Finding Comfort in the Fear of the Lord

oh thanks guys

thank you thank you

don't be afraid I have a lot of books

awesome how's everyone doing today

good good

that uh

semi international thing came from one time

people asked me like

what's your what's your title

and I said uh

semi international nearly famous author

that's that's my title

awesome cool

alright well uh I

I um

have a specific message I felt like I was

was to give to you guys today

and the um

the one of the stories that this is coming out of is

is one that I've shared before

but I I wanted to just remind it of you guys

and it's one that when I first shared it here

I got um

perhaps more flag for it

than almost any other story that I've

I've shared as far as um

feedback and and things like that

and so um

maybe not in the in the way that you would expect

it was mostly moms that came up to me afterwards

but um

so if you if you're not familiar with the story

I was I was uh

sitting in my garage some

some time ago

and my children were playing in the driveway riding

riding bicycles and things

and I had this thought cross my mind

I usually don't think in these terms really

but uh

just for this particular day

I thought Lord

you know how am I

how am I doing as a parent

like give me a

you know give me a letter grade

give me a give me a one out of 10

you know I normally don't

again don't think in those terms

don't find it useful to think in those terms

but

um I

you know I

I really care about parenting

I care about parenting as a skill

I care about my actual kids

I we read a lot of

you know parenting books and stuff

and we're trying to improve that all the time

and so it's an area I care about

so I'm like you know who

who better

to assess my parenting than the Lord Almighty

you know um

and I I sat there

I asked this question you know

give me give me a rating

and immediately the Lord responded

and he said um

you're failing

in ways that you couldn't possibly understand

even if I told you

you can maybe see some of the feedback that some moms

in particular might want to give me

after sharing something like that like

oh Blake

you're such a good father

it's you know

and I'm like well

you realize you're correcting the Lord with those

statements but I appreciate your heart

um

I I

I love this story for a handful of reasons

and I I

I want to be careful to not

to genuinely not not take pride in this

but I I was very blessed by what the Lord said

and when he said it I felt very

very comforted

now um

some of you may uh

understand that some of you may think uh

well yeah

sure that's what you're supposed to feel uh

but it's not how I would actually feel

after receiving such such a message

and I wanted to explore a little bit why

because the the thing I want to focus on today

is on a topic that we all

I think have a value for

but we don't always explore to its fullest

uh the topic I'd like to talk about today is

the fear of the Lord the fear of the Lord

um I think the fear of the Lord is always important

um every bit of the wisdom literature in the Bible

almost 100% of it uh

refers back to the fear of the Lord as

as the foundation of wisdom

Proverbs illustrates this as the beginning of wisdom

the beginning of knowledge

the beginning of understanding is the fear of the Lord

but what does this what does this mean

does this mean that we're scared of god

does this mean that we're aware

that God's bigger than us

does it mean that we're aware of how small we are

what does it what does it mean

and for me at least

there's no uh

book of the Bible that better explores

at least in my opinion the fear of the Lord

than one of my favorite books of the Bible uh

the book of job

so if I know it's everyone else's favorite too

um

so if you have a Bible with you um

or a digital Bible with you

if you'd open up to the to the book of job

um

now this this is a

a big and a mysterious book

and um

it's one that honestly a lot of us like to avoid

cause there's scary stuff in there

um but I

I want to uh

give you a

rather than try to explain the entire book to you

I would like to give you a framework

for understanding it

because I do think that this is a book of the Bible

that's often misunderstood

um

so in the um

in in the Bible

there's lots of wisdom literature

there's numerous psalms

that are counted among the wisdom literature

there's elements of multiple books

that are considered the wisdom literature

but the main three books that kind of like

core books of the wisdom literature in the Bible

are the book of Proverbs the book of Ecclesiastes

and the book of job you guys familiar with this

now we like the book of Proverbs a lot

it's the more popular one

it's the one that's a little bit more

you know instagramable

um it's because it's a form

it's a form of wisdom

that people have always been attracted to

that we're still attracted to today

is the a form of wisdom

that's essentially pulling towards the same question

which to be formed as how do you have a good life

what does a good life look like

