Strategies for Stressful Times: Week 1

I don't know about you, but uh, when I'm scrolling

on my phone and reading articles about every day, I

get a notification. I wonder if you get that same notification.

The notification simply goes like this, your battery is now

at twenty percent, you irresponsible human being, and it's encouraging

me to plug my phone up. And I'm not gonna

do that. And I'm not gonna get up and plug

my phone up. And so sometimes I'll let it go

down to ten percent, five percent if I'm feeling wild

that day, two percent. When it's down to two percent,

I started having a conversation with my phone, which is

kind of like, just let me finish this, arcle. Just

let me finish this arcle. Just let me finish this

article you serve me, you know. And then then finally,

you know, I have to plug it in because you know,

if not, it's gonna die. And you know, I think

a lot about us. You know, my phone gets down

to two percent one percent, it still looks normal and

it still lights up, it can still answer a call,

but behind the screen it's running out of power. As

a pastor, here's what I see a lot. I see

a lot of you walk in week after week and

you kind of look like your battery is on ten percent,

five percent, two percent, one percent. You look fine on

the outside. You know you went to work this week,

it took care of the kids. You smiled when I said,

how are you doing? But inside your battery it's dead.

And I get it here. In about two weeks, I

moved from being a doctoral student to a doctoral candidate.

And just even the thought of starting that big project,

it exhausts me. It stresses me out. I'll be honest,

I'm very stressed out about this part. And and here's

the thing, I'm actually really excited too. I think a

lot of times we have stuff that we're really excited,

that we love, we really enjoy doing it, but we

got so much stuff going on, it's so many good

things that we actually just become really stressed out and overwhelmed.

All the time. Life can be overwhelming, and for some

of us, it's not all good things. For some of it,

you have a job that makes you miserable, your marriage

is rough, your finances you don't know how things are

gonna get paid, your children. Some of you have been

walking with someone who's been struggling for a long time,

and that's hard too. And maybe nothing's falling apart in

your life, but life has been heavy for so long.

You're just exhausted emotionally spiritually. Now we know what to do, right,

If you're tired physically, go to sleep for twelve hours,

wake up, eat some horrible food, go back to bed

for a few more hours, and do that again for

another day. Guess what you're healed. That's if your body's tired.

We can get you back and shape in two days. Okay, Now,

if your soul is tired, I don't care how much

you sleep. If your soul is tired, you can sleep

twelve hours and still be exhausted emotionally and spiritually. So

how do we keep from running low? Okay? How do

we keep keeping on when we feel like we just

don't have anything left? Well? The apostle Paul, this is

one guy who knew a lot about pressure. He knew

a lot about stress. He was criticized all the time,

he was rejected, he was beaten, and also he carried

the huge responsibility of the churches. He also had this

ongoing illness. Three different times he came to God and said, God,

you've given me all these responsibilities. But I have this

illness my life, my ministry would be so much more

productive if you would just take away, if you would

just fill me. That's legitimate. And God said, no, my

power of my grace is sufficient for you. And so

Paul continued to suffer even in the midst of all

these things. And so we see Paul twice and second

Corinthians say, we do not lose heart. He's not speaking

to somebody had his life easy. No, no, no, He's

speaking to someone who's discovered that there's a strength that

goes deeper than our circumstances. And that's what I hope

you discover today too, that there's a strength inside of

you that goes deeper than your circumstances. And Paul lets

us know how we can discover that. Let's look at

this text today together, he says this, and I'll pay

attention because we're going to talk about this part a

lot today. But we have this treasure in jars of clay. Okay,

And he talks about this, that there's this treasure and

jars of clay, and what does it do? It shows

us all surpassing power is from God, not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed,

perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck

down but not destroyed. Now, I want to paraphrase this

next part, and he says, this is why we do

not lose heart, even as our bodies grow weak from stress,

from pain, from trials, from good things, from bad things.

You know how we just just get so broken sometimes

it's stressed out. He says, God renews us within each day.

Our present troubles are temporary, but God is using them

to prepare eternal glory. So we center our attention not

on what is visible and temporary, but what is unseen

and eternal. So from the immediate context of this passage, all,

why is Paul writing this to the people of Corinthians. Now?

Paul is writing to a church where a couple of

things going on. They're starting to question his ministry. Okay,

I'll tell you why here in a moment. And they're

also just starting to question his health. It's very fascinating.

