Purpose In Pain

So I come with a you may want to call it a buffet I come with a widespread.

Today I got some things that God has put on my heart and if you've been following, you know we've been talking about the detox and all that stuff.

We've been going through a detox series, but I believe that God is stirring something in this church today that is going to break out in the revival.

Stirring something in this church today that is going to break out in the revival and the story she was talking about, where the breath of God literally came over these dry bones and began to form an army.

That, the army that God is raising up now.

It is coming from dry bones, but when we begin to see the spirit of God move through our services, the muscle and the tissue begin to come back over the bones.

The church comes alive again.

So, and it's no coincidence that God just so you know me, I'm not a very laid back, reserved person I'm in your face and I'm everywhere.

And Jesse sometimes says, sometimes I wish I could be like you.

I said no, you don't, you would get on my nerves, because God didn't create me to be her, her to be me.

She put us together perfectly so that we would have a good balance.

Like I've said before, she's my anchor to keep me on the ground and I am her wing so that she flies a little bit.

And so this whole thing that God has done and started stirring in my heart just this week, I shared a little bit of it with the prayer team on Tuesday mornings.

Little ad spot right here Tuesday mornings at 7, I mean 10 am, not 7 am, I ain't crazy.

10 am I love the Lord, but I have my limits.

I'm just kidding.

10 am I love the Lord, but I have my limits.

I'm just kidding.

10 am and 7 pm on the same day.

So if you work and you can't get off work, we do it at 7.

It's late enough to where you should be able to make it.

God is doing something in this church.

I believe because of the small percentage of people that is coming to prayer meeting, the rest of y'all just getting the overflow of what God's stirring up in us Be a part of what God is doing.

The worst thing that I've ever experienced in my life was to go through a season and look back and said, man, I wish I would have just done it this way.

I wish I would have just got on my face before God a little more.

I wish I would have had just a little more faith.

I wish I would have spoke to that person when God put it in my spirit to speak to them.

I wish I wouldn't have said that to my spouse.

Hello, somebody, I know some of y'all are guilty on that one.

No matter what level of pain or hurt that you have experienced, we believe that God created a purpose, even and especially through your pain.

God's desire for every Christian is to find freedom and the only way to find that is through the Spirit of God and in His Word.

What the world is dishing out as pain relievers or pain fill-in-the-blank is a synthetic of what really is available for you.

So, if you'll look over, we're going to do a key verse.

We're going to start off at the very end of this story in Genesis, chapter 50, verse 20.

Genesis 50:20

Now this is the story of.

You probably heard of Joseph.

He had the coat of many colors, right?

Yeah, for those of you who are trained, the rest of you get with the program.

Stand for the reading of God's word.

You Get with the program.

Stand for the reading of God's word In verse 20,.

It says this you intended harm for me, but God intended it all for good.

He brought me to this position say position, position so that I could save the lives of many people.

He brought them to this position so that later he could be used for the people.

Let's bow our heads, father.

We thank you so much for your mercy and your grace.

We thank you, lord, for your spirit being here already today.

I felt it deep in my bones and in my spirit this past week as I was preparing for this message.

Lord, reveal to them what you've been revealing to me through your word today, and if there's somebody here under the sound of my voice or watching online that does not know you, I pray, spirit of God, move on them with conviction and love so that they do not stay the same and they leave here transformed.

In your name, we pray Amen as you are seated.

This is the story of Joseph.

Now, joseph, if you read the story, the boy had a tough life.

So the title of today's message is Purpose in Pain.

I believe, no matter what pain you go through, no matter what season you go through, that God is able to use everything that you have went through both good and bad for the glory of God.

Not only for the glory of God, because if you belong to him, it's also for yours.

When we raise God up, god raises his people up.

So the purpose in pain, so every season it requires and this is what we don't like a process.

I don't like the process.

I want the promise comes before the process and God, if you do it now, then I can work through the process because I see what you're doing.

That's not how God works, especially when we're in the middle of the process, and most of the time, majority of the time the process requires, requires pain.

It's very hard to endure and praise through the pain, but oftentimes, when you praise in the pain and through the process, you oftentimes, when you praise in the pain and through the process, you end up finding your promise and God reveals things to you that normally you would not see because you stayed on a level of praise and it helps you forget about the pain.

