Stronger than Your Storm - From Overwhelmed to Overcoming

So let me take you back to uh January 1st, 2020.

You remember?

Happy New Year!

Whatever happened to that?

So all the great expectations for 2020, uh no, didn't didn't happen.

In fact, I heard this uh not long ago.

I was just sharing with Brad this Chinese saying It says, may you have interesting times.

Your prophecy and your wish is granted, sir.

We do indeed.

It's been It's on quite a ride.

Now, I think the person who expressed it probably a little better was that lady we called uh about our buses for the summer, and she said, this has just caused us so much trouble.

She said, I just wish it would all go away.

Well, it hasn't, and we're not sure when it will.

But boy, we've been through some stuff like quarantine.

Now I um I don't know if you realize this.

We've talked about COVID-19 a lot.

Did you know about COVID-15?

Yeah, people are a lot of them talking about COVID-15, the 15 pounds they've gained.

Now, the word quarantine actually from the original Greek is quaratineol.

And you know what it means?

means eat That's what it means.

What else has there been to do?

But my daughter has lost a hundred pounds along the way in our middle of all this.

She didn't get the COVID fifteen.

She lost the COVID hundred.

Unbelievable.

Um my problem is that I I have the belief that w when weight is lost that it goes somewhere else and I'm just a little concerned if it stayed in the family with you know, never mind.

So but you know what?

This has been A time what made us all want to think about just getting back to normal.

Can we get back to normal?

I am not sure that's what God's interested in Because would God have so emphatically and so dramatically and for so long shaken up our world so much on every level If he was totally happy with what our normal was, I think God uses what I call life quakes like this, the corona quake in this case.

To get us to ask questions we normally wouldn't ask, consider things we otherwise would never consider.

He's got something going on here.

And now the sad part about it is That there has been an awful lot of loss, as you know.

We've lost connection with other people We've lost some people have lost loved ones, lost everything from a vocation to a vacation.

They've lost their plans.

And there's a lot of grieving.

It's left us numb, in some cases lethargic, discouraged, anxious, fearful, angry.

It's a tough time.

It really is a challenging time.

And we want to look at what can get us through the times of loss.

Because listen.

Life has got losses all the way through it.

Medical losses.

When the doctor gives you bad news, parental losses, if your kids are wandering.

Marital losses, lost dreams.

There's so many kinds of lost jobs.

Lost businesses.

Yeah, there's a lot of loss.

That's why we need what we're going to be talking about these three nights.

We need these four mighty anchors. that anchor us during seasons of loss that are bigger than whatever has come our way, whatever the battle is, whatever the loss is, whatever the grief is.

They are bigger and stronger.

Um With this life quake, I've found, and with any life quake, and I have to say this would certainly have been true with the greatest loss of my life.

Some four years ago.

You know that the love of my life was gone in one day And I want to tell you that through that and through this, the verse in Proverbs 19. 21 has given me a lens to look.

At an upside-down time like this, and maybe to help you, it simply says this.

Many are the plans in a person's heart.

But the Lord's purpose is what prevails.

How are your plans working out that you had back a few months ago Look at ours.

I mean, we know as a ministry, as individuals.

But God's purpose has not changed, and his purpose is prevailing.

Maybe he didn't need our plans to carry out his purposes.

So the question becomes, am I willing to release my plans and seek his purpose In fact, if you've got your notebook there, it says there that peace begins.

Peace begins when we release our plans and we embrace his purposes.

After Karen was gone , she was part of all my plans.

And I didn't know what God's purposes were.

But the day I wrote in that journal Lord help me not waste this grief.

I was a man seeking his purposes, even though a life that had her and all my plans was over But his purposes were not.

And when I embraced his purposes before I knew them, the turmoil inside turned to peace.

So let's take a look at these um these mighty anchors.

And in order to help us do that, we're going to go to two biblical heroes.

Jeremiah and Hezekiah, that I-A-H at the end of their name actually is an abbreviation for Yahweh, Jehovah.

So the Lord's name is part of their names.

I don't know what else they have in common.

One was a prophet and one was a king, and they handled their period of loss and challenge and their battle in two very different ways.

And we've got a lot to learn.

I, these guys, and studying them has so been timely for me in the midst of all of the change and upheaval that's going on.

So uh let's start with Jeremiah.