Paul looks like life has chewed him up and spin

him out. He doesn't look good. Okay, you gotta understand

that that Paul. His body has scars all over, he

suffers a lot. He has these trials and these repeated hardships,

like one after another. And they think, all right, Paul,

if you are the apostle that God has annoyed, that

God has said, if you truly represent our God and

the power of God, why does your life look horrible?

That's a great question, isn't it. If God is supposed

to be with you, why is your life look miserable?

That's a phenomenal question. Some are actually using this against him.

Why because back then and saying as it is today,

there's a lot of people who believe that if you're

going to be a leader, the main person, that you

got to look powerful, polished, successful, You gotta be impressive

to other people. And Paul is saint, all all right, yeah, yeah,

I got scars, I got hardships. Yes I don't look great.

I look like I've been chewed up a spin out,

He goes, But here's the thing. You're you're missing the point.

You're looking at the container and you're missing the power

that is inside of this container. You're missing the point. See,

his weakness did not disprove the power of God. No, actually,

his weakness demonstrated the power of God in his life,

because when you look at his life, you look at

his body, you look at what had happened to him,

you would have to say only God, only God could

do something through a God like that. He again, he

looked like he had been chewed up and spit out.

He had scars, he was beating, He was stone shipwrecked

five different times, five times, thirty nine lashes on his back.

He didn't look like a polished platform speaker that the

other leaders in the ancient world did. He looked like

a guy who just survived the war. Paul looked like

he was living on one percent. His body was depleted,

it was battered. And you know what, his circumstances were

always overwhelming. And Paul would let you know, Hey, my

treasure isn't my personality. It isn't my toughness, it isn't

my ability to think positively about any situation. No, you

need to know that my treasure is the Gospel. It's

the hope, it's the joy, it's the power of Jesus

living inside of me. And this is why Paul could

be worn down without giving up. Now, pay attention, church, everybody,

look me in the eyes. Today's sermon is not about

how to avoid a difficult life. Okay, that would not

be true to scripture. No, what I'm gonna talk about

today is how to walk through a difficult life without

losing your faith, your peace, and your joy. And the

first lesson, my surprise, is from Paul and how to

keep on keeping on. He says, first of all, you

need to stop trying to be the source of power

in your own life. Stop trying to be the source

of power in your own life. He says, we have

this treasure and jars of clay. Now think about the

first century. If you went into any home, you were

gonna see a jar of clay. Okay, this is where

they're gonna hold their seeds in. Then we're gonna hold

the rice, the wheat. This is whe they kept the

candy away from the kids. All right, But these are fragile.

Matter of fact, they they break pretty easily. It's pretty

easy to damage these, you know. It doesn't take much

to break a hole through them, or a few holes

through them, or to crack them to the point where

they don't seem like they could be used anymore. And

so what would they do with them back then? Now

it's not like we think, because it seems like every

time you and I see an old jar clay with

holes in it and cracks in it, it's in a museum. No,

they did not put them in museums. After they cracked them.

They threw them away. They consider them useless. Paul says

that you and I are like this jar clay. The

difficulties of this world, the trials of this world, the

pain of this world, the loss that we experienced in

this world, the stress the burdens them, the humiliation, all

those things. It wears on us, and it starts to

show the chink in our armor. It breaks us down,

and we start to have these cracks. Are like and

our bodies, as we get older, they break down. Can

I get an amen? Amen? I used to always think

this one's free. I'm not gonna charge you for this one.

I used to always think that people who were retired

were really lucky. And maybe that's because my life was overwhelming,

going to school and all this sudden stuff when I

was young and starting a family. And as I've matured

and got to, you know, experience life a lot more,

I realized that, let me tell you something, and some

of the younger people need to know. You need to

grow your faith passionately because the hardest years of your

life are after you retire. You have a certain amount

of money, and that's it for you to live the

rest of your life on. You better have faith your body.

It starts to do things that you don't understand. Okay,

last for instance, I'm not even that old. I'm like

forty seven, which is like to a kid that's ancient,

but to you not really. But I went to bed

last night and this shoulder hurt. I asked God because

it hurt all evening. I was like, God, I love

for my shoulder not to hurt. I woke up and

guess what. The shoulder didn't hurt. This shoulder was an

extremely like our bodies. And Paul says, yeah, you know what.