what does it look like to live a good life

how should I live to have a good life

to produce goodness in others

you know what

what should I do

and Proverbs is pretty straightforward about that

you know it

it is willing to you know

dive into some of the nuance of it

but essentially over and over

in many different ways it says hey

do these things act this way

be this way and you'll have a good life

you'll have wealth health

prosperity a good family

you'll even meet

here's a guide book for how to find a good girl

a good guy you know

here's here's all the qualities you should look for

and so we we like this um

the book of Ecclesiastes is a little bit less popular

it's a little bit more cynical

a little bit more depressing

um and it essentially says hey

all of this wisdom is great

but have you guys noticed that sometimes

even when you live according to this stuff

it just doesn't seem to work out

have you noticed that sometimes

it seems that bad things do happen to good people

and that's kind of messed up

isn't it it's pretty much what the whole book says

over and over and over again

um and even in the midst of that

it still says hey

the the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

and you should follow the

you should submit to the fear of the Lord

and you should still follow the way of wisdom

but hey

we've all noticed that sometimes

this doesn't seem to work out

The Book of job is in many ways an exploration of this

and in the canon of Scripture

it's a book that was held as sacred very early on

even though much of what it has to say

is kind of a counterbalance

to what the rest of the wisdom literature says

most of the wisdom literature says

if you live this way if you do these things

good things will happen to you

god does good things to good people

bad things to bad people this is how justice works

I've never had those kinds of thoughts

or maybe come to that conclusion

after sitting under a sermon

or something like that

also I know you're scared to answer

cause don't know where we're going but

so in the book of job

job experiences a terrible calamity

he loses his kids he loses his health

he loses his wealth he has a horrible disaster

and he's sitting there lamenting this disaster

when three friends come to him

and try to offer explanation

for why he's experienced this disaster

now um

the book of job

is one of the books that I've been most tempted

that's LED me to be the most tempted to uh

study Hebrew

because the book of job is one of the most rich kind of

uh literally book uh

structured books in the Bible there's um

it's written in poetry which

we don't really share wisdom in poetry

that much anymore unless you count uh

you know Taylor Swift and people like that um

but

some people count her among the wise um

but um

so poetry is the it is in

in this period of time

this is how you communicate big ideas

this is how you express wisdom

and in the book of job are three levels of poetry

three levels of quality so

the author of job is intentionally doing lower quality

more generic more kind of

you know cliche sort of poetry

he's doing poetry that's elevated above that

very beautiful uses richer metaphor and uh

uses richer language

and then he has a third level that's the highest

that's the most rich

that has the most kind of beauty to it

now when the author is writing Job's three friends

he chooses to lose his lowest form of poetry

the most cliche the most uh redundant

uh the book of job is intentionally long and repetitive

because it's meant to illustrate the um

the emptiness of us trying to make our own sense

out of the experiences that we

and others have in our life

it's meant to illustrate that we are coming to simple

human conclusions

trying to make our own sense out of life

um

these uh

three friends are carriers of wisdom

their poetry is not intentionally idiotic

um when you

when you read it it's not

it's not bad poetry

it's just intentionally written with some cliche

with a few little bright spots in there

to evoke the idea that they are not completely wrong

but to recognize that it is incomplete

it is unholy it is not answering the question

and this is reflected by job

every time they share their wisdom

it doesn't meet the need of his heart

job is given the middle level of poetry

throughout the books whenever he is responding

whenever he is talking about his pain

talking about his anguish

talking about his confusion

and frustration with the Lord

he is speaking more highly

so his honesty is elevated in the story

as something that is of more value

even than these men's wisdom

now we don't have time

to break down all of the arguments

that are set before him

but they essentially come to more or less

the same overarching structure

with a few nuances in it

so all these guys have the traditional view of wisdom

god does good things to good people

bad things to bad people

and they are presenting this to job

because justice works like this

then that means that you must have done something bad