A lot of times we want God to take us out of the valley, but the Bible says that he actually will come down with us.

We want God to pull things from us, but he wants us to go through it, because otherwise we would not be formed and molded at how he want us to be.

If you have your Bibles or you're taking notes, write this down Romans, chapter 5, 3 and 5, it says this this is what Paul says.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Not only so, but also we also rejoice in sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.

Hope.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.

So Paul is saying this that through the process you will produce perseverance and it will lead you to the purpose God has planned for you.

This is the path to find your purpose is through the pain and through the process.

Now, long before you were born, god had a process with your name on it.

We like to focus on the promise.

Oh, god's got a promise for you, hallelujah.

We forget about it.

He's also got a process with your name on it.

He's also got some pain with your name on it, with your name on it.

But through pain and the process out of you, being led by the Spirit of God from the very depths of you, produces a purpose.

It's not always glamorous, paul in his writings, majority were in prison.

He knew how to be inside of a process and still see his purpose.

It was through the pain.

It's not always glamorous, but our purpose is to glorify God.

That is the reason we exist to praise his name.

Sometimes we forget that because we want all the glamour for us, we want all the glory for us, but God's purpose supersedes all of that for a higher purpose Now.

So we must submit our wills and our selfish ambitions and pray like Jesus did.

Not my will, but your will.

Even Jesus, in the middle of his prayer in the garden, prayed selfishly God, if there be any other way, if there be any other way, has anybody ever prayed if there be any other way?

But then he bookends it with God Whatever process, whatever pain that you have for me to fulfill your purpose in my life, I am willing and able to walk that path Now.

Earlier we read this text in Genesis 50, 20.

Now you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

Get that little southern twang to it, that Pentecostal.

He brought me out to this position so I could save lives of many people.

Oh, come on somebody.

But if you notice a small detail in this short little text that gives you so much hope and so much promise is that it's in chapter 50 of verse 20, the last chapter of Genesis.

It's hard to see it when you're in the middle of the book and you're looking for that chapter 50 and you're on only chapter two, and verse 20 is almost the very last verse of the book of Genesis.

This is how long it took for Joseph's journey and the pain and the process to get him to where he understood God's will for his life and he understood God's purpose for his life.

Sometimes I read the Bible and I'm like oh, you know, man, god's just pouring out, he's blessing them, but we're missing the parts where they had to go through something, a process, to get to that purpose.

We had to get to that blessing.

So we're taking a little clip out of this 50th chapter, when all of this began and started to go sideways 13 chapters ago, and we're going to turn your Bibles to chapter 37, genesis, chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

We're going to do a little bit of reading.

We're in church.

I figured that would be okay, all right.

So look at chapter 37.

Now, here we go.

Now this is something that got Joseph in trouble when something came to his mind.

Like a young 17-year-old boy, he would let it go out of his mouth.

It says this in verse 1.

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed in the land of Canaan.

These are the family records of Jacob.

At 17 years of age, joseph tended sheep with his brothers.

The young man was working with the sons of Billa and Zilpha and his father's wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.

Little brothers I had a little brother.

He loved bringing bad reports about his older brother to my parents.

He still thinks to this day I'm just letting a little thing out right here.

He still thinks to this day that he punched me in the stomach in the hallway of the house we lived in when we were kids and knocked me to the ground.

He bragged about that as an adult.

I let him hit me and I pretended like he just stomped on me because I hit him in the face with something and he was crying and I knew that his first inclination was to run to mommy or daddy and tell on his brother.

So I thought, hey, I'll just pretend that he's really hurting me.

And so I went oh, on the floor it's like oh man, you're killing me.

And I didn't know that he was going to tell people he could whoop me when he was older me.

And I didn't know that he was going to tell people he could whoop me when he was older.

Now, israel loved Joseph more than his other sons.

He was a favorite.

I'm the favorite.

Any other favorites in the house, we know it.

We're proud of it.

Yeah, you're the favorite.

You're the only one.

God blessed you in more ways than you know.

Then his other sons, because Joseph was born to him in his old age, so he was a blessing in his old age.

He cherished Joseph because of this and he made a robe with many colors for him.

When his brothers saw that their love from the father for him was more than all the other brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.

Now I want you to make notes here if you're taking notes A robe that was a blessing to him.