You're paying attention to all this stuff and you're wondering, like, man,

how can God's power rest upon you? How could God's

anointing rest upon you? How could God's blessing rest upon you?

When we look at your life and it looks tough,

it looks miserable, it looks painfully ma'am Paul, you look

like you just came out of a war, foreign country.

Rough Man Paul says, you're looking at the wrong thing.

You're looking that's a container. You're missing the treasure that

is inside. I mean, now, what is that treasure that

all of us carry? Follow Christ? Well, first of all,

it's Jesus within us. It's his grace that saves us,

his hope that holds us. It's his power that sustains us.

We might be fragile, but it's the power of God

iss I of us. Now this human container again, it's fragile.

My family learned this big time. Again. Another reminder. Last month,

I was preaching Father's Day Andrew came to me in

between services and said, Hey, your dad, he has to

go to hospital. His legs aren't working. Sound to me

like he had a pinch nerve or maybe he threw

out his back. So I preached. We tried to get

a hold of him after service, couldn't hold of him.

Figured all right, they're an er getting things checked out.

And then we finally got a hold of them, and

it was my brother saying like, you need to get

over to Ohio. Now Dad is paralyzed and he has

to go into surgery. And they've given us two options.

He's either going to be paralyzed for the rest of

his life or he's going to die. We drive two

hours over there. What happened was he had a hemorrhage

and they were saying it was on the inside of

his spinal cord. And so I called some of the

healthcare professionals that I know and they said, yeah, that's

pretty much the case. Yeah, that's what you have to

look forward to. I'm sorry. And so for the next

eight hours it was a prayer vigil at the Miami

Valley Hospital. When they came out, they said, we actually

got good news. See, they had cut through his bottom

four or five vertebrae to relieve some of the pain.

And here's what they found. That the hemorrhage was not

inside the spinal cord, but on top of the spinal cord.

And they never found the hemorrhage. But basically what that

meant was that he could be, you know, unparalyzed. And

so over the next couple of days, guess what, Dad

has started to be able to walk again. And today

now it's been little over them up. Dad's on a walker.

He's slow, but he is moving a little bit. But

I was reminded, And I want to remind you right now.

You know what Dad was doing. He was getting ready

for church. He stood up and his body broke down

like that. That's all. He just stood up. Guy's life

is fragile. Our bodies can go like that. We're easily broken.

And so we actually have some natural questions to ask today, like,

all right, if we contain this treasure here we are,

we're followers of Christ. If I contain this treasure that

Paul speaks of inside of me, then why doesn't God

heal our bodies immediately? Wouldn't that bring God incredible glory?

Why does God allow us to go through some diseases?

Would it bring God incredible glory if all the Christians

never got sick? Paul, this seems like a contradiction. You say,

God has this treasure inside of us, but our bodies

are breaking down. Why doesn't God prevent these sayings? If

his treasure is so precious, why are we giving fresh

all bodies? And Paul simply explains this. Here's what he

goes to say. He says, but we have this treasure

in Jarsah Clay, what to show that this all surpassing

power is from God and not from us. Remember that song,

those of you who went to Sunday School. We are

but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. You remember

that song. We were taught from a little age that

we're weak, but He is strong. And Paul wants to

under us to understand that in our weakness and our

struggles and our pain and our trials and our broken

down bodies, the power of the Gospel is still alive.

The hope of eternity is shown to us. And let

me tell you something about my dad. My dad quite

a personality, by the way, big personality. Every person who

came into his hospital room or rehab or came to

his house to visit him, he has told them all

about Jesus. He's like, Jesus healed me. I should be paralyzed,

I should be dead. Jesus touched me. Jesus did this.

Jesus did that. Jesus even when I was at the hospital,

I'm sitting there watching Dad tell each and every nurse

that came in. Jesus Christ heilled me. You won't believe it.

I should be paralyzed right now, but Jesus Christ healed me.

And then he will look at me and start telling

me about how awesome Jesus was. And I'm like, I

know how awesome Jesus is. He goes, no, no, no, you

don't understand Jesus, Like I understand Jesus. No, you understand

you know, And we're sitting there. I'm like, no, no,

I get him. No, no, no, no, no, no, I know Jesus.

You know it's a He couldn't shut up about it.