so the first friend says hey

this is how justice works

you must have done something bad

and he says that for a long time

and then Joe responds hey

I'm willing to engage that idea

but I really do not see do not recognize

where I have done something wrong in my life

he is called a righteous man in the story

that reinforces this idea

and so doesn't really meet the need

well the next friend

who's a little bit wiser says well

well well

maybe your father or grandfather did something wrong

and that has you know

echo echo down the generations

and now you are being punished

for something that they have done

because of course

god does good things to good people

and bad things to bad people

so someone else must have done something that's bad

Joe again responds hey

I don't know of anything that my father did

I don't know anything of that my forefathers did

and also when you really think about it

that's maybe kind of messed up if I

you know have lived righteously and they have not

and I'm receiving the punishment

I don't know that doesn't quite meet the need

that doesn't meet me where I'm at in this pain

um

last and youngest friend comes up

and again there's lots of nuances in here

we don't have time to explore

and he is of course

the most clever and he says

well we

of course uh

could agree with

perhaps the idea that you have not done anything wrong

or maybe even your forefathers not done anything wrong

but perhaps you were going

to do something wrong in the future

and god knowing all and seeing this

decided to punish you now for this

because you would eventually do something wrong

and Joe was like I don't know how to argue with that

but I wasn't planning on doing anything wrong

I was planning on continuing to live my life

in the way that I have and also honestly

doesn't that seem a little bit messed up

if god would punish me for something I would future do

wasn't there a Tom Cruise movie about this very thing

um

Minority Report in case you're curious

um

uh

you know that's

this just doesn't work and either way

it comes both

he rebuttles what they're saying

and speaks to how this is not meeting

this is not meeting me

in the pain that I'm experiencing right now

and of course

at this point god shows up

god responds and as you can imagine

God's poetry is the highest

it is the greatest it is spoken with the most beauty

spoken with the most skill

and god responds to Job's situation

after hearing his lament hearing his challenge

and

uh many scholars have noted

that god does not answer the question

he does not answer what the question

as to why Joe is experiencing what he's experiencing

he does not validate or invalidate

the forms of justice that his friends have presented

he simply

in my opinion says

I'm god and you're not

um I'm gonna read Job's response in just a little bit

this is the um

the Robert Alter translation of the uh

Hebrew Bible one of my favorite study Bibles these days

if you're looking to study the Old Testament

um has a real focus on the literary form of Scripture

and I wanna read a

a first a brief passage just from the

in the introduction to job in this book

um

uh he's a

he's a writer and he's a language guy

so the language here is a little bit rich

but I think it helps illustrate uh

some of what I just shared

as well as the tension that's being explored

when god responds to job in the middle of this place

um

so he's describing the three levels of poetry

that are available in this book

and he's in this passage

describing the third and final level of poetry

so the third

and ultimately decisive level of poetry in the book

is manifested when the Lord addresses job

out of the whirlwind here too

Job's poet the author of job

has a keen interest in the nature that

in nature that is evident

but in altogether spectacular way that one might say

trumps job in the game of vision

so his capacity the poetry in here

surpasses Job's capacity to understand

to express to share what's going on in his own life

um the poet

having given job such vividly powerful language

for the articulation of his outrage

and his anguish now fashions still greater poetry

for god the wide ranging panorama of creation

in the voice from the whirlwind

shows a Sublimity of expression

a plasticity of description

an ability to evoke the complex and dynamic interplay

of beauty and violence in the natural world

and even an origin

an originality of metaphoric inventiveness

that surpasses all the poetry

great as it is that job has spoken

many readers over the centuries

have felt that God's speech to job

is no real answer

to the problem of undeserved suffering

and some have complained that it amounts to a kind of

cosmic bullying of puny man

by an overpowering deity

one must concede that it is not exactly

an answer to the problem because

for those who believe

that life should not be arbitrary

there can be no real answer

concerning the good person who loses a child

not to speak of 10 children in Job's case

or the blameless dear one who dies in an accident

or is stricken with a terrible