Uh you'll know Jeremiah probably from his book that bears his name.

It's a long book And 30 times in that book, 30 more, more than 30 times, it says, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

He was the messenger of things that came right from heaven.

But then if you keep going past the book of Jeremiah, you're going to be in a book that I bet you haven't spent a lot of time in.

I haven't You know, what would I see?

What do I need for today?

I think I need some lamentations.

Who who wants lamentations?

But man, it's as inspired as anything else.

But nowhere in there does it say the message of the Lord, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

No, this is very different.

In spite of his preaching, in spite of his warnings about the judgment of God, God's people have refused to repent.

They've gotten worse and worse.

And Jeremiah has ended up now literally walking through the devastation.

Even the very temple of Almighty God is a pile of rubble.

And the best of the Israelites have been carted away to Babylon.

And there's very few people left And he walks amidst all of this devastation.

And this is a broken messenger of God, a broken man of God. who is surrounded by unimaginable devastation.

And so he doesn't recognize his city.

He doesn't recognize his nation.

He's living in a world that has been absolutely not only turned upside down, but left in rubble.

More extreme even than our situation, but a lot that got my attention and I said, I need to see this book And now we get to his low point.

And let me read to you, and you'll be able to see with me as we go to Lamentations chapter 3 and verses 18 through 20.

And before we do, I want to pray.

Let's pray.

Lord, this is heavy stuff, but you know the upheaval in our lives.

All of us have suffered some kind of loss.

All of us have battles and struggles.

And we cannot judge Jeremiah for we've hit our low points too at times.

We pray, Lord, that you would show us the hope that he found and the hope that Hezekiah displayed.

We need you to reach into the hearts of those who've cared enough to join us tonight and for this retreat.

And may indeed this be a night of restoration and hallelujahs And God's got this, and I'm okay.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So uh Lamentations chapter 3, and um uh here's what it says.

So I say My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.

I remember my affliction, the word affliction in the Hebrew.

Are you going to believe anything since I told you what quarantine meant?

Which was I made up.

I'm not making this up.

The word affliction?

The word affliction means uh depression.

And misery.

I remember my depression.

This is God's prophet, God's man.

And my wandering.

I mean straying.

He said, I've I've left the path.

The bitterness in the gall, the word gall there is uh in the indicates in the Hebrew venom.

I mean, this is there's this is a bitter time.

And then he says, I well remember them.

And my soul is downcast within me.

The Hebrew word means sinking.

I'm drowning, man.

Overwhelmed.

Our theme is over from overwhelmed to overcoming.

He is overwhelmed.

I've felt that way sometimes in the past few months.

Haven't you?

And you will again, because life has loss.

But these anchors, well, we'll get to the anchor.

We'll get there.

That's the happy part.

I asked some of our friends.

When one of their darkest times as a Christian was, here's what some of them told us.

When um I feel my kids are um not in um a secure place, let's say.

I was I was depressed.

I would tell Keith, I just feel like there's a weight pressing down on top of me and I can't get out from under it.

I kept thinking to myself, like, yeah, you know, I I forgive my dad.

You know, I I forgive him for everything that he did.

I know that I knew that I didn't.

I stuffed that pain and I stuffed that anger and that bitterness that I had inside my heart I was really just frustrated with myself because I kept thinking that I failed.

I kept thinking to myself that I I'm not good enough for this Christian life.

This firm I was with twenty seven years, sixteen years as a partner, we got the word that um the firm was gonna go out of business.

So much of my life was tied up in in my work.

And I you know I was there ten years before I even met Lisa.

And all of a sudden I find out that in in a matter of a couple weeks, well the the firm's gonna shut down and and then what?

When I was really kind of brokenhearted, uh when I was learning about the pain that my daughter had experienced as a result of abuse.

Nobody mentioned a pandemic because these are the kinds of things that we all face in our life.

If we're not anchored, if we don't know where the anchors are, we're going to hear from them in a few minutes about how they started to come out of the dark place.

But Jeremiah is an example that we feed what we focus on.

When we are consumed with something and thinking about it all the time, We are feeding it all the time, and it's getting stronger and taking us over more and more.

He was focusing on all he had lost.

He's looking around and he is dwelling on the losses.

That's how he went, how he ended up drowning emotionally and spiritually.

He said, I strayed He has been defined by the devastation.