Why because he had experienced the glory of God even

in the And here's somebody who couldn't even walk, his

legs were still paralyzed, and he's telling everybody about Jesus

and how awesome he is. Let me tell you something.

God allows things to happen to us because it brings

him great glory when we sing his praises in the

midst of our pain. Now, Church, I just want to

shift for a moment here and listen to me stress.

And here's one of the keys being able to deal

with your stress. Okay, you've got to make a decision

that everything doesn't depend on you. There's some of you

in this room, and you're like, I gotta hold my

family together. I have to fix this problem. I gotta

keep everybody happy. I gotta be the one who always

know what happens next. I have to be strong enough

for everybody. Well, no wonder you're exhausted. You're doing God's job,

not your job. And a lot of us we're on

the other end of the thing where we would just

wish God would change all of our circumstances. God remove

the pressure. God change this person. God open this door,

God fix this by Friday. Let me tell you what's

the Saint missionary Elizabeth Elliott said, she goes a secret.

Is Christ in me, not me in a different set

of circumstances. God can change your circumstances, but sometimes the

first work is is to demonstrate His power through you.

Look at this. See your weaknesses and trials are not

proof that God has left you. It might be the

very place where His power becomes clearest in your life.

Notice Paul doesn't say the power becomes stronger with a

you know, with a great personality, or a perfect schedule

or trouble for your life. No, no, no. The power

to handle our difficulties comes from God. That's why you

and I we can go into that difficult meetings say God,

give me, give me the strength when the medical news comes,

we can say, God, steady me. When our child is hurting,

and you know what this is like. Our child is

hurt and we just can't fix it for them. God

help me to love on them. When our thoughts won't

slow down, God renew my thoughts. See, sometime sometimes the

most spiritual thing we could do is say God, I

can't handle this on my own. See, we have to

drop the illusion that we can handle everything, and we

got to hand it over to God. And that leads

us to our next point. The second thing that Paul

would tell us on how to keep on keeping all

in tough times is be honest about the pressure. Be

honest with others about what's going on. He continues to say,

He goes, we are hard pressed on every side, but

not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not

a band is struck down but not destroyed. Now these

are four honest descriptions that hard pressed. In the Greek,

it gives us the image of a wine press that

crushes the grapes. In other words, the pressure's real, it's painful, perplexed,

and the Greek it's fascinating. It not only means I

don't know why this happened. It also means I don't

know how to fix this. I don't know if you

have been there, But that's pretty miserable. I like to

know at least one of them, why did this happen,

or how to fix it? But I don't like it

when I don't know why this happened and I don't

know how to fix it. And Paul says, this is

part of our life sometimes, you know, as a pastor,

I get asked this question all the time. Why did

this happen? Why is this happening? What's going on? You know?

And I sometimes just wish that there would be like this,

this ribbon that would just drop down to heaven. It

would drop down from heaven and you would talk to

me about your problems, and I would go, uh huh

uh huh, Well, let me tell you why this is

happening to you, and let me give you the meaning

behind this, and let me tell you why this is

actually good for your life. And then I just tie

up a little bow and go, here's your boat. Enjoy it.

But when people ask me why did I lose my job?

I don't have a bow for you. Why did my

mom leave my family when I was young. I don't

have a bau for you. Why did this child die

when it was young? I don't have a bou for that?

Why do I have this terminal illness? I don't have

a bou for that. Sometimes we don't have a bow

where we can just, you know, neatly wrap all of

our trials up and say, well, this is why. So,

when Paul says he was perplexed, you saying this is

part of the Christian experience. Sometimes we don't know why,

and we don't know how to fix it. But here's

what I want you to know today. Faith doesn't mean

that you always understand it. It means that you still

trust in God even when you don't understand it. Paul

says he was perplexed. Paul continues, says he was persecute.

In other words, sometimes people came against him, struck down.

That gives the image of a fighter who's been knocked down.

But he says, but not destroyed. And let me tell

you something, This right here is one of the most

helpful pictures of faith. I want to show you this.

See we faith does not deny the first half of

this sentence. I'm gonna give you. Faith holds onto the

butt not okay. See, I am pressed but not crushed.

I am confused, but not hopeless. I have been hurt,

but not abandoned. I got knocked down, okay, but not out.

Now as we look at this list, I don't know

about you, but I would love to erase the first

half of every single one of those sentences. But that's

not life, okay. Our faith holds onto the butt not.

