire may be hot, but you will not be destroyed because I am with you. I will watch over you and protect you and see you through." We can trust God in any circumstance we encounter with the assurance found in these three words: God's got this. We can overcome. We can have victory. We can believe in deliverance. We can believe in healing. We can believe that we can overcome in any situation, as long as we know God's got this.

Is there anything that I ever go through that God don't know about? The answer is a resounding no. Is there any situation I ever find myself in that God's not aware of? The answer is a resounding no. Is there any sickness that God can't heal me of? The answer is a resounding no. Is there any situation that my marriage or my family or my finances can find ourselves in that God can't fix? And the answer is a resounding no. Is anything too hard for God? No.

As believers, as children of God, we know it's going to be okay as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. Now, if you're looking to the world right now for help, you're depressed. And there is nothing too hard for Thee, and there is nothing that's too hard for Thee. Is there anything too hard for me? What's the answer to that question that God's asking us? No. Nothing too hard for Him. Say it again: God's got this.

We all have things that come against us. It's easy to live uptight, wondering how it's going to work out. What if the medical report isn't good? What if my finances don't get better? What if my child doesn't get accepted in that school? We try to figure it out. We've done our best, but we don't see anything changing. If we're not careful, we'll live worried, discouraged, not expecting it to get better. But there's a simple phrase you have to keep down in your spirit: God's got this. He's on the throne. He sees what's happening. He already has the solution. You don't have to figure it out. There may not be a logical answer in the natural. You don't see a way. That's okay. We serve a supernatural God. He has ways to do it we've never thought of. Instead of trying to force it to happen, living uptight, you have to let go and let God.

When you turn it over to Him and say, "God, I know You've got this. I know You're in control," not only will you feel the heaviness, the weight lift off of you, but God will make things happen that you couldn't make happen. You have many problems. You have many challenges. You have many questions. You have many struggles. You need to know that you have a mighty God. Because when you face mighty problems, you need to know that God who will help you face them is up to the task. And He is up to the task right now, my friend. For God so loved the world, He has never messed up. He has never struggled, and He is not messing up now, and He is not struggling now. He will help us. He will help us.

Really, what we need to do during these seasons is focus less on the muscle of mankind and more on the muscle of God. Reach up, and you'll see that our God has got this. In Psalm chapter 46, verse number one, the psalmist David wrote, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." I've told you this before, but it bears repeating: the only time and place in your entire Bible that God promises to be a present help is when we're in trouble. He said, "I'm going to be a very present help. I'm not going to be a casually present help. I'm not going to be a spotty present help. I'm not going to be here and there, here a little, there a little, present help." He said, "I'm going to be a very present help in the time of trouble."

God is not just with you on the mountaintops. He's with you in the valleys. When you're going through things, He knows what you're up against. The scripture says God is concerned about what concerns you. A sparrow doesn't fall to the ground without God knowing about it. How much more is God concerned about what's happening in your life? Trust Him. Live from a place of peace. This is a decision we have to make on a daily basis, 'cause every day there's something to worry about. There's some reason to get upset all through the day. Keep this phrase close to your heart: God's got this. He's concerned about me. He's working in my life. He's bigger than my enemies. He's lining up the right people. He's arranging things in my favor. That attitude of faith is what allows God to do amazing things.

Do you know why and how the shepherd boy David was able to prevail over the warrior giant Goliath? Very simple. David didn't compare himself to the giant. He compared the giant to God. We need to quit comparing ourselves to our troubles. Quit comparing ourselves to our pain and our pressure and the things we think we can't do anything about. They're giants in our lives. And instead of trying to figure out, "What can I do about it? Do I have enough money? Do I have enough clout? Do I have enough friends? Is there any way I can solve this?" And when you look at it through that eye, you're comparing David to...

Goliath, but David was smart enough to say, "You come to me with sword and spear, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts." And the Bible said, David ran right toward him and let the rock go, and the giant came down. He compared the giant to his God. What you're facing may be bigger, stronger, more powerful. But when you refuse to worry, when you refuse to live stressed out, instead you stay in peace, thanking God that He's fighting your battles, knowing that He's in control, you are showing God by your actions that you're trusting Him.

We worry too much. We worry about all sorts of things, don't we? We worry about things we can't even change. We worry until we're a nervous wreck. We worry ourselves into high blood pressure. We worry ourselves into a stroke or a heart attack. We worry ourselves into ulcers. We worry until we become absolutely miserable people, the kind of people nobody wants to be around. We worry when it would be easier to trust God. Is something weighing you down today? Are you worried about a situation, frustrated by what didn't work out, or maybe down on yourself because you're not where you thought you would be? God is saying to you, "I've got this. It's not a surprise to me. I have new beginnings. I have healing. I have breakthroughs. I'm asking you to change your perspective. Switch over into faith." That situation at work that you're worried about? God's got it. I'm asking you to quit worrying about what you're facing. Quit losing sleep over that child that's not doing right. Quit being upset because somebody did you wrong. Your dream hasn't come to pass yet? Can I tell you? God's got this.

I like what Corrie ten Boom, the famous Jewish Holocaust survivor, said. She said, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its troubles; it empties today of its strength." Your worry doesn't change tomorrow. Your worry doesn't change next week. Your worry isn't going to change your situation. Your worry isn't going to help you make more money on the job. It's not going to fix your car. It's not going to fix the house. It's not going to keep it from raining tomorrow. All the time you're worrying about whether or not it'll rain tomorrow, you're missing today's sun. Life is too short for you to live your life every day worrying about something that might happen, worrying about what somebody has said or what somebody has done. Life is too short to spend it worrying. Life is too short for you to allow yourself to constantly be all worked up about something. Life is too short to go around miserable. Life is too short for you to make everybody around you miserable. Life is too short to harbor grudges. Life is too short to hate. Quit worrying about stuff that hasn't happened yet. It's a proven fact that 99% of the things we worry about never happen. Quit worrying about what can go wrong and get excited about what can go right. It doesn't take any more effort to believe something bad's going to happen than it does to believe something good is going to happen. No more effort. And by the way, they're really both faith. You can either have faith that something good's going to happen, or you can have faith something bad's going to happen. Either one is you got faith. I choose to have faith God's going to do something good. I said, I choose to have faith God's going to do something good.

