Do THIS For Your Peace Of Mind

And one of the best things we can do for

our peace of mind is to crucify our expectations of others.

I mean, really, just put it up there on the

cross and get to the place where we no longer

have an expectation of people to meet our needs, because

we understand that our water flows from a different rock,

that our joy flows from a different place. Come on, Epham,

shout at the phone that I don't I don't depend

on people to provide for.

Me what God has promised. It's already mine.

And so they got really upset man and and then

Moses got upset, and he went to God and he

wanted God to be upset like he was upset. And

Moses was mad because God wasn't mad.

That's that's what happened here. He was disappointed. It never stops,

after all I've done for you. I've been here before.

I have been here.

Before, even even in high school when I was the

athletic trainer water boy for the football team.

Coach Meyer recruited me to be the athletic trainer, said

you could get a scholarship.

And one day I was mixing.

That gatorade so sweet, and I thought, I don't think

they give scholarships for this. I think he tricked me

into this. You know, I kind of didn't like it anyway.

It wasn't like I.

Really cared too much about football. Football is fine, I'll

turn it on.

I'm not like some of y'all fantasy lineups and stuff.

I got a real life. I'm skarting. I'm skinting. I'm

scarting this fine spins fine, fine skating.

I'm scarting this finees fine as fine. But man, it

was a relatively simple job. I did it for over

a year, and the main part of the job, you know,

every once in a while, they would let me tape

a wrist or an ankle. I think it wasn't even

really people that was hurt.

I think they just sent.

Cast members over because if anybody was really hurt, doctor

Bowen's came in. So I don't even think I was

really taping anybody.

I don't even think it was.

But I did have one one job, and every time

they would have a water break, it was my job to.

Turn on the water. That's right, Bobby Bouchet got nothing

on me. Well, I did it like clockwork. They blow

the whistle.

I was positioned close enough to the spickett which was

connected to the hose which went to the PVC pipe

in Monk's Corner. It was fancy with a PVC pipe

with the holes in it, trough of sorts with the water.

Would come out of the pipe.

But I was the man who turned it on, and

I turned it on about three or four times every practice.

And one day I went over there to turn it

on and nothing came out. I don't know who forgot

to pay the bill, but nothing came out. And those

football players went to drink and they lined up at

the PVC pipe and nothing happened. And they started yelling

at me, like these rebellious Israelites started yelling at Moses,

started yelling at me, calling me Steve. I don't even

go by Steve. There's an inn on my name, pronounced

the consonant. This ain't will of fortune, Oh, I was

mad yelling at me for the one time the water

didn't come on. Hundreds of times the water came on.

One time it didn't come on.

And guess what, I'm not controlling the water. I'm just

the one turning it on. So they were yelling at me.

So I wasn't saved, yet let me get that in.

So I turned around and said God bless all y'all,

only instead of God bless I've set some different BC

vocabulary that is not appropriate for this urch setting and

holy people such as yourself, and in that moment, I

forgot they were bigger than me, because I do have

a level of crazy that if it kicks in, I

will stop caring how much bigger you are. And I

would rather die than have you cussed me out. I

got in my Toyota church cell and I drove off.

So oh just kind of came back to me.

Man, I'm sorry because all these tons I get Moses's disappointment.

I really do.

All these times, and this one time, all I've done

for you, all the meals I've cooked, all the prayers

I've prayed, all the compliments I gave, all the Christmas

presents I bought, all the sacrifices I made, and you

mean this one thing, this one time, and now you

want to yell at me and disrespect me and ignore me.

I figure Moses is tired of being taken for granted,

tired of people just assuming that you're always going to

do it and it's just easy for you, until I

realized that Moses wasn't really disappointed with the people.

Moses was still dealing with.

A fear that he had carried with him since the

time God met him at the Burning Bush, impossibly before that,

forty years earlier, when he killed an Egyptian to try

to rescue one of his fellow Hebrews. And he never

really fit in because he was raised as an Egyptian,

but he was by birth a Hebrew. And when he

tried to defend the people that he was one of

from the people that he had had to live with,

Moses ended up having to run. That's why he ended

up in the wilderness with the shepherd staff to begin with.

And that's why when God met him at the bush,

Moses said, you got the wrong one.

Pick somebody stronger.

Pick somebody more capable, Pick somebody with more experience. Pick

somebody who doesn't struggle with what I struggle with, because

I'll let you down, God, and I'll let them down.

And not only not only is Moses dealing with this moment,

but he's dealing.

With forty years of frustration. Forty years of frustration.

That you could argue were the result of his lack

of faith when he didn't go in and fight and

take the land God had promised. In a sense, what

they're saying about Moses is true, and he knows it.

It's not him, it's not them that he is disappointed in.

So like for me realizing in my adult life that my.

Core fear and a lot of the reasons that I

withdraw and a lot of the reasons that I lash out.