Boy, we gotta watch ourselves because we've gone through a test and we're gonna have more tests.

And sometimes haven't we been?

Emotionally, by our choices, by our fear, they indicate that we've been defined sometimes by devastation in our lives.

And some of the kinds that were mentioned here, loss of a job and concern over our daughter, concern over our kids.

So I have to say we've been consumed a lot.

We've been consumed by COVID.

I at Pois have this time have been.

We've been consumed by cable TV.

We've been consumed by candidates, by conflict , by chaos.

And that stuff you keep feeding it and you can tell you have.

You know how you can tell?

Because words that would describe you are anxiety.

Chaos, anger, sadness, grieving.

See the man of God Or the this man of God or woman of God has gone on what I call a dark side detour.

Even Jeremiah was susceptible to going on a detour to the emotional and spiritual dark side.

And believe me, it is not the devastation that sinks you.

It's the detour that you take because of the devastation.

Or in the words of the great philosopher Winnie the Pooh, he says, I always get to where I'm going.

By walking away from where I've been.

Maybe we've been on the detour It's time to get back to where we need to be by walking away from that.

I thought this was an interesting observation that I read in the middle of all of this turmoil.

From Oswald Chambers in my utmost for his highest, it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal who we are relying upon.

Wow.

That's the truth.

So you can't control your circumstances.

Any illusion of control we ever had, the pandemic's pretty much taking care of that.

But you can control what you dwell on.

And the Bible makes it very clear what our dwell-on agenda should be.

Philippians chapter 4 verse 8.

Brothers and sisters, whatever is true.

Has this been our focus?

In the midst of all of this swirling information that we've been consuming so much?

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure.

Lovely, admirable.

If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about those things.

That's if you're feeding that part of you, then you're experiencing God's peace instead of panic Now, your mercies are new every morning.

And right before that, he has said in verse 21, Yet this I call to mind.

And that call to mind in the Hebrew means come back to.

In other words, I walked right past this.

I walked past this truth.

I had to make a U-turn and come back to something I knew so well, but I was neglected and was not basing everything on.

And therefore I have hope.

There's the word.

Hallelujah.

The word hope has appeared in the midst of all this devastation.

And here are verses you have heard maybe your whole life.

And uh the subject of a hymn you've sung a thousand times, maybe.

I have.

But remember, this is said This is discovered surrounded by a devastated world and a devastated life.

And in the middle of all that I call this to my I turn back.

I'm making you turn back to this.

Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed Here's the problem.

Great loss can make you forget or neglect the great love.

And even Jeremiah had forgotten how loved by God he was.

He should have been consumed by the loss instead of consumed by the love.

And he makes the U-turn back to God's great love.

And then he goes on to say, his compassions never fail, or his mercies.

And then verse 23, they are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

That's the context for him to say that.

Certainly nothing around him would make him feel that way.

But he is returned to the truth of God's word, and you never will say, you never have to say, I'm at the mercy of There is no disease you're at the mercy of.

There is no economic downturn you're at the mercy of.

There is no loss that you're at the mercy of.

There's no election that you are at the mercy of.

You are never at the mercy.

You have new mercies from God.

And that word every morning is daybreak, sunrise.

At the beginning, before I even have my day Once again, there are new mercies.

It's like, you know, we were driving through driving through Branson uh years ago, before we lived down here, and and uh I had one of my sons with me and they said, Stop!

Stop!

The light is on.

I thought my whole engine was overheating.

I said, oh great engine trouble.

No, the hot light was on, a crispy cream That means you can go in and get fresh donuts, not day old.

Well God's always got his hotlight on every morning.

There's always fresh manna like like in the old testament when they went out every morning to pick up their manna.

Now, you've uh got your little um gift bag here, and uh in here are some things that are just going to reinforce some of our messages and help us remember them.

And um Tonight, here's our little gift for tonight, is this wonderful, his mercies are new every morning, and you should put that somewhere where you'll be reminded of that at the beginning of each new day At daybreak, as the day is dawning, um I was uh uh on a radio interview with um uh uh uh lady in the uh Florida and she um and and I'd said something along the way, I forget what we were talking about, but I said, God will always provide, all we need to do is get our manna basket and go out and get it And she started laughing and almost giggling, and I said, what are you laughing about?

And she said, I'm on the air now.