Quit worrying about the future. As children of God, we don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. Quit worrying about the future. Put it in the hands of God. That's where it belongs, anyway. Sometimes we're trying to play God. We're trying to make our boss promote us, make ourselves get well, and make the contract go through. But when you take your hands off and say, "God, I know You've got this. I'm not going to worry about my finances. I'm not going to live uptight because of the medical report. I'm not going to be frustrated because I haven't met the right person. God, I trust Your timing and I trust Your ways. My life is in Your hands." God never promised that we wouldn't have difficulties, but He did promise He would give us strength for every battle. He would take what was meant for harm and use it to our advantage. You may have a good reason to worry about something in your health, your finances, a dream you've done everything you can, it doesn't look like it's going to work out. Stay in faith. God is saying, "I've got this. I'm working behind the scenes. I'm in the process of turning it around. It's just a matter of time before you see things change in your favor." Now live out of a place of peace, a place of trust. It may not happen the way you thought, but God's ways are better than our ways. God knows what's best for you. He's got this. And if you're in the middle of a storm right now, instead of going home tonight and worrying yourself sleepless, go to work tomorrow feeling bad 'cause you worried all night and didn't sleep. You know what you realize in the morning after you've worried all night is that the problem's still there. Worrying didn't fix it. So, I'm worried about my child. I'm worried about our money. I'm worried about jobs. I'm worried about a car. I'm worried about a place to live. I'm worried about my spouse. I'm worried. You can worry, worry, worry, worry, worry, and you're not going to change no kids, no spouse, no family, no bank balance. Because worry, in how you fix the stuff, the way you get a miracle is lay the worry aside and have faith in God. Don't worry. God's got it all in control.

One of the worst feelings in life is to wait. One of the worst feelings in life is to wait, especially when it comes to waiting on God. You know what I'm talking about. Some of you right now, you may feel like you're waiting on God. You've prayed for something and you're wondering, "God, what's taking so long? God, are You even listening? Have You forgotten me? Do, do, do You not even care?" You might be praying for, who knows what. Maybe you're praying that God would, um, heal you from migraines. Perhaps you're asking God to bring a loved one to Christ. You might be praying that God would give you a job with real benefits to help you provide for your family. You might ask God to heal you from, uh, depression, or to save your hurting marriage, or for God to bring you a spouse. And yet, the more you pray, the less you see. You're probably praying on something, having faith for something, believing for something, and yet you've got no word from God. You've got no sign that He heard you, no sign that He's active, no sign that He cares. All you want is some answer, any answer. "Give me a sign, God. Give me a feel. Give me anything." And yet, for some of you, there's nothing at all.

What is God doing while we're waiting? Why does God feel so silent? I want to remind you that just because God feels silent doesn't mean He's absent. God is working while you're waiting, while you're wondering, behind the scenes. The goodness of God, the power of God, the provision of God, the grace of God. He's always working. He's always working. He's working in all things to bring about good. He loves you. He's a good Father. He has good plans for you. He wants to bless you. He wants to prosper you. Just because you don't see it happening doesn't mean He's not doing anything. What is God doing while you're waiting? God is always working, even while we're waiting. We all have things that we're waiting for: a dream to come to pass, a problem to turn around, or to meet the right person. When it's taking longer than we thought, it's easy to get discouraged, to become impatient, and think, "When is it ever going to happen?" But sometimes it's not happening because we're not prepared for what God has prepared. You're ready for what you have in mind, but if you could see what God has in mind, you would realize you couldn't handle it right now. You need more time to grow, to develop, to gain experience. The scripture says, "Let patience have its perfect work." Patience is developed in the wait room. You may not see anything changing, but something is happening. Patience is working. Your spiritual muscles are getting stronger. You're growing, developing. Patience is building you, getting you prepared so you can sustain what God has coming. Don't discount the waiting periods. Don't get discouraged because it's not happening as fast as you would like. The longer it takes, that means the more God has in store. When it's your time, when He knows you're ready, what you give birth to is going to be much bigger than you've imagined. We don't live in a culture today where people are willing to be patient and wait, uh, on God to work in His time frame. God has a reason, and when He doesn't move as quickly as you want Him to move, there's a reason why. God doesn't move as rapidly as you want Him to move. That waiting on the Lord is a good thing, and, and, and keeping that hope, and keeping that expectation, and looking for God to work it, and staying bound and connected to Him. In other words, not backslide, not sliding into your own way, not taking matters into your own hands, 'cause that's what most people do when they're waiting and God doesn't move quick enough. They take matters into their own hands, and that makes your situation even worse than it already was.