There's a cloak later that's also going to betray him.

Then Joseph had a dream.

Not only is it obvious that Joseph is the favorite, now the Lord is giving Joseph a dream.

God has gifted him with something of being able to interpret dreams.

So Joseph himself gets a dream and God has given him a gift to interpret this dream.

He had a dream and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more.

He said to them listen to the dream I had.

There I was Imagine this the younger brother who already knows he's the favorite.

Nobody else has got a coat of colors they're wearing because it doesn't exist, because he's daddy's little boy.

And then he has this dream and he hears from God and he understands the interpretation.

And then he's coming and saying hey, hello brothers, I have something to tell you from God.

I'm just putting my little brother in that position.

He'd be so proud.

There we were binding sheaves of grain in the field.

Suddenly my sheave stood up and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to mine Isn't that cool?

To mine, isn't that cool.

Are you really going to reign over us?

They said, are you really going to rule us?

So they hated him even more.

We got three layers of hate.

If it was a cake, it would be all up in there.

So they hated him even more because of the dream and what he said.

Then he had another dream.

As if one wasn't enough, I had another dream.

So not only listen I don't know about y'all but if I'm talking to somebody and they have anger on their face, especially if there's 11 other people that are being angry around me and it's kind of obvious that it's towards me, I'm not going to have a second dream and go tell them again.

But then again he is 17.

Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers.

Look, he said, I had another dream, and this time the sun, the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me.

He told his father and brothers, and his father even rebuked him.

What kind of dream is it that you have had, he said Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down on the ground before you?

His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Oh good old wise daddy.

Now we skip over to verse 18.

And this is where Joseph's life really begins to take a turn for the worse, because once he's under his daddy's covering, he's safe, he has the coat, he has the favor, and so his brothers are out shepherding the father's flock.

And so what you would do with the flock is that you and the cattle and stuff and they do it.

Today we see him out on the 49 over in Tyler.

There's a guy out there with some horses and he's got his cattle out in the field and they're in a different spot every day.

Why?

Because when a flock or cattle are in a place for too long, they eat up all the grass.

So you got to stay moving, you got to keep them fed.

So the brothers ventured off so far that Joseph had to go and try to find his brothers because where they were supposed to be they were no longer there Because they had traveled off.

It had been so long that they were over trying to feed daddy's flock.

So when he finally finds the brothers off in the distance, they see him coming.

They see him coming.

Here we are in 18, verse 18 of the same chapter, chapter 37.

They saw him in the distance and before he had reached them they plotted to kill him.

Do you know how much hate it would take for me to want to kill my brother?

Now I've said I've wanted to kill him.

I wanted to throat punch him about 50 times.

You know what I'm saying?

Like that's just being related.

They plotted to kill him in the distance, before he got there, they said to one another oh look, here comes that dream expert.

I love this translation.

So now, come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits.

We can say that a vicious animal ate him.

Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

So if he's dead, they can't bow down to him.

Now, was it the hate that drove this, or was it the fear that maybe one day they actually would?

So we go to verse 28 and Joseph is sold.

We have Reuben, the older brother, who comes to his rescue.

Now this is something kind of cool that even when the enemy is after you and is coming to attack you and trying to destroy you and trying to rid you of your literal life, god sends an advocate.

He always provides some sort of way out or some sort of help in a way that we don't feel by ourselves and completely gone.

So look at this.

Joseph's pit was a part of his process.

You ever get to pits.

My wife liked that one and over here did too.

Sometimes the pit is actually disguised to save your life.

Sometimes, in that dark place, you feel like you're by yourself.

You feel like you've been abandoned.

You feel like they've just left you on the side of the road that they have that you're now in your grave.

But sometimes the pit is just waiting for the process to make itself known.

Because that's exactly what happened.

The pit was actually.

It was Joseph being installed with perseverance.

It was reported that a wild animal killed him, so they took the cloak back to the brother.

Now, in this very moment, the father is destroyed.

Now turn over to chapter 39.

Now, in this whole process, joseph is trading hands.

He was sold by his brothers.

They took him into Egypt and he ends up here in 39, in a man called Potiphar's house, to where he is to be the servant.

He makes his journey to Egypt and here, at the beginning of 39, they're changing hands and through being processed.

Once again, it's going down the path of his process to lead him to his purpose.