This is a live interview.

And she said, Ron, you know I'm single.

And she said, I thought you said get your man a basket, and you'll be able to get what you need.

No, I wasn't saying get your man a basket.

Get your man a basket out.

And you know, Exodus 16 tells us that they had to go out every day and pick up the new supply of God's mercies.

Well, God's love, God's mercies, God's word for that day, that day is there at daybreak if you show up to pick it up.

We ask our friends, when did they start to come out of that dark time they were in?

Here's what they said.

I was involved with um s a couple Bible studies, and those Bible studies were just key in keeping me focused on on what God had to say.

The moment of release, which this took uh maybe two or three years, I pictured Jesus standing in front of me with a huge bag of his power and I said I will get up out of this chair and I will go do the things that I'm supposed to do today.

And as I stood up out of that chair, the weight lifted and I have not had that weight back since then.

God really just broke my heart How can I ask God for forgiveness when I can't even forgive my own dad?

It wasn't until after I realized that that I could finally forgive my dad And not just say it but to actually mean it.

I came out of the dark place knowing that God's in control and I can trust him and I know that whatever outcome is there God will get me through it.

I remember pulling over halfway through at a rest stop and I just prayed and I said, Lord, I could be frustrated, angry, uh lost, whatever it would be, but I but I really want to turn this over to you and just use it for a time to just trust you.

And it was like a a weight lifted because my feeling was no matter how it turned out and I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

I could trust the Lord, and if nothing else, it's going to help me grow in my faith.

It's going to help me grow in my relationship to Him.

Got to the point where I realized that I couldn't fix it.

And that God was faithful and he's the only one that is trustworthy and I just had to rely on him and once I came to that point um that was a a major turning point.

Boy, you hear some themes there?

Releasing it?

Making the U-turn back to God's faithfulness?

Here's great love.

And you can be trusted with this.

God's got this.

So I would say to any of us who are Jeremiah, and we all are at times, the conditions of your life may have changed But the character of your God has not.

And that's what determines your outcomes.

Is the character of your God.

So how do we end up in the valley?

When we're defined more by our loss than by our Lord.

Maybe it's time to make that U-turn back home to the great love, the great faithfulness of your God.

See, the light was always on.

Jeremiah just walked by it.

And that light will always be on So here's the anchor.

And this is not in your notes, but let me kind of define in a few words how this anchor works.

It is a daily Life-renewing visit with God.

It is a daily life-renewing visit with God that refocuses your mind on His greatness. and downloads his mercies that are for that day.

Not yesterday's mercies, today's mercies.

Now let's look at Hezekiah, because he shows us the journey to victory, not to the valley.

Hezekiah, of course, is one of the great kings of Judah, one of the greatest.

And the story we're about to look at actually is contained three times.

It's repeated three times in the Bible.

Now, how many stories do you know like that Once in 2 Kings 18 and 19, once in 2 Chronicles 32, and once in Isaiah 37, where I'm going to really be going right now.

And just Let's take a look at what was going on because he in chapter in 2 Chronicles 32 and verse 1, he has just led a tremendous recovery of the temple. a recovery of the of the worship of God, the tearing down of the idols.

There is a great, great spiritual revival.

I mean, it's an awesome thing.

Right in the chapter before, after all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came in and invaded Judah.

Oh, hello.

He laid siege to the fortified cities, thinking to conquer them for himself.

Sennacherib was leading a juggernaut across the Middle East, and every city he went against, every kingdom he went against fell.

Every king that defied him he conquered.

And next on the list is Judah, Jerusalem, and Hezekiah.

Hezekiah is facing an overwhelming challenge.

Much like our embattled times that we go through and have been through, suddenly, you never know what's going to happen.

God intervenes and everything changes Chapter 37, Isaiah 37, and verse 34.

Oh, I love this.

Verse 34 says this, by the way that Sennacherib came, he will return.

He will not enter this city. declares the Lord.

Standing between you and your enemy is Almighty God who says, this far and no farther, you cannot do any more.

He knows where the breaking point is.

He said, he thinks he's going to take this city.

I will decide the outcome of this battle Not Senakrim, not the odds.

Isn't it good to know that your Savior will decide the outcome of your battle?

Whew.

Well, here's the key.

The deciding players aren't on the field yet.

Yeah, yeah.