Waiting patiently means that I'm, I'm, I'm going to have an attitude of hope and expectation. I'm determined to stay connected to the Lord. I'm not going to backslide. I'm not going to get tired of waiting. I'm not going to cuss God out. I'm not going to walk away. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to get weary. I'm not going to get frustrated. I'm just going to sit right here 'cause I'm expecting God to move. I'm expecting God to do something. I'm not going to quit. I'm expecting Him to work it out. We are like patients in a hospital, calling the doctor for advice on how to treat the patient. What do you do as a patient when you call the doctor? You're not telling the doctor what to do. You're waiting on the doctor to tell you what to do. Most often, when we feel like God is doing nothing, y'all, He is crafting chapter after chapter with the story of your life that He's fully engaged and fully invested in the details of all of our everyday living. He is never not doing nothing. We never grow spiritually when everything in our life is just the way we want it to be. I mean, you can learn something, but you still don't really know it if it's just in your head and hasn't been worked into your life yet. The only way you ever know what you really believe is to have it put to the test. We can sing about trusting God, and we can talk about trusting God, but not one of you really knows whether or not you trust God until something happens that makes absolutely no sense in your life, and you, you, you feel like it's very unjust and not right, and you can't get any answers from God, and you don't feel like He's anywhere in the neighborhood, and you're waiting, and you're waiting, and you're waiting. That's when you find out if you really trust God. He wants us to believe Him, to trust Him, to wait on Him with a good attitude. As long as you're believing, God is working. And I'll tell you what, we need to be saying more of, and I, I've, I've, I've been doing this for a good number of years, and it's really, really helpful when I'm waiting on something and then I start to think about how long it's been, and, you know, my mind starts to go negative. I say out loud, "God is working. God is working." And it helps me because He is. You know, when you get a breakthrough, God didn't start just working on that a second before you got it. God's working in your life right now. He's heard your prayers. He's working in your situation. But especially when you've prayed prayers for other people, you have no control over how long it takes them to listen to God. Faith is for when you don't see anything, when it doesn't feel good, when you have questions that you're not getting answers to. And faith is a matter of the heart. Faith can believe that God is working and that something good is going to happen when everything around them looks the exact opposite. I know it doesn't make any sense, but I believe God. I believe God's working. Something good is going to happen to me. This is going to change. And I don't know how long you will have to wait, but I do know that God will come through. And I do know that you can enjoy your wait if you will just improve your attitude. Now, do your part and wait with a good attitude, not upset, complaining, "When is it ever going to happen?" No, turn it around. "Father, thank You that what You started in my life, You will finish. Thank You that what You promised is on the way." If you will wait with the right attitude, after patience has done its work, you're going to see promises come to pass. But we see waiting as negative. We don't like it. Nothing is happening. We're interested in the destination, but God is interested in the journey. He's working on us along the way. When we understand that waiting doesn't mean nothing is happening, doesn't mean God has forgotten about us, it's all a part of the process, then we can stay in faith, knowing that at the right time, God will get us to where we're supposed to be.

David waited 13 years to take the throne after the prophet Samuel anointed him to be the next king. God could have taken him straight to the throne, but David wasn't ready. He had to go through a time of testing. During those 13 years, he faithfully took care of his father's sheep. Seemed like a menial position. He knew he had bigger things in him. He had heard the prophet say that he was a king. But, but had David not passed the test in the wait room, he would have never made it to the throne. He had to show God he would take care of his father's sheep before God would trust him to take care of His sheep, the people of Israel. While you wait, be your best where you are. That's a very important time. God is watching to see if you're ready. And here's the key: if what you're praying about isn't changing, then God is using that situation to change you. If it's not working out, then it's working out something in you. All things are working for your good. God is working in your life. I'm telling you, if you have prayed a prayer in faith that is according to the will of God, God is working. Sometimes in hindsight, you see more of the why behind the wait. I'm going to talk to somebody here because right now you don't see it, but years from now, you may look back and say, "Oh, wow. Well, I'm glad He didn't, or I'm glad He did." Sometimes in hindsight, you can see the why behind the wait. When we look back, we can see exactly why God waited for the perfect time. His ways are always good. Just because God feels silent doesn't mean He's absent. Whenever you're waiting, remember our God is working. And one reason we get in a hurry is we think we're falling behind. Our friend is getting married. Our coworker got promoted. The neighbors moved into a new house. We got to make things happen. We're being left out. Well, here's the key: what has your name on it will not go to anyone else. What belongs to you will not go to another person. David was out in the shepherd's fields when the prophet Samuel came to his house to anoint one of the sons as the next king. David's father, Jesse, didn't even bring David in. He thought, "There's no way it's David. He's too young." When Samuel went to pour the oil on the other seven sons, the oil wouldn't flow. God was showing us, no matter how hard someone tries to get what's yours, they may manipulate, connive, ignore, leave you out, the oil is not going to flow to them. What has your name on it is coming your way. The person, the job, the house, the opportunity, the promotion cannot go to anyone else. That's why we don't have to live jealous or envious of other people. Well, Joel, my coworker got the promotion that I worked so hard for. They played politics. It wasn't fair. If it was supposed to be yours, you would have it. Stay in the wait room. Keep a good attitude. Keep growing. Keep passing the test. What God has for you is on the way. The reason it's taking longer is because it's much bigger, much more rewarding than you've thought. When you see what God did, you'll say, "It was worth the wait." When you see the person God brings into your life, somebody better than you've dreamed, you'll say, "It was worth the wait." Psalm 37 says, "Don't be impatient for the Lord to act. Travel steady along His path. He will honor you and give you the land." When you're faithful in the wait room, when you don't get impatient, you don't get frustrated by closed doors, you don't live jealous of others, because you're traveling steady, honoring God, He will give you the land. That means you don't have to make things happen in your own strength. You don't have to manipulate people, try to force the doors to open. God will give you the position, give you the spouse. Now, my challenge: don't be impatient for God to act. Don't be discouraged by what's not happening. God is working.

What do you do when life doesn't make sense? Why, why do we trust God when our life falls apart? And what do you do? What in the world do you do when God is doing something in your life that you don't understand? When Jesus got ready to wash Peter's feet as a demonstration of servanthood that we are called to in leadership, Peter said, "No, no, no, no, Lord, You're not going to wash my feet." And Jesus replied to him in John 13:7, "He says, 'You don't understand what I'm doing, but someday you will.'" And that's what happens to us many times. We're in a place in our life, and God is doing stuff that we don't understand. He doesn't need to wait until you have full understanding before He goes ahead with His plan. That's when He says, "Trust Me. Trust Me. Trust Me." I mean, I don't know about you, but if I'm headed east and I'm hitchhiking, and Jesus stops and picks me up and starts taking me west, I don't know where He's taking me, but I trust Him. And when you trust Him, who is the Way, you don't have to understand where you're going.