wasting disease

but God's thundering challenge to job is not bullying

rather it is rousing

it rousingly introduces a comprehensive overview

of the nature of reality

that exposes the limits of Job's human per uh

uh human perceptive uh

perception anchored as it is

in the restricted compass of human knowledge

and the inevitable egoism of suffering

the vehicle of that overview is an order of poetry

created to match the grandeur

or perhaps the omniscience of god

the visionary experience that this poetry enables

for job is of a vast creation

shot through with unfathomable paradoxes

such as the conjoining of the nurturing instinct

with cruelty

we're in this place

of the sufferer's longing for absolute darkness

the morning stars sing together

and there is a rhythmic interplay

between light and darkness

and so many scholars have studied God's response

recognized that he doesn't answer the question

he essentially says I'm god

and you're not but he says it beautifully

he says it in poetry he says

look at this world that I've created

look at these creatures look at all of the elements

that are at play in this vast creation

recognize and accept that

you cannot even understand

the inner workings of this creation

how much less can you understand me

now in

in Job's response um

there's

there's two things that happened in his response

he concedes the points that god is making

he is allowing god to win this argument

but there's something that's uh

interesting to note here in this final response

Job's poetry is elevated just a little bit higher

not quite as high as God's

but higher than his original poetry has been

so as to say that this encounter with god

has reframed his way of thinking

we can recognize that god does not answer the question

we can see him exerting his dominance

as that kind of cosmic bullying

however when we look at Job's response

I think it's plain in the

in the English translation

but it's even more apparent

as I understand it in the Hebrew

that this is not just a yes sir

you're right I'm wrong sort of response

the kind of thing that we would do to a boss

you know who is argumentative and not

not open to feedback but instead

the kind of language and the kind of vocal posture

we would have

when we've been corrected by a coach or a mother

someone who loves us and we know is invested in this

and we are not only corrected by this exchange

we are simultaneously comforted by this exchange

and this is the only time that in Job's poetry

in his statement he expresses the relief

that he was not able to find

in the responses from his friends

does that make sense to you guys

so I'll just read this brief passage

job Chapter 42

Job 42 · chapter mention

and job answered the Lord

and he said I know that you can do anything

and no devising is beyond you

who is this obscuring counsel without knowledge

this is the challenge that god initially gave

when he spoke in response to job

he says therefore I told

but did not understand

wonders beyond me that I did not know

hear pray

and I will speak let me ask you that you may inform me

by the ear's rumor I heard of you

and now my eye has seen you

therefore I do recant and I repent in dust and ashes

and it's after this that

uh his friends kind of dissipate

he's able to reconnect with his extended family

god blesses him he ends up having more children

he ends up having all his wealth restored to him

his health restored to him

and even though all these things are restored to him

in fact it says he gets double back

there's an acknowledgement in the language here

that his children did die in that previous experience

and that is not something

that can be given back in the same way

so there's acknowledgement of the loss

there's acknowledgement of the pain

and yet the very last line of job

is one that's always stuck out to me

it's said differently in different translations

but my favorite is the one that's in the um

NASB that says and job died an old man and full of days

that there is a picture of a person

who is not only carried wisdom and understanding

or walked in righteousness

but someone who has been transformed

by an encounter with god

to be and to think more like him

and I I

I wanna share this story because we're

we're in an age now and maybe it's always been this way

it's just louder or or um

on display more but we're

we're in an age where it's so easy to know things

where it's so easy to be certain about things

where it's so easy to find hundreds of people

who agree with exactly what you think

and can articulate it even better than you can

and can select evidence that will support that claim uh

within minutes within minutes

regardless of whether you believe the world is flat

or the moon landing was fake

or that god is real or that god is fake

or anything in between you can find hundreds

sometimes thousands

of people who can articulate this argument

in wonderful poetry that's pretty good

but part of abiding in the fear of the Lord

is accepting the position

that god has created us to be in that that