Again, it's going down the path of his process to lead him to his purpose.

39, verse 1, says Now Joseph had been taken to Egypt.

An Egyptian named Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh and the captain of the guards, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

The Lord was with Joseph.

Sometimes, when we're going through the valley and we feel like that we are by ourselves and that we're just pretty much at the exposure, at the disposer of the devil, and it's like, whatever you know, nothing's gonna go good.

Now, actually, what you're doing is just changing hands to God to line you up and he's shifting the plates to get you in position for what he's going to do in purpose, the plates to get you in position for what he's going to do in purpose.

Now, in verse 10, it says this Go over to verse 10 through 15.

Actually, let's go back to 7.

Let's go back to 7.

After some time, his master's wife looked longingly at Joseph and said sleep with me.

She didn't pull any punches.

Hey, you, let's get it on what you know.

Some scholars say that Potiphar pointed out that she was off limits because it was probably obvious that she slept around a lot.

So when you see this, it's not something that Joseph, it didn't catch him off guard.

He was preparing this whole time because he knew in his heart that his master said that that was off limits.

Does this remind you of the Garden of Eden, where they're told that there's one fruit out of the entire garden.

Everything else is yours.

There's one fruit that you can't touch.

So Joseph listened to this and it said in verse 8, but he refused Look, look.

He said Listen.

So this is like my interpretation.

Like, look, okay, this ain't going to happen.

I appreciate it, you know, compliment, feel it down in my heart.

This ain't going to work, this ain't going to happen.

You are another man's wife.

He said to his master's wife with me here.

My master does not concern himself with anything in this house.

He was telling her listen, I've got a good thing here, I've got a good setup.

I don't have to need anything.

Everything is at my fingertips, except you, and you're going to stay that way.

Verse 10, it says this although she spoke to Joseph, day after day, day after day, day after day.

Now, what does this mean?

When you are walking your path to your purpose, the enemy will try to proposition you.

His coat of many colors betrayed him.

Now, listen to this, now watch this.

Refused to go to bed with her.

Now, one day he went into the house to do his work.

It's where he worked.

He couldn't just stop going, he had to go back.

Now he went to the house where he worked and none of the household servants were there.

She grabbed him by his garment and said sleep with me, but leaving his garment.

Now, listen to this.

This is what we like to do with sin and situations.

Sometimes we like to wrestle with things we should never be touching and sometimes, when sin and propositions bring themselves to you, you try to wrestle with it and try to make a some sort of ordeal when really you need to be fleeing.

He fled.

He ran sleep with me, but leaving his garment.

When she saw he had left his garment with her, she ran outside and she called to everybody oh my, he tried to take advantage of me.

Now, why the garment?

It was most likely in the Egyptian culture they dressed up Everything.

You see this in the Jewish culture as well, even today.

Everything means something.

Everything means probably what he wore was something that had to do with his position, so that when he would walk up, in spite if they knew his face, they would know who he was, they knew what his position was.

So the very thing that probably gave him power over the kingdom and over Potiphar's house betrayed him, just like back home.

The very thing that gave him a position in his father's heart and rang true to his brothers about how favored he was, betrayed him Now.

So the chances of Joseph wearing a specific cloak due to the position is very high.

So the garment.

So in the last chapter of Genesis I'm sorry that's the wrong one.

So you know the story.

Now Joseph is in prison for a crime that he did not commit.

Okay, that's like the story of any guy in prison right now.

They didn't do it.

Joseph was actually one of those people that did not do it.

So now, what is this?

So he has this gift.

All of a sudden he's in prison minding his own business, and something that was instilled in him, and a gift that was shown to him when he was 17 years old, that got him in trouble, is now going to be his salvation.

Sometimes God gives you gifts that in one season of your life, is not for that season, but in the season that you're in now, god will begin to reveal things to you and he will pour out his spirit on you, and gifts that you thought were long gone, that you don't take any stock of anymore because you haven't used them in so long.

The spirit of God begins to pull back the veil again and you begin to see yourself how God sees you and, all of a sudden, the gift that you once had, that you thought was lost, is now found.

So listen to this.

What got him there in that first place was the dreams.

What is pulling him out is now the dreams.

So now this whole season of Joseph's life has seemed like a problem, but very soon will reveal that it was actually progress, engulfed and wrapped in process, that leads him into his purpose.