What do you do when life doesn't make sense? There are going to come times in your life, my friend, when nothing seems to make sense. But here's a verse I thought about as I was studying this passage of scripture. Many people use this verse as their life's verse: Proverbs 3:5 and 6. The Bible says, "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." He shall direct thy paths. Now, notice what it says: "lean not to your own understanding." But listen to what the, the Bible says in Isaiah 55, now verses 8 and 9. God says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are Your ways My ways, say the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." Now, how far is up? You tell me. You can't. How much higher are God's thoughts than your thoughts? You tell me. You cannot. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts above your thoughts. Listen to me. Just because it does not make sense to you does not mean it does not make sense. And just because it does not make sense now, that does not mean it will not make sense later on. Not now, but in the coming years, it may be in the better land we'll understand the meaning of our tears. And there we'll understand. Oh, friend, there's coming a day. There is coming a day when God's going to make everything right. Don't you, don't you lose your faith when it doesn't make sense to you. Just because it doesn't make sense to you does not mean it will not make sense one day. Serve Jesus. Give Him your heart. Give Him your life. And don't ever, ever, ever quit. It's always too soon to quit. Never too late to start. Listen, maybe you're in a situation that, that doesn't make any sense. Maybe you're in a situation where God's spoken to you and He's given you specific things that He wants you to do, and yet you've said, "God, You can't be talking to me. That doesn't make sense." You don't have to understand. You just have to obey. You see, there's a principle here that's very important: a lack of understanding does not excuse a lack of obedience. See, some of you have missed out way too long because you sat back and you've refused to give God control of your life. You're trying to analyze every move that God makes, and you're trying to force it to fit your limited understanding of how life should work. Quit trying to make sense of God. It won't work. Instead, trust Him. Obey Him. And experience the victory you pray and plead for. God, reveal Your plan. God, what do You want to do with me? What do You want to do with my life? But when He opens the door for step one, you're frustrated and don't take it. You're only willing to obey if God reveals the entire plan. You short-circuit the plan of God because you're only willing to obey if it makes sense, if it lasts too long, and if you can see the final outcome.

What do you do when God's instructions don't seem to make sense? How do you handle it when life gives you a left turn that was unexpected? Trust and obey. Just trust and obey. You get to the point where you don't mind so much that you don't know exactly where you're going because you're confident that wherever He leads you is going to be more amazing than anywhere you could have ever gotten by yourself. Isaiah 55:9. God puts it very simply for us. He says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." See, it doesn't have to make sense to you. God's ways are much higher than yours. God's thoughts are so much higher than yours. See, you, you see the moment, but God sees eternity. You see no hope whatsoever, and God sees the victory that is on the horizon. Right now, so what does God say when you say, "God, this doesn't make sense"? God says, "I am God. That God knows best. And I don't." And it's really that simple. But it takes humility to come to terms with that sort of a conclusion. Say, "God, I don't know. I don't know what You're up to, but I submit. You know, You've revealed certain things to me, and what You've revealed, I thank You for. But I don't even begin to believe that I have the whole story, because I don't think I could comprehend the whole story. But what I know, and what I know about Your character, leads me to believe that I can trust You." And I can surrender. The point is, He wants us to trust Him. He wants us to trust in His character. You know, because when you know someone's character, it puts you at ease about the things you don't know about what they may be doing or not doing in your life. You know, if I know somebody really well, and I would trust them with my life, and something happened that kind of seemed a little bit off or a little weird, I would say, "Well, I don't really know what they're up to, but I know them. I know they're trustworthy, and he or she is a godly person." And so, you know, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Well, think how you can do that with God. I mean, we do that with human beings. Think of how you can do that with God. How do I know? Da da da da da. Well, do you know God? You know that? That's the answer to most of the questions that we have. What's going to happen to such and such? Do you know God? Do you know what He's like? Do you know His character? If you know His character, you're going to come back and say, "Well, I don't know what He's going to do in that thing, but I do know this: He's good. He's righteous. He's true. He's faithful. He's just." Like Abraham said to God while He was speaking to Him about Sodom and Gomorrah, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Yes, the Judge of all the earth will do right. And life is not fair. There are a lot of things that happen in the course of life that do not always make sense to us. And how do you reconcile the things that are quote unfair, particularly where it involves God and what He does for one person and what He seems to not do for another person? Things like, you know, you can have two people who are both sick and dying, and you can, you pray for one, and God miraculously heals one, and the other one dies. Or you can have two couples who are infertile, and you pray for one couple, and they get pregnant, and the other couple doesn't. And we begin to evaluate and judge things. That's fair. That's unfair. That's fair. That's unfair. And it is particularly difficult when those unfair things affect us personally.

What do you do when God doesn't do what you want Him to do? We need to understand that God's ways are higher, and some things will simply be a mystery to us and difficult to understand until we are with Jesus. Now, listen to me. That is not a cop-out. That is reality. And we need to recognize that if you always try to explain some of the things that are simply unexplainable, you will be digging a deeper theological pit, and it would be better for you to just simply say, "There are some things I don't get, and I don't understand this side of Heaven." Because the more you try to explain it, the more difficult and agonizing it will be. And there are some things we just need to defer to God and say, "God, I don't get this. I don't understand it." And by the way, He's a big God. And you read the book of Psalms, particularly, there's raw emotion there. It's okay for you to say, "I don't like it. You can even say, 'I'm angry about it.' You're a big God, Lord. I give all this to You, and I'm just going to trust You because I don't understand it." You know, in a similar way, when we put things in perspective, does a bird understand the one who builds a birdhouse for her? Does a bird understand the one who puts seed in the feeder and water in the birdbath? In a similar way, can we always understand the ways of the one who clothes and feeds us? We have a finite understanding of things. We are limited in our capacity to grasp and to understand. In the same way that a bird may not understand what we're doing on behalf of the bird, in the big picture of things, there are many things in this universe we simply will not understand. Only God does. J.B. Phillips once said, "If God were small enough for me to figure out, He wouldn't be big enough for me to worship." There are just some things we have to defer to God. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are Your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways and My, my thoughts higher than yours." Solomon in Ecclesiastes 8:17, he said, "Then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it." Some things, friends, God reserves for His understanding and His alone.