yes and

and this is a position that is

that we must receive

within the acceptance of Jesus Christ

within the adoption that Steve was uh

beginning to share about in the book of Ephesians

within this place of belonging

if we engage the fear of the Lord outside of belonging

we start to kind of go back to old religious ideas

of a angry deity who is better than us

and is super but

and yet superior

in the kind of way that we would be superior

if we were better than someone

rather than a loving father who

in his superiority has chosen to connect with us

who's chosen to connect with our heart

and I wanna um

illustrate again the vastness of the need for humility

uh using a deck of cards

um

so um

if I could have an assistant Andy

you wanna help me out real quick

come on up

this is not gonna turn into a magic show

I promise um

but Andy

if you would just kindly shuffle those cards

maybe four or five times

um you can use the

you're welcome to use the pulp it if you'd like

well this deck came out of my house

there's only uh

48 cards in it um

the rest are probably in the uh

dog's uh

cage or stomach um

so

so uh

now officially

you have to shuffle a brand new deck of cards maybe uh

seven times to get a full

good solid mix

but Andy's done it two or three times now so far

so uh

well well

well yeah

you can keep doing it a few more times if you want

so we'll pretend that there's 52 cards in this

because math but um

so here's your shuffle these cards

how many of you ever played cards before

who likes playing cards awesome

okay the rest of you

get up no

just kidding um

unless you have a religious exemption

then that's fine but um

so I know how many of you uh

at like

me maybe

grew up in a household where playing cards was like

this was a family gathering thing

this was a uncle's aunt's come over thing

this is part of the culture

yeah to some degree

okay yeah yeah

that was that was my household

a lot of a lot of card games

lots of lots of spades and crazy eights and

and everything um

and so

you've probably shuffled a lot of decks in your time

right and cards have been around for a very

very long time and people have been shuffling them for

probably that entire time right

yes so

and you shuffle these cards number time

you can stop now

you can just hold that above for everyone to see

yeah you can maybe uh

fan it out

so the people can see some of what's in there

I promise this isn't a magic trick

just hold me I I well

I may have a big one so

what do you think the chances are

that this deck of 52 cards

is arranged the exact same way

that another deck of cards has been

at some point in human history

in all of the times that cards have been shuffled

over and over and over again

millions and billions of times

surely

how many of you think that there's a chance that

at some point in history

there was this exact arrangement of cards

in this order

how many of you think that's a possibility

okay

it is of course

a possibility that could happen

but it's actually significantly more likely

that it's an order that's never been done before ever

um you can sit those down for now

and let's give Andy a big hand for his assistant

um

the way mathematically

that you would express how many possible combinations

a 52 card deck could have

on random shuffling is a number called 52 factorial

um sorry for the non math people

I'm a non math person

I'll get it out of math as quickly as I can

um

52 factorial is 1 * 2 times three times 4 * 5

all the way up to 52 that is how you would calculate

the possible combinations

what you will get if you do that is a number that is 8

with about 87 zeros after it

a number that is greater than the atoms

in the visible universe

now numbers like this

are really hard for us to get a grip on

because even if I explain

the number of atoms that are in your hand um

it's in the nonillions if you're curious

um that's 10 with 27 zeros

if I'm not mistaken um

that's a hard number to grip with

and then

we get to all of the atoms in the observable universe

that's crazy that's

that's just kind of it gets big in a way

that's hard for us to get a grip on

right and so I've heard an example of how to

how to begin to grasp a number like this

and I'll try to explain it as briefly as I can

so you set a timer on your phone and you hit start

and we want to have 52 factorial seconds

that's how long we want it to go for

so how can we time this out

cause it gets boring

just looking at your phone while it's ticking

you know makes it take longer

so what you would do is go to the equator of the earth

wait for one billion years

and then take one step

and then you'd wait for another billion years

and take one step and you'd continue doing this

with your timer running the entire time

until you made it all the way around the earth

to the exact same spot that you were

and then you would take an eyedropper

and take one drop of water out of the Pacific Ocean

and put it in a bowl

and then you would wait a billion years