Now you can read the story on your own.

I hope that you do.

I hope every verse that you write down, I hope every message you're taking notes.

I view it as a Tupperware that you can take home and eat on later.

But listen, joseph eventually reveals himself to his brothers.

Throughout the story it goes on and they end up having this great famine in the land and they have nowhere else to turn.

So, like we would here, they went to the largest city that probably had the most crops, and I mean they were just.

Egypt was a wealthy country, a wealthy, established country, and so when you have a problem, you go to the biggest place that probably has the most to buy or trade or whatever you got to do to provide for your family.

And they came looking for food because of great famine.

But this led them all this led all Joseph to say the words.

All of this, this whole story, wrapped up of Genesis 50, 20,.

It says you intended to harm me After this whole ordeal with his brothers, with his family.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

But God intended it all for good.

Let me encourage somebody today who's going through a season right now that it is filled with pain and it reeks of process.

Let me encourage you that the path that you're walking on right now, god is leading you to your purpose.

But before you were born, god had process and pain with your name on it, because through the process and through the pain this is how purpose is birthed.

I want you to look over in your Bibles with me.

I'm going to say another very familiar story.

I'm going to back up actually to chapter three, because it sets the tone of what comes on Jesus in this moment.

And this is where and I love like thinking what was this guy thinking?

Like John the Baptist, okay, he's spent his entire life preaching that there is one coming after him, one that will be greater than him, not worthy to tie his sandals.

And then, over the hill comes Jesus, the one he had been waiting for and preaching about.

Can you imagine Just as he leaped in this mother womb as a child, imagine the joy that leaped inside of him as a grown man Seeing everything he had worked for, the path he had been taken?

The Bible says he lived a rough life.

The dude was eating bugs.

He didn't have Gucci on, he had camel.

I don't know, that may have been top line over there, you never know.

He wasn't pleasant.

So chances are, since he lived in the wilderness on purpose, the boy stank.

People were glad when he got in the water.

I'm sorry, that was a bad church joke.

But then he sees Jesus come over the hill.

But then he sees Jesus come over the hill and everything that he had been living for had just happened right in front of his face.

And not only that, this happened in John's ministry.

Then Jesus got in the water, he was baptized, and then the very voice of God validated who Jesus was, but in the same moment validated who John was.

The Spirit ascended.

Read this right here, chapter 3.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.

Man, how awesome would that be to baptize the one and only Jesus.

But John tried to stop him, saying I need to be baptized by you.

You see the humility.

He chose a life of humility.

And yet you come to me.

Jesus answered all right, allow it for now.

Okay, I get what you're saying, but there's a bigger picture here, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then John allowed him to be baptized.

Now listen to this in verse 16.

Now I want to stop and say something here.

I had this thought this morning.

I meant to write in my notes and I didn't.

If you are a Christian and you say that you love God, you also have to love this, because Jesus is the word.

And if you say you love Jesus, you must engulf yourself, you must wrap yourself in the word of God.

The reason we have a bunch of Christians in the pews but no true converts is because nobody wants to take the time to start reading what they need to read so that God can fill.

Because it's not.

I'm bringing a 30 to 45 minute sermon to you.

It's your job the rest of the week to allow God to speak to you.

I'm not your mom or your daddy.

I can't do everything for you.

There's at some point where you have to love God so much and hunger for him so much that you cannot go a day without reading his word, that you cannot go a day without speaking in tongues, keeping that fire kindled inside of you.

Shame on the Christian who says you love God but will not read his word, because you are a liar.

All right, now let's go back to what I was saying.

Y'all ever heard of Jacqueline Hyde?

Now, in verse 16, it says this and this is why I said this real quick, because you got to understand the context.

I can say a few scriptures every Sunday morning and you maybe write them down and you take them home, but if you're not going home and reading them yourselves and allowing the Spirit of God to move in your house and your place, the revival starts in your house first, and then we gather together and it busts out here.

I wish, I wish there was some sort of hand pattern I can do.

You know, that would make the Holy Spirit just come down and everybody's just passed out on the floor and everybody's speaking in tongues.

The fire's come, you know, and the Spirit of God is here and it's so evident.

I cannot do that.

I am not God.

I'm not that powerful.

You have to take responsibility for you.