Number two, it's also important when we get into these theological irreconcilable things. Number two is that God's nature is good. He always has our best interest at heart. Psalm 100:5 says, "For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations." Let me tell you why this is so important because the oldest lie in the book is that God is not good. When things challenge us because we don't understand them, and it's easy to begin to, in our minds, think that God is not good because if God were good, He would not have allowed this, or He would have answered that prayer, or whatever the thing might be. And so we tend to instantly go in a dark place and we think, "God's not good." And that's why this is happening. It's the oldest lie in the book. This is exactly what Satan did when he played with Eve's mind in the garden. God is good, despite our circumstances. But sometimes, maybe it's just not the right timing. Or sometimes, maybe it's not His will. But at the end of the day, we have to remember that God will straighten every crooked thing, and He will level every uneven thing, and He will deal with every injustice, and He will punish every evil, and He will, if not in this lifetime, in the one to come, deliver and rescue all His children. He will, because that's our God. See, here's what faith is. Faith is holding on to the promises of God when life falls apart. You know what's the most comforting for me when your prayers don't get answered the way you want is the fact that Jesus didn't get His prayers answered always. That's going to catch some of you off guard, but think about this: when Jesus prayed to the Father in the Garden, He said, "Daddy, if there's any way for this cup to pass for me and any other way that this can happen, nevertheless, not My will, but Your will." And the Bible says He, He prayed not once, not two times, but three times, and the Father said, "No, there's no other way." Listen to me. Being a Christian does not make you immune from pain and suffering. In fact, I would say you're probably more susceptible to pain and suffering as a Christian. But the promise God gives us is this: we have a constant companion that is walking with us and never leaves us. That's the difference between you and an unbeliever. An unbeliever clings to sinking sand. We hold on to the Rock, the Anchor of Christ. That's the difference. When you're dealing with these difficult circumstances of life, and you can't figure out what God's doing, and you don't like what God's doing, in any way, shape, or form, you really have a choice. You can get all upset and all lathered up and worked up and frustrated and angry and bitter, and believe me, a lot of people do. Or you can sit back and say, "Lord, You know, I don't, but You know." And I will wait. Life will be full of unanswered "why" questions, and we can either torment ourselves with with the unanswered "whys" or we can believe that God is fundamentally good and trust Him even when things don't make sense to us. At the end of the day, that's the choice.

Things in life, friends, in case you haven't figured it out by now, won't always have simple explanations. It's okay to say, "I don't like this. I don't understand it, but I trust in the Lord that He is on the throne and that He cares about me." When you come to these places that are not fair, it's a critical time. It's easy to get bitter, give up on life, let that be an excuse to never do anything great. You have to dig down deep, say, "God, this is painful. It doesn't make sense, but I know You're still in control. You wouldn't have allowed it if You didn't have a purpose for it." Part of faith is trusting when life doesn't make sense. We're never going to understand everything that happens. You can't let one betrayal, one divorce, one bad season sour the rest of your life. I know it wasn't fair. I know it was painful. It wasn't your fault, but you can't stop there. You have a responsibility to get back up. Don't give up. Keep fighting the good fight of faith. Keep running the race with perseverance. Things won't make sense this side of Heaven, always, but one day we'll be with Him forever and ever. Amen.

Do you ever get tired of hearing about other people's blessings and victories and miracles? It's not that you don't want them to be healed, have their marriage restored, or have big financial victories. You're happy for them. After all, you prayed for them. But you wonder, "When will it happen for me? I'm trying to stay positive, but I don't know if I can take this any longer. I'm tired of acting happy. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of trusting. When is it my turn?" The longer you wait, the more difficult the trust journey becomes. We're watching God do these amazing things. We're hearing about God doing these amazing things. Part of you is like, "Oh, praise God! God healed somebody's marriage. God brought somebody's kid back to church. Man, God healed somebody from cancer." There's part of us that rejoices in that. But then there's the rest of us, right? We're sitting in line and we're like, "Okay, wait a minute. What makes them so special? What are they doing right? What am I doing wrong? Why are they getting a 'yes' and I'm just sitting here waiting?" I mean, so many of us were crying out to God, "God, I just, I just want You. I just want You to do something for me. I just want to hear from You. I trust God. God, I, I pray for other people who are healed. I'm, I'm ready for it to be my turn." In those moments, you often decide that God's taking too long, and so you take matters into your own hands. "Since trust isn't paying off, I'll figure it out." This is also when many people decide to quit on God and they say things like, "How could a loving God allow this to happen? How could God not help me? If this is what I get for trusting God, I'm out of here." How long do you trust? How long should you trust? How long should you keep trusting when nothing seems to be happening? You're tired of trusting. You're ready for something to happen. You've been walking a long, difficult road of trust, but you haven't had your shouting miracle moment. Keep walking. Keep obeying. Keep trusting. If you quit trusting, if you give up because the walk's too long, then you'll never get to shout.

So, how do I wait for my miracle today? Number one, never forget this: Jesus is worth the wait. He's worth the wait. He's worth the wait. And what takes place is is that we rush God. You have to learn how to trust the process and the timing of God. You don't want to rush the Spirit. I'm telling you, there's nothing worse than getting the right thing at the wrong time. And here's one of the things that you need to know about God: His timing is almost never your timing. God's timing is very different from your timing. And you know why that is? Because we live in an age of immediacy, like we want it now. But let me remind you who you're waiting on and what you're waiting for. So, I want to tell you tonight that having to wait does not mean that God is late. Jesus is right on time. Now, don't get me wrong. He might be late on your priority. Totally. Might be late on your priority. The thing you want, the thing you need, the thing you're asking for, He might show up late on purpose to the party you're trying to throw. But He's not late on His priority. He's not late on what He's trying to do in you. Sometimes we want God to do things for for us. "God, will You do this for me? Will You please show up right on time and do this for me?" And He might say, "Yes," or He might say, "No, I'm not going to show up and do that thing for you, but I am going to do something in you." And I'm always on time for that one. God is forming something in you, and He prioritizes what prioritizes what He's doing in you over what you might want Him to do for you. Tim Keller said it this way, it's very helpful: "God will either give us what we asked for or give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything He knew." Stay focused on Jesus as you wait. Man, it is easy to focus on anything else. "Why did she get married? Why did they get a promotion?" Oh, don't we, we compare, don't we? You know what happens? You start focusing on what God's doing in everybody else's life. You forgot to focus on Jesus and what you want Him to do in your life. That's what we do. Some of you are distracted, and instead of waiting for your miracle, you're complaining that God's blessing other people's lives. What does it say about you? Here's what I think it says: God needs to do a miracle in you before He gives you the miracle you've asked for.