And here's the thing. I've been around the church for

my whole life, and for some reason, mature Christians or

people have this image of mature Christians where they're just

so polished that, you know, I'm not afraid, I'm not angry,

I'm not disappointing, I'm not lonely. You know, I know

what to do. But the Bible is filled with people

who don't know what to do with their emotions. At

some point, they're not gonna man, I got it all,

It's all good, everything's perfect. No, no, look at David.

David said, how long Lord am I gonna suffer? Jeremiah wept.

We see Elijah. He got to the point where he says,

I'm done. I've had enough of this. Even Jesus in

the garden. What does he say? I am overwhelmed sorrow.

God's not intimidated by your honesty, but you need to understaying.

You can't surrender, but you keep pretending is not there.

So be specific God, I'm afraid of this diagnosis. God,

I'm carrying anger towards this person. God, I'm tired of waiting. God,

I don't know how my family is going to pay

for this. Be honest. The third way to keep on

keeping on, according to Paul and Second Corinthians, is you

need to receive today's strength for today's trouble. Receie today's

strength for today's trouble. What does he say? He says,

though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are

being renewed day by day. Now here's what's going on.

There's two realities in the Christian life that happen at

the same time. One. Outwardly, life drains you, Okay, your

body ages, your schedule, fills up, problems, wear on you,

grief leaves the mark. Okay. Get that. At the same time, inwardly,

those of us who have the Holy Spirit, God is

renewing us. Okay, Sometimes we wake up. Life is still tough.

The diagnosis has not changed, the relationship is still difficult.

The answer has not arrived. But here's what God does.

Check this out, check the timing. He renewses and gives

us strength day by day. He might not give you

all the strength you need for the next month, but

He will give you the strength you need for today.

Pastoring a church ur in a pandemic wouldn't recommend it

to anybody. Okay, the whole world was looney tunes for

a while, if you remember that, especially that first year.

It was a tough year for a few reasons. But

there was a COVID nineteen pandemic, and then there was

trust me, a mental health pandemic. And it seemed like

each and every day there was a new decision that

had to be made that day. Here's some things we

all experienced. We all experienced that new crazy opinion, to

listen to, that new complaint, to respond to a new theory,

to roll our eyes at a new conspiracy that was

floated out there, a new political debate, all experiences things.

The war was out for me personally. On top of

all that, leading has scattered church for three years. That

war on me I remember one season, about a year

and three or four months into the pandemic, I reached

my point where I was not just physically tired, but

I was emotionally spiritually done. And on top of walking

with the church of this season, I'd also lost up

to that point about eight or nine family members who

were close but like my whole family had just been

wiped out. And so when I got to that bottom part,

and I was thinking, I don't know if I'm going

to pass with this church, and I was really contemplating

thinking I maybe should move on, and maybe they should

let someone else come in who has renewed energy and

then come in and just really revive this church, because

I think I'm done. Man, if it was not for Tim,

Andrew Nobill, Terry Horner, and Don Courtney this one day

in my life, God sent them to say the right

thing at the right time that changed my attitude. Now,

they didn't fix everything that day, but here's what would happened.

God starts sending people. I would have people literally come

to me and say, God told me that I am

to come and take you out to launch today and

love on you. Andy. How many times did you love

on me? You just took me out to launch, fed

me a bunch of sushi, said crazy things, and let

me know how much you love me. But God kept

sending people to me like that all the time, and

I fell deeply in love with this congregation. And there

was a season there where it felt like God was

always I was meeting a new family. And then the

thing that really got me was just watching the faithfulness

and the grit of this congregation. And I couldn't believe

how during the of us being scattered, I felt so

much more deeply in love with you. You know, God

never gave me the strength for two weeks or three weeks,

but it seemed like every day when I was gonna

bottom out, he was there for me. My body was weak,

I was tired, I was exhausted. But that treasure that's

inside of me, that power of the Gospel, it renewed me.

And that same power is available to every single one

of you. And one of the best ways Paul tells

us to keep our spirits up, to keep motivated, to

allow the power of the Gospel to run through our

life is leaning the gratitude. That's our last point today.