and take another step go away all the way around again

another drop of water from the Pacific Ocean

put it in a bowl

do this until the Pacific Ocean is empty

and is in your very large bowl

lay one sheet of paper down

what is happening

walk around the earth again

taking one step every billion years

and put one drop back in the ocean

until it's completely full again

once it's completely full

put a second sheet of paper down

do this again and again and again

when the stack of paper has reached the sun

you're still not even close

once the stack of paper

that has taken all of these trips around the world

waiting one billion years at a time

once 1,000 stacks of paper have reached the sun

oh my god

you are a third of the way there

you are a third of the way there in seconds

so even in this very absurd

not super realistic you can walk on water

I guess Jesus is into figuring out the math of this

apparently um

you know walking around the world

it's still so hard for us to grasp the

that a number this large

that something so simple as a deck of cards

could have that many combinations

good thing to remember next time you wanna go to Vegas

um

but

if we have to struggle

and make absurd symbols and thought experiments

to begin to kind of understand

the complexity

of the arrangement of 52 similar objects

can we begin to engage that

we might not understand how to run a country

the best way

that we might not know how to raise children

the best way

that the Instagram mom who's telling you

this is what your kids should eat

and this is what your kids should do

and how they should wake up

and this is what it is to be a loving parent

if you're not doing this that you're failing

that they might not really have a clue either

that

it it

if we whenever we forget that we are human

we forget how small we are

when we forget how limited our capacity is

in the face of God's nature

we begin to take pride in our own knowledge

and our own understanding

and begin to build empires that are built on very

very silly ideas that are very small

and I'm not saying just give up and say

I can't know anything or I can't be certain of anything

well that is

perhaps a temptation when we come to this realization

instead let this produce the fear of the Lord

the recognition that we are not god

and he is god that

that when things that we are hoping will be good

when people we hope are being good

when there is conflict when there is challenge

when there is tragedy

to recognize that even though we may have very

very strong convictions around a subject

those may or may not be founded on God's nature

that doesn't mean we do not respond

and act according to those convictions

it instead

means that we always carry it

with the fear of the Lord

that we are not certain

if our ideas are of his nature or not

and that we cannot be certain of that

The Book of job

is a rebuttal to the rest of the wisdom literature

the majority of the wisdom literature in the Bible

not because the Bible is disagreeing with itself

at least in my opinion well

I guess I'd put it this way uh

because the Bible is

intentionally disagreeing with itself

because God's nature is vast

his character his capacity

who he is is so vast

that we cannot adequately describe him

without what seems like an imbalance to us

without wrestling with the tension between yes

you should get to live a good life yes

you should live in accordance with the book of Proverbs

yes

you should do all the things that you know to be good

yet you should recognize God's nature

is so vast I cannot

I can only barely begin to understand

how the organization of a deck of 52 cards work

how can I presume to understand anything else

does this make sense to you guys

and when that realization falls on a person

who has their identity rooted in Christ

it doesn't produce shame

it doesn't produce disconnection

it produces a childlike heart

that comes to god as a father saying hey

I'm doing my best I'm doing what's right

a heart that can show up the way that job did

and so many others show up to god throughout scripture

being very very honest with the pain

with the suffering with the confusion

and the sense of injustice that's being experienced

and it is in that that I believe god will meet you

as he met job as he met uh

doubting Thomas as he met so many throughout history

and in our own lives and in Scripture

it's only in that vulnerability

that we'll actually get that need met

the attempt to let mankind's wisdom satisfy

the suffering that's in your heart

will always leave you hollow

will always be an incomplete picture

will always

uh be incomplete in its satisfaction

it's only in an encounter with the Lord

that we can get the comfort that we need

for the problems that are in our midst

and can become the kind of people

who can contribute to the answers

for the problems that are much larger than us

throughout the rest of the world

does that does that make sense to you guys

and so with this

I wanna encourage you to pursue the fear of the Lord

to recognize parts of your thinking