Some of you, man, you are focused on everything but God as you wait for your miracle. And I, I'm not God, but if I was, that'd make me feel used. You're not actually interested in me. You just want what I can give. What does God want to teach you? What is it that you need to learn before you get your miracle? Because here's the thing: I think God knows as soon as you get what you want, you're probably going to leave. But some of us only come to God when we need something. And here's why waiting is so important. I think what waiting teaches us is what we need is Him, not the miracle from Him. You see, some of you, God has something for you to do that's amazing, amazingly productive while you wait for your miracle, but you're so focused on what you didn't get or you haven't gotten that you're F, you're not focused on what He's calling you to do. There is very little that is instant with God. The needs are the same. You want healing. You need a miracle. You want God to reveal His plan and His purpose. The difference is your expectation on how long it should take. Patient person prays, "God, You see my situation, and You know I need Your help. I trust You and I trust Your timing." Trust not only God's plan, but also His timing. Why is it that we, we need to learn to wait? Waiting on the Lord takes, and, and this is the thing that's going to blow your mind, it takes personal courage. Listen to this verse: "Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord." Man, courage is tough. Courage is tough. We don't think about that, but we need to learn. "Okay, Lord, I, I need courage here. Take courage, God. I need courage." So if you're struggling waiting and you don't know what to pray for, instead of the miracle, say, "Lord, give me the courage to wait." As I sit in this, Lord, I'm not brave. I'm not brave. I lack courage, right? So here's the thing. So many of us think that miracle A is what we need, but God wants to work on miracle B that we're completely blind to. And here's the thing: waiting is hard, and so many of us, we are adults physically, but we are children spiritually. So why does God want us to wait? It takes courage. Next, it builds patience. 'Cause man, it's hard, right? It's hard to be patient in our marriage. Any parents with little children? Man, that's hard to be patient. Romans 8:25: "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Oh, God, I don't know. I don't know how this, this child's going to make it. Patience, Lord. I, I don't know. I don't know if I can last in this marriage. Patience, right? We want God to fix it. Christianity is not about being a magician. It's about learning to be transformed, and that takes time. "I waited patiently for the Lord." Listen to this, "and He inclined His ear to me and heard my cry." I want you to know that right now, God is with you. And I know some of us are suffering, and I know it's hard, but we have to sit in that and trust God. And I know some of you are hurting so bad, and you've been hurting for so long, and the pain is overwhelming. Trust God. He's right there. He hasn't left. Isaiah 40:31: "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint." Man, if you want to be great, you got to learn to wait. You got to learn to wait. And so I just want to encourage those of you who are suffering right now, hang in there. Hang in there. Some of you guys, you have God boxed in. "You're going to heal me in this way, and in this time, and in this place." Would you just open your mind up and say, "God, I don't know how You're going to heal me. I don't know how You're going to work a miracle. I don't know what You're going to do." Let me tell you something that's more important than physical healing: spiritual touch from God. What are you waiting for? Some of you think a miracle. What you're waiting for is The Miracle Worker. That's what we're waiting for. And now, oh Lord, what do I wait? Listen to this: "My hope is in You." Man, waiting is hard, but it's so essential. It's so important for our spiritual development that you would not just want a miracle, but that you would want the presence of The Miracle Worker.

You have a choice each day you live regarding the attitude you choose. The longer I live, the more I realize the importance of choosing the right attitude in life. It is more important than your past. More important than your education or your financial situation. It's more important than your circumstances, your successes or your failures. More important than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than your appearance, your giftedness or your skills. It will make or break a company. It will make the difference between a happy home or a miserable home. You have a choice each day you live regarding the attitude you choose. You cannot change the years that have passed. You cannot change the daily tick of the clock. I'm convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I respond to it. The same is true for you. Our attitude is our thought life turned inside out. It's something that's in us, but everybody sees it. It comes out in facial expressions, comes out in body language. It's the posture that we decide to take toward our life. Your attitude is an inward feeling expressed by outward behavior. That's why your attitude shows without you saying a word. What is an attitude? It's the portrait of your mind. It's the advance man of your rear self. Its roots are hidden, but the fruit is always visible. It's our best friend or it's our worst enemy. It draws people to us or repels people from us. It's never content until it's expressed. It will determine your success or your failure. But our attitudes are the most important factor that determine our success and our potential here in this life. President Thomas Jefferson said, "Nothing can stop the man with a right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with a wrong mental attitude." If you've got the right attitude, nothing can stop you. If you got a wrong attitude, nothing can help you. Our attitudes determine our success and happiness more than any other factor in our life. How many of you have seen people with the right attitude do nearly impossible things? How many of you have seen people with the wrong attitude hardly do anything? Your attitude makes all the difference. Every circumstance in your life today, your attitude helps you decide whether it's a blessing or a burden. Whether your challenge is inspiring you to believe God for more, or it overwhelms you and you're frustrated by it.

Your circumstance, your attitude, is what you use to determine whether or not you're going to give God the praise and the thanks that He's worthy of, or you're going to complain to everybody you meet about what you're lacking in your life. Studies show that your attitude can have a greater impact on your success than your IQ. You can be extremely talented, have incredible potential, but if you don't have the right attitude, it will keep you from rising higher.

You can't change other people. You can't change how you were raised. A lot in life we can't control, but one thing we can all control is our attitude. Attitude is more important than aptitude in your success and happiness in life. It's not your aptitude. It's not how smart you are. It's not how talented you are. You give me a less talented person any day with a good attitude rather than a talented person with a bad attitude. I can do more with that person. Your attitude is paramount in your life.