When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water and the heavens suddenly opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him.

And a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

Now did you hear that right there?

Hold on.

The heaven suddenly opened up and he saw the spirit of God descending.

Now let's read just the very few first words of the next chapter.

Then Jesus was led up by what the Spirit Into the wilderness.

Now, hold on, I can understand going to like a feast or you know, hey, let's go Got Spirit now, let's go have a good time.

But the actual Spirit that came down on him led him into a darker place.

It led him into a lonelier place.

It led him into a deserted place, to where he was going to be tempted by the devil.

And listen to this.

So we hear back to back right here in these few verses, that the Spirit of God descends on Jesus and this is when he began his ministry.

But his ministry started with a very dark time for him.

It was a very lonely time when the Spirit came into his life, and it wasn't because it was a lack of God, it was actually.

In addition, come on, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted.

Now, this is my point.

Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted.

Now, this is my point.

Sometimes we pray against the will of God because it's not comfortable.

Sometimes the spirit has actually led you into a dark place or a dark valley and you are praying for God to take you out, when it's actually him that led you there.

The Spirit of God descended and then the Spirit of God led him to be tempted.

Church people, if the Spirit of God is never leading you into dark places, you might want to check your spirit, because we are to be an extension of God, to be the light in the dark world.

The light God has given you, the salvation God has given you, the joy God has given you, the redemption, the transformation that God has given you in your life, is not for you, it's for everyone else around you.

You know I was wrestling with the title of this.

I wanted to call it.

It's Not For you, because the Spirit of God is such a blessing to us, but it is not for us.

He had to go through this dark time and there's no record of him praying about this one.

It reminds me when I first gave everything to God.

Like I think sometimes we exclude the Spirit of God out of little things because we think it's not important to God.

Like I think sometimes we exclude the Spirit of God out of little things because we think it's not important to God.

But if the number of hairs on his head the Bible specifically says that he knows the number of those If he cares that much, y'all mine's getting less and less every day.

I had this battle in the mirror this morning before I got to church.

Like dude, I'm pretty sure there used to be right here.

It's retreating like a losing army.

But if he knows those, if he cares that much about that little small thing, what would be the purpose of that?

I can't think of one.

But he cares about the things that I don't include him in.

When I first came back to God and I gave him everything, god was included in my grocery list.

I know that sounds dumb, but I didn't have a lot of money.

How is he included?

I would have things in my cart.

This is so dumb, but it's like the real relationship that we need to have with the Spirit of God is that there would be things in my cart.

My wife, she gets a calculator.

She knows how much we're spending before we get to the thing.

I wing it, you know.

I'm just like, yeah, it'll be all right, it's not a thousand dollars, we'll be good.

And I had the same personality trait then.

And I'm putting stuff in my cart, I'm like, oh, I need this, I need that.

And I felt the Spirit of God tell me, put those three things back.

I grabbed that.

And I felt the Spirit of God tell me, put those three things back.

I grabbed them.

I'm one of those people.

I apologize, I know it's not right.

Wherever I'm at, I just put whatever it was on that shelf and I walk away.

I don't go back to the aisle.

I'm sorry, it's a fault of mine.

Jesse gets on to me a lot in the store, but I just put it back.

And I'm like Jesse gets on to me a lot in the store, but I just put it back and I'm like, okay, I get up there, I'm checking out, I'm doing the self-checkout because I'm embarrassed of how little money I have and it was almost to the penny of what I had, but that's how much God wants to be a part of our lives.

Every decision, every choice, every issue in your life, the greatest to the smallest.

God wants to be a part of every single facet of your life.

Every single dark area, every single area that you think is good.

God wants to be a part of that.

God wants to not be just influential, but he wants to be center of your life.

And I want to challenge you when you're going through darkness and when you've been led by the Spirit into the wilderness, don't pray.

God, deliver me, say God, show me.

There's a big difference.

It is so hard to not pray that something leave me or to be pulled out of my life when that's not the purpose and plan God has for me.

If you're like me and you're a hard-headed learner, I have to go through an extreme process so that I either really learn it and it sticks, or I never touch it again.

Some of y'all understand that.

Don't run from the process.

You can pray for strength through it, but don't rebuke the pain, because pain produces perseverance and perseverance character, and all of this character can only be found when you include Christ in what you're trying to do.