Chapter 37 and verses 36 through 38.

Look at this.

It looks like all the players are out there, and Sennachib's army is obviously going to be doing.

Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000. in the Assyrian camp when the people got up the next morning.

They're ready to look out at an attacking, besieging army, and instead they look at all the dead bodies.

Sennacher, king of Assyria, broke camp and withdrew, and when he got back, his own son assassinated him.

Yeah.

The intervention of Almighty God.

What's the story here?

Here's the turning point.

Six words.

And I hope you go away with these six words tonight.

Chapter 37, verse 21.

God says, this is what decided the outcome.

Isaiah sent this message.

This is what the Lord the God of Israel says, because you have prayed to me.

You mean a prayer was the turning point?

Oh yeah, and it often is.

See, our intercession triggers God 's intervention.

And suddenly God dispatches his angel army who change everything I want to find out whatever what did this guy pray?

Because God was pretty impressed with his prayer.

And it shows you how to pray big when the battle is big.

We were on a little um Native American village in New Mexico years ago with our on Eagles Wings team, and uh we had been uh we'd had rain come in. our second night there.

We usually are there for three nights and and uh we were not able to do what we were there to do came our third night which was our night to invite them to Christ publicly and and as we were going through the evening a massive storm was moving in.

I mean it was it was virtually surrounding us.

And I got six of our warriors and I said, would you guys stand right here A little off to the side, and would you look at that storm and pray against the storm to the God of the storm?

For the Lord of the storm and the Lord of the harvest are the same Lord.

A few minutes later they came running up to me and they said, Ron, you're not gonna believe it.

Look, the storm divided.

It went all around us, but it didn't come here.

Their intercession.

Stark God's intervention.

And whatever storm is headed your way.

Whatever storm the enemy be may be trying to bring you down with You stand against it in prayer as he did now, as this king did, but how does he pray?

Here we go.

Here's how to pray big when the battle is big.

Now, if you take a look at the beginning of that prayer in Isaiah 37, listen how it starts.

He prayed to the Lord, Lord Almighty, the God of Israel.

And thrown between the cherubim.

You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth You have made heaven and earth.

And then he says, Give ear, Lord, and hear, and open your eyes.

Notice what he does.

First, he takes it straight to the throne room of God.

Prayer is not his last resort.

It is his first resort.

The throne room of Almighty God needs to be my first stop When there is a great loss, a great battle, a great challenge, a great threat.

Take it straight.

It says he went right to the temple of God to bring it to God.

I love that.

Look what he says in Lamentations chapter 5, after his turning point.

You, Lord, reign forever.

It's not Sennacherib who's in charge here.

Your throne endures from generation to generation.

Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return.

Remember he said he had to turn back?

Renew our days as of old Take it straight to the throne room.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit.

Oh, what needless pain we bear.

Oh, because we do not carry everything.

To guide in prayer.

The throne room of God is hope's first stop.

That's where it'll be decided.

And then open up.

When you do get into the throne of God, you open it up.

That's what, to me, spreading that letter out before the Lord is saying, Lord, this whole thing is yours.

It's out of my hands.

I've laid it here in front of you.

In Psalm 142, verses 1 and 2, David uh prays this way.

I cry aloud to the Lord.

I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.

I pour Out, I empty out my heart.

I pour out before him my complaint.

Before him I tell my trouble.

Take it straight to the throne room.

Open it up and thirdly, let it go.

To me, that spreading it out like that is hands off.

You know what?

I've been holding this letter of surrender in my hands.

It's all yours.

When you pray, don't just report it to God.

Release it.

Did you go in and just talk to him about it and announce it to him?

He already knew about it Have I let it go?

Have I walked out of the throne room with it being in his hands?

Paul Miller says in his book on prayer, the point of prayer is shifting control to God.

I wonder if that's been the point of all these past months to shift and control to God.

And then celebrate your big God.

I love what he says here.

He starts out with praise.

He doesn't start out with his problem.

I go running into the throne room and I start right a God.

No, ho, whoa.

Think about who you're talking to first He says three things about God.

He rules it all.

He made it all.

And you know where it says the Lord Almighty?

You know what that means in Hebrew?

The God of angel armies.

He's got forces that can turn the tide of any battle.

So he says, God, you rule it all, you made it all before I ever get to my problem.

And you have the winning team.