I have a picture in my office at home. It's a picture of a ship on a very troubled sea, and the reason I have that picture there is it reminds me of this saying: A calm sea never produced a good sailor. An easy life never produced a great person. It's not what I'm going through, it's how I'm going through it. You know, I would much prefer to work with somebody who has a good attitude and is not as skilled. I'd much rather work with somebody like that than to work with somebody that's highly skilled but has a stinky, bad attitude. [Music] Amen. Amen.

So, it's really not our aptitude that gets us promoted in life nearly as much as it is our attitude. Your choice of attitude is, without question, the single most important choice you make every day. A.W. Tozer wrote, "Our attitude toward things is likely to be, in the long run, more important than the things themselves." The general public is watching, whether we like it or not, and our attitude is what they remember, and unfortunately, what they never forget, far more than what we may preach or write or sing or say.

And some of you have already begun a habit of negativism toward life, already developed a spirit of entitlement, as if you've got this, uh, earned or you deserve certain treatment. We need to do a real revisiting of our attitudes. Put your foot down and say, "I refuse to go through life with a bad attitude. I am not going to let what happened to me, who did me wrong, what I didn't get, keep me from becoming all I was created to be." God, I know You being for me is more than the world being against me. That's what allows God to show out in your life. But too often, we're holding on to the hurts, disappointments, the things we don't understand. That poisons our attitude, steals our passion. You have to let it go. This is a new day.

You see, the aggressive response when you don't choose a good attitude is to blame or to have self-pity. Both of them are pathetic. What an absolute waste. I made a list: Blame never affirms, it assaults. Blame never restores, it wounds. Blame never solves, it complicates. Blame never unites, it separates. Blame never smiles, it frowns. Blame never forgives, it rejects. Blame never forgets, it remembers. Blame never builds, it destroys. Some of you think you got all these problems, and you're blaming everything on your problems, but it's not your problems. It's your attitude toward your problems that is the problem.

Victor Frankl was in the concentration camps, and he said, "You can take away every right that I have, but there's one thing you cannot take away from me, and that's my attitude. It's mine. And if I want to have a good one, nobody can make me have a bad one." The choice of attitude made all the difference in the life of Victor Frankl. "They will not make me hate; I will live in hope. They will not make me bitter; I will forgive. They will not make me mean-spirited; I will love. They cannot make me anything I do not choose for myself." [Music]

Your attitude is yours, and nobody can force you to have a bad one if you don't want to. Must say that again: Your attitude is yours. It doesn't belong to somebody else, and nobody can make you have a bad attitude if you don't want to have a bad attitude. Nobody. Amen. How many of you actually really believe that? See, maybe we don't think about it like that. We think, "Well, you know, I'm just like this because I've got all these problems." But being like that doesn't solve your problems. It doesn't change your problems. What it does is it makes you miserable, and probably most of the people around you. Nobody enjoys being around somebody for very long that's got a bad attitude.

You have a choice each day you live regarding the attitude you choose. How important it is that we let that attitude stay positive. You can change the way you live by changing the way you think. I hope that sinks in: You can change the way you live by changing the way that you think.

I clipped this. This is something that Charles, uh, Swindall, Chuck Swindall, wrote. It's, it's one of the finest things he wrote, in my estimation. He says this: "The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude."

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our [Music] attitudes. I have one question for you right now: What are you going to do at this moment? What are you going to do with this one life that has been given to you? I do know this: I know that you cannot change the past or the path that got you here. So apparently, the only way to get here today is to have what happened to you happen. And so, since you can't change the past, the reality is, so what do you want your life to look like? Ready for this? From now [Music] on. Because just let this sink in: From now on, here's the truth. That's all you have. What do you want your from now on life to look like? And the only person that gets to determine, like that, from now on life, what that looks like, is you.

What are you going to do with this one life that you've been given? And if your life ended right now, and you look back over the life that you've been given, is that the life you want to look back on and say, "That's my life"? Or do you want something to change? What happens when I decide for myself that I'm going to do something different? I'm going to have setbacks. I know. But if I'm feeling bad, that doesn't mean I'm doing bad. That doesn't mean I am bad. That doesn't mean that I can't still take some action. Because, yeah, nothing changes if nothing changes, man. You know, we'll sit around forever wondering, "Well, what if I? Who would I? You know, would I be able to do it?" You don't know until you say, "Yeah, I'm going to." You know what? I'm going to take action. Nothing changes if nothing changes, man. And I'm not preaching at you. I'm just, uh, I just want to remind you because, you know, I've spent a lot of time in my life sitting around wanting things to change and not being able to make them change, and not thinking I could. And I wish somebody had told me that earlier. Sometimes, that in order for something to change, there needs to be change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Change starts one step at a time. It's time for me to take a step towards freedom. And friends, the enemy of change is tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, I'll get to that tomorrow. Tomorrow's a great day to start dealing with that. Lord, I promise I'll change. I'll call that person. I'll take a step. I'll, whatever. Lord, I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, Lord, I'll get to that. Today is the day. Don't start tomorrow. Start now.

You can't wait for everything to be perfect to start living your life. I want everything to be perfect before something happens. That's how I am. I want everything to be, look, as soon as everything gets all lined up, gets all perfect, then this will happen. As soon as these things line up, I'm going to live my life, man. I'm so guilty of [Music] that, 'cause I've, I've been, that's what I've done my whole life has been like that inside of me. It has been. As soon as it's all lined up, I'm going to show you myself. I can't wait, man. It's not all going to, I'm never going to get to that where everything's okay, where everything looks a certain way. And in the meantime, I'm burning the best time I do have available. I'm burning that candle up. I'm burning this candle down. And I'm saying, "As soon as it gets bright enough or warm enough in here, I'mma show up." But the candle's getting smaller. You can't wait for everything to be perfect to start living your life.