If you want to keep on keeping on you gotta

lean into gratitude. It's one of the best ways that

God renews us. And he says this all this is

for your benefits, so that the grace that is reaching

more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to

what the glory of God. Gratitude doesn't mean that everything's good,

trusts me on that. Corey ten Boone and her sister

Betsy one of the most crazy stories you ever hear.

They were thrown into one of the most miserable camps

during the Holocaust, Ravens Brook and these two sisters made

a pack that they were going to praise God and

thank God every single day. So they had a list

of things but they would show gratitude to God for

and they did this for a while, but then Corey

ten Boone's sister Betsy said, let's start praising God for

the fleas. Their barracks were infested with fleas, and Corey said,

that's my line, not praising God for these fleas. No way. Well,

her sister insisted, and they start praising God for the fleas.

Here's what they found out subsequently, it was because of

those fleas and an infestation the guards left their Barrack alone,

and they were able to have Bible studies, they were

able to worship Jesus, they were able to prave of

each other, they were able to share the gospel because

of the fleas. Now here's what okay, all right, Gratitude

does not call evil things good. Okay, I'm not talking

about denial here. See, there's a difference between gratitude denial.

Denial says this is not hurt. Gratitude says this hurts.

But hurt is not the only thing here. God is

here too. Now, our kids are all going back to school,

our college kids are going back to school. So I

felt like it would only be fair for me to

give every single one of you an assignment this week. Okay,

I'm gonna give all of you homework. This for every

single one of you. Okay. Here's what it simply is.

I want you, each day this week, on your phone,

text it to yourself, or on your notes, or in

your diary, your devotional whatever. Each day this week, I

want you to write one thing down that you were

thankful for. Maybe it was a mill, maybe it was

a conversation, maybe it was a blessing from God. But

I want you to start tracking what God has done

and the goodness, and it will change your attitude in

the midst of suffering, in the mist of stress. You know,

I have a thankfulness list on my phone. Funny enough,

I started this thankfulness list September twenty sixth, twenty nineteen.

I have a running log of seven years of answered

prayers and things I am thankful for God for. I mean,

I got stuff on here about staff members who came

on staff. Every single one of my bucks is on

here in great detail, and just like every blessing. And

let me tell you something, I take this list out.

I updated a lot, but I often take it out

when I'm having a tough week, and it doesn't take

long for me to remember how awesome God is and

how faithful He has been in it. Today's trouble is

just today's trouble. But over God, overall God, just like

He's had my past, he has my future. And by

the time it takes a long time to get to

the end of my list, now, by the time I

get to the end of that, I'm praising God. I'm

worshiping God. I'm sitting at my desk saying, God, you

are amazing. You are faithful. You know, if your phone

is running down, you don't need a motivational speech. Got

to plug it into the power source. And we as

clay jars. Often when our bodies break, chinks in our

armor happen, and maybe we don't look too great. Maybe

our life looks stressful, Maybe our life looks painful. Maybe

our life just doesn't look like what someone would think

a Christian's life would look like. Maybe you've been battered.

But let me tell you something. Remind yourself, this is

just a container. All those things happen in your life,

that's just part of this life. But here's what we

are all called to do. We are called to allow

God's glory to shine through our cracks, to shine through

our pain, to shine through our hurt, to shine through

all of the broken places in our life. So when

you're hard pressed, let that glory shine through you. When

you're persecuted, let that glory shine through you. When you

get knocked down, let that glory shine through you. When

you are perplexed, let that glory shine through you. Here's

the thing. Yeah, you're gonna have a beat up, bruised body.

And let me tell you. Some of you guys who

are older, as younger people were watching your life. And

I am so proud of the older people in this

church because, let me tell you something, you bring glory

and honor to God through your suffering. You are showing

us the great power of God despite your circumstances. Let's

take some time to pray now, in the midst of

our stress and our heaviness and the trials of our life.

Why don't you go ahead and think about those things

that are perplexing to you, those things that may be

in your life that are hard pressed, those trials in

your life, those stresses, and go ahead and hand them

over to God this morning. Recommit them and ask God

to help identify it, admit it, and then admit that

you meet his help. Take those to Him now. And

now let's close out by asking God for his glory

and his treasure to shine through your wounds, your scars,

the pain in your life, to shine through your diagnosis,

to shine through you, your poverty, to shine through your pain.

Ask the Lord for his glory to be seen in

your life. Dedicate your trials, dedicate your stress to Him

for his glory