parts of your belief system

that are built more on uncertainty

than on the fear of the Lord

because I think in this season um

the world is hungry for people

who carry the fear of the Lord

and just as god opposes the proud

and gives Grace to the humble

I actually believe that people are designed

to do the same thing

and I think that some of the rejection

that Christianity has experienced

uh especially in recent years um

has more to do with some of the pride

with which we've carried God's kingdom uh

rather than the badness of

of the world

because when I see the life of Jesus

I see the people that were

in many ways most riddled with sin

attracted to him transformed by him

changed by him renewed in him

but initially attracted to him

and so I believe that in this season

the Lord is releasing purification uh

not not just through church leaders

but through his people and this starts with the heart

and for me this starts with exercising the posture

of the fear of the Lord

the recognition that he is god and I am not

that I am even if I am very intelligent

I can only see the world through a tiny

tiny little lens and he can see much more

so I'm gonna ask you guys to stand

so Lord

I just wanna bless just uh

three 3 groups of people

um First Lord I

I just release a special blessing

for anyone who is feeling

like job where you're just in the middle of calamity

you're in the middle of disaster

you're in the middle of loss

and the confusion the uncertainty

the pain of that

feels like it just takes every moment of every day

I just pray that right now

first of all

we'd be able to embrace some of those feelings

to allow ourselves to feel frustrated

to feel disappointed to feel uh

the injustice to feel the

the fear whatever it is

not so that we can wallow in those feelings

but so that we can seek the comfort of our father

in those places I pray

Lord for any person who is feeling

in any kind of season that's similar to job

that they would experience your voice in the whirlwind

that speaks to you personally

and yes

may release correction may release adjustment

but that the result of it

just as it was with job

would be an experience of comfort

of your need being met of the cry

of your heart being met in the place that you need it

father I pray for anyone who

knowingly or unknowingly

is wrestling with an empire of the mind a

a mindset

that was either handed to them by their father

or their mother or their history or their legacy

or some part of their education or a pastor

but something that they have held on to

a way of posturing themselves

maybe in their relationship with their children

in the relationship with their husband or wife

in the relationship with friends

something that is causing disconnection

any area father

where our pride places

that we have constructed our idea of right

and died on a hill that Jesus wouldn't have died on

Lord I ask for the

for your mercy to help us see this

to help us recognize this

and we recognize that when you bring correction

father it comes with comfort

proportional to the size of that correction that

that we would not walk away from that experience

ashamed beating ourselves up

that we would in the fear of the Lord

recognize of course I need correction

of course I'm failing

in ways that I couldn't possibly understand

of course I miss something here

he's god and I'm not

that could happen in any part of my life

and Lord

lastly I pray for anyone who has been in a season

where they have felt a little bit like job in

in the aspect of friends

who are trying to meet the need

and maybe even genuinely

trying to meet the needs in their life

but it felt like it has not hit their heart

it has not hit that spot

it has not touched that place of need

I pray for two things father

I pray that if there are other friends

or other people who carry what that person needs

that they will be able to see

and recognize those people

for who they are

that the people that are connected to them

would experience the transformation of your Grace

Lord

and that they would be able to say what you're saying

just rather than saying what what

what they think Lord

but I also pray for the person

who's been on the receiving end

of people who are maybe offering kindness

uh justifications

encouragement explanations

that their heart would be able to

with you discover

the true nature of the need that they are experiencing

Lord so that they can not only seek that in you Lord

but they can ask for that more effectively

from people around them Lord

that they would be able to take responsibility

for pulling what they need from their environment

from the people around them

Lord

that anyone who has felt stuck or lonely

in any of these spaces father

that you would encounter them

and equip them to connect with others

Lord so that just like job

every one of us can grow to be old and full of days

carrying the history of a life

that has been transformed by God's Grace

I ask that for every single one of us

in Jesus name amen

thanks so much everybody