It really came to me one time early in my

marriage to Holly, and it was a low key argument,

but all of a sudden it just kind of erupted

and I yelled at her, I'm not stupid.

I'm not stupid. It never stops.

I'm not stupid, she said. I didn't say you were stupid.

But I wasn't responding to what she said. I was

responding to what I felt somewhere in me was something

that told me that I didn't know enough, probably back

to my dad.

In some ways, he loved me.

It wasn't that he didn't love me, but he kind

of felt like it was him against the world and

he didn't have a full deck to play.

With because of the way he was raised.

And somewhere I probably started thinking that I was operating

in life out of a deficit of intelligence. And so

my first instinct when someone makes me feel stupid?

What a phrase? When they make me feel stupid?

How much power are you giving away to other people

when someone can make you feel stupid?

That's a weak mind.

But where that's where I find myself sometimes in that

mental wilderness, that mental wilderness, do you know what I'm

talking about? And I'm afraid. I'm afraid sometimes up here,

not that I'm going to get the Bible wrong or

that I'm going to dishonor God, but unfortunately that I

will disappoint you. And every time we start a new series,

I feel it, you know, because I try to create

expectation this is going to be the best series ever.

And then I hope Baby Jesus and Mother Mary and

the Holy Ghost will somehow help us, because.

I don't want to disappoint you.

And I'm sharing this autobiographically, but I'm wondering. It's like,

do a lot of us function in this place that

I don't want to disappoint you? And that's why I hide,

And now I find myself I don't even want to

pick up the phone when people call because now, if

I can text the back, I can carefully craft my response.

Even in the smallest ways, I see this fear.

I see myself withdrawing. I see myself wanting to isolate.

And it's a tendency that I don't fully understand because

I do love people.

I really do love people. I've always loved people.

I was the dude that hugged everybody in is graduating

high school class, the whole two one hundred and thirty

of them, hugged them all. But I find myself sometimes

wanting to withdraw, find myself wanting to walk out, find

myself wanting to get out, And I wonder why, you know, like,

am I losing my love for people? Is all this

getting to me? Like lights and cameras and all that.

But I realized I realized in the weirdest way one

day what it was when a lady said to me,

I've I've been going to your church seven years and

I've never met you, and I'm so sorry. I took

it like an accusation, you know.

She said, no, no, it's a big church we love. The

minister said, okay, good, I'm sorry. That's I'm really sorry, though,

that's bad. You haven't met your pastor in seven years.

I'm sorry. She said, it's fine, it's fine. Stop apologizing.

Now it's awkward because I'm making it awkward.

Then she made it awkward. She said, you're much taller

on the screen. Will that helped you already? See? I'm

insecure woman, but I don't want to let you down,

you know. So, So when Moses.

Has this moment and I'm calling in a moment, but

it's really not a moment because anytime something comes bursting

to the surface, like Moses hitting that rock twice when

God specifically spoke to him to speak to the rock,

not to strike it.

And I know why he struck the rock because this

is the third issue. It's the issue of dependent you know.

This staff was the thing that he carried with him.

Like Tom Hanks had a volleyball, Moses had a stick.

And now in this moment where the community needs water

and this is to be their last test, but they

don't know it. This is to be their last test

to see if they really trust God, and Moses fails

the test. What I could not understand is why did

God tell him to take the stick if he didn't

want him.

To use it? Why did God tell Moses take the staff.

And then don't use it, just hold it and speak

to the rock until I remember what Moses said to

God when God first called.

Moses, I'm not good at speaking. And before God could let.

Moses lead his people into the promise, he had to

know do you trust me enough? When God said Moses,

you can't lead the people, it wasn't for punishment, it

was for protection. If Moses would have led them in

in the condition that his heart was in, with years

and years and years and years of resentment building up.

They would have all got killed the first time God.

Spoken, they didn't do what he said because God needs

someone who is not dependent on their staff. I know

you struck the Red the Nile River, and the Red Sea,

and I know that this staff has been used to

perform great miracles. I want you to hold it in

your hand, but have the faith not to use it.

I want you to speak to the rock.

And he struck it instead, And God said, you don't

trust me enough. You've allowed this resentment to build to

a point that it has killed your potential. When we

allow resentment to build and build and build and build,

when we never really believe that we are what God

said we are.

When we are.

Constantly taking people's assessment of us as the ultimate reality,

it limits our participation in the promise of God.

It doesn't keep God from.

Loving you, but it keeps God from being able to

lead you into the great and precious promises that have

your name on them.

God said, I just need you to trust me. I

know you stutter, I know you stammer.

I know you're afraid of letting me down. But it's

never been about you, Moses. It was never about your mouth.

It was about my mighty hand and my outstretched arm.

It was never about your rod. It was about the rock.

So what are you trusting in today, my friend?

The rod or the rock? Hey, thank you for watching.

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