So launch your prayer from praise It's a discipline to enter the throne room and enter his courts with thanksgiving I like what Charles Spurgeon said, not to me personally, however.

He said, let us sing hallelujah by anticipation.

That's good stuff.

And then face it honestly.

Did you notice when we were from what we read That he's he goes over the threat from Sennacher.

He said, this is a serious challenge.

I like this.

Faith is not denying your problem.

It's facing into it.

Yeah, this is realistic praying.

Those who think prayer is escaping, not at all.

Faith is is dependency, not denial.

But it faces the problem squarely and honestly and says, God, you know the seriousness of it.

And he he spells out his concern I think that's when you need to be journaling.

So you've got a record of your transactions with God during this time.

Then pray specifically.

He knows exactly what he wants.

He says in verse 20.

Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, you are the only God.

Here's the last two things about praying a big prayer for a big battle is to be specific in your request.

And secondly, to go for the outcome that matters most.

And did you know what that was?

He said So that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God.

Not just so we can be delivered.

Not just so we don't have our city conquered Lord, would you do this so everybody knows you're God?

The ultimate agenda of Hezekiah's prayer of any great prayer is that God will do what will bring him the greatest glory.

My solution becomes ultimately that which lifts up my God to other people.

So your problem that you're having right now becomes God's platform.

To show his greatness.

So I love the prayer of Moses.

It's one of the great ones in the Bible.

Lord, show me your glory In the midst of this, show me your glory.

So victory?

Victory is the result of being defined by and consumed by, not your loss. but by your Lord.

Jeremiah, consumed by his loss, sinks.

Hezekiah, consumed by the size of his Lord. is victorious.

We're talking here about anchoring your life to daily manna gatherings Every morning.

Because I'll tell you something.

In times like these, sometimes this is the only thing telling you the truth Not the news, not your friends, not your feelings, not your situation.

This is the thing that will always tell you the truth.

We've had so much stripped away from us in recent days.

And there's a bad guy who asked a good question in the midst of this story.

Because the man who is taunting, Hezekiah, says this question tauntingly, on whom are you depending?

Although that's a bad guide, that's a good question.

And I'll leave you with that.

On whom are you depending?

Times like these leave that exposed.

And God wants to bring you back to the light that is always on.

His faithfulness, his mercies for that morning, you go pick them up.

And you will, as it says in Exodus, when they went out and saw the man, it says they saw the glory of the Lord in the desert.

George Mueller was the great man of faith, was uh on a voyage to speaking engagement in Canada.

The problem was that the ship was in such an obstinate and and and uh incredibly dense fog that the captain had been on the uh on the bridge for twenty-four hours straight Trying to make sure they made it.

George Mueller came to the captain and he said, um, Sir, uh, I have to be in my engagement in Quebec at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

He said, in 57 years I've never missed one of my commitments, and I don't think I should miss this one.

And the captain said, Sir, have you looked at the density of this fog?

And George Mueller said, No.

No, he said, my eyes are not on the density of the fog.

My eyes are on the living God.

Who has controlled every circumstance of my life?

Let's go down below and pray together.

Well the the captain went with him and uh and he said when he told this story the captain of the ship he said George Mueller prayed a very simple prayer and the captain offered to pray and the and Mueller said no don't pray Why?

Well, number one, you don't believe he's going to answer that.

And number two, I think if you'll open the door, the fog is already lifted.

As we prayed, as I prayed.

They opened the door and indeed the fog was lifting.

And at four o'clock the next afternoon, George Mueller was at his engagement in Quebec.

Remember what he said.

Have your eyes been on the density of the fog?

It's Dan's fog.

Are your eyes on the living God, who controls every circumstance of your life for his glory It's got to rise back there.

And we will go from overwhelmed to overcoming Let's pray.

Lord , show us where we have had revealed through all we've been through recently.

Things we otherwise would not admit to, we would not have seen.

We've been depending on God plus.

You, yeah, but also something else that was where our hope and where our confidence, our security was.

That thing probably isn't there now.

Lord, may we anchor ourselves to a meeting with you every day where we once again get refocused on the greatness of our God and download your mercies new that they break Everything we will need for that day.

Oh, yes, Lord.

Thank you.

Great is thy faithfulness.

I pray with deep gratitude for that in Jesus' name.

Amen.