Now, I think what he's getting at here is that there is a temptation for all of us to kind of fixate ourselves on the destination and lose sight of the journey. "If I could just get this project done, if I can just get this area cleaned, if I can just organize this part of my life, then I'll be the kind of person I want to be." There is a temptation for all of us to fixate on the destination and miss out on the journey. It's not the destination, it's the journey. You see, for some of us, we have these massive high goals. We become so fixated on loving the finish line, but not actually enjoying the race and enjoying the process that it takes for us to get there. Because change will come over time, and they won't happen until you and I actually engage the hard things that we need to do. So for some of us today, be thinking about, man, what's, what's the hard thing? What's the hard thing that you're actually avoiding? You should probably start in small ways doing that first. That can become the first shift that you do.

Some of us have big goals, big desires, big changes we want to make. Start with something small. Consider what is the next step. Because honestly, the first step is always the hardest step. So take the first step in a small but real kind of way. Don't be afraid to be a beginner. That's the number one reason I think so many people never change. But let me just say this: We are not saved because of what we know. We are saved because of who we know. We're terrible at resolutions because we want to make massive leaps toward change instead of small, consistent steps. But then what happens is, the amount of change I commit to is so overwhelming that I just quit. Well, if you've been there, you know that's where you get like, really, really stuck. And if you're not careful, that feeling, that like you're just not the kind of person you thought you'd be by now, it can become so defeating that you start to think about quitting.

Jesus never expected. Go read the book. He never commanded that you need to change overnight. He commanded that you go on a journey with Him. Like, Jesus knows that your journey will take time, and He knows that you'll walk a lot of rough roads. All that He's asking is that when you fall down, will you let Him pick you back up? And then He's asking that you put one foot in front of the other. Just keep walking with Him. Small step after small step.

Here's a metaphor for for what I'm talking about. It's kind of like when I taught my kids to ride their bikes, okay? It's like, I never got furious when they fell over. Never, right? 'Cause I know they're learning, right? And I know it's not intuitive yet, and I know they're going to be awkward at first, and for a long while. And so I don't get mad when they fall over. I'm just proud that they're out there and giving it a go. And, and in fact, I, I definitely feel pride, like those moments where you let go of the back of the seat and they actually ride for a few feet. But I think I feel more proud whenever they bit it and they really bang up their knee, but then they brush themselves off and they get back on the bike. All right? And so why do we think that our perfect Father God would ever look at you and go, "You know what? If you really were a good son of mine, or if you really were a good daughter of mine, you would be cleaned up by now." It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but a lot of us are living our spiritual lives that way, with this like needless weight of guilt and shame on our shoulders, constantly disappointed in ourselves because we've convinced ourselves that we're constantly disappointing Jesus. But it's just not true.

You do not clean yourself up to come to Jesus. You come as you are. Let me ask you a question: You have to get cleaned up to go take a shower? No. You get in a shower, and that cleans you up. Same with Jesus. You don't try to clean up your life and be a better person in order that you can be be with Jesus. You just be with Jesus. You follow Jesus. How about this: If anything needs to get cleaned up in your life, the two of you will work that out, and He will point that out to you, and you will actually agree with Him, and then you'll clean it up together. How about that? He came to us as we are, and He still does that today.

Where do you think that Jesus expected you to be today on your journey? Like, where do you think that Jesus looked at you and, like, "I expected you to be here by this day"? The answer is, He expected you to be exactly where you're at today. He's got all of time laid out in front of Him. You've never caught Him off guard. He's not confused. He's not disappointed. Jesus knew how long your journey would take, and He knew what pace you would set, and He chose to love and die for you and go on a long walk with you so you can have the freedom to accept that life is just a journey. All right? Small, consistent steps, not massive leaps toward change. You're free to acknowledge that a life of faith takes time. So give yourself grace and be patient and stay consistent. You know what it takes to be a follower of Jesus? One step.

All right, my life needs to change. But please hear this: Spiritual formation and changing any part of your life of importance, it's really slow. We say this all the time: Growth takes time. There is no fast track. There's no microwave version of of of of being a follower of Jesus. There's not a fast track to having the mind of Christ. It's going to take some time. Let me just throw this in: So give yourself a break. The only person that's put pressure on you is you. Jesus is so patient. And just ask yourself, "What kind of person do I want to become? Do I want to become a more prayerful person? Do I want to become a more kind person? Do I want to become just a little less anxious in a very anxious world?" Yes. So what are the small things I can do that will help cultivate that end result?

But for some of us, the temptation is pulling at us right now that, man, this will just cost me too much to change and to start these practices. And that's very true. But I want you to think about this: What will it cost you to not change? Yes, it costs us a lot to change. Jesus said, "Take up your cross and follow Him." But how much more will it cost us if we don't change? If we don't do the work to actually change? I want you to ask yourself: Will I change, or will I die? Some people would rather die than change. Change is painful. But what is more painful than growth and change? And and change is staying in a place where you don't belong.

I love what, uh, the words of Socrates. He said that "the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new." There are some people when they need to change, they keep bringing up your your history. It's not about your history and what you did back there. It's about building the new. We've all made mistakes. God doesn't want to dwell on your mistakes and your failure. That's not what God is into, to try to make you feel guilty and unworthy and trashy and all of that. God's energy is not spent on your past. God says, "I have a future for you. I'm building something ahead of you that is going to be greater than what you are."

A woman by the name of Jos Murray, she says, "It is not triumph which defines a man, but tragedy. Not triumph, not not when you're on top of the mountain, but it's how you handle your valleys." She says, "Triumph always brings out the best in men, but tragedy shows men what they're made of." And so sometimes when you go through difficulty and through hard times, it begins to show you what you are made of. God is saying, you know, I've got something so much greater for you in the future. May, may I say this to you? God is not, He is concerned with who you are becoming, not who you have been. Why would God waste His time on who you have been? What all you have done wrong in the past? God is concerned with who you are becoming, not who you have been. God sees the best in you. He sees your future. He sees a successful person that, that, that has triumphed over something, not locking you in the identity of your past.

All we have is from this point on. What's the point of rethinking your past unless you want to learn from it? But there's no need to really rehash it. Okay? So all we have is from this point on. And the choice and the decision is, what am I going to do now? What do you want your from now on life to look like?

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