Stage 4: Journey Inward | John Challinor

Morning church. Did anybody else feel like God just, you know, he teased us a little bit yesterday.

Anybody else feel that the clouds rolled in and we're like, oh, it's going to rain.

And then it didn't, you know, and then I woke up this morning and I'm like clouds. Nope. Back to

blue sky. So yeah, if you felt that way, I felt that way. And then on top of that, not only did

we not get rain, we got more wind, which helps that thing called allergies. And so if you're new

to the Prescott area, welcome to allergies. I never had them until I moved here. So join the club, but

welcome to those of you on our online locations, Baghdad, that is you, Randy. I saw that you're out

there. Welcome to you. We're so glad you're with us today and we get to journey alongside each other.

Paulden, Mike and Sue, we love you, love your crew and what's going on there in Paulden. And just

pray that it's special today for you guys as you gather together. We have Sheila in Canton, Ohio.

Welcome to you. Glad that you are with us. Yeah, we can give it up for Sheila.

And then you heard Todd mentioned overflow in this building out there right now. So while

you're in here, there's people sitting in grafted. So can we just say good morning to them? They can

hear you. Part of what we are is, is if you, you hang around as long enough, you're going to hear

this family language. And if you notice what families do, families grow, right? And so there's

this natural kind of happening that as a family grows, needs begin to change within that family.

And so I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago, I got to speak to our youth students

on a Wednesday night. You guys were amazing. Thanks for listening.

But here's what I noticed. I go into age two and I'm speaking to our middle schoolers.

And there's on the average now over a hundred middle schoolers that are gathering on Wednesdays,

which is unreal. But here's what I want you to catch. I go in to speak and I open my Bible

and I can barely read it. And it's not because I'm old and it's because the lighting is that bad.

Right? And so what's happened is the family's grown, the needs that happen in that building.

That building, we would love to use that building for celebrations, like different things that come

along within our church family that we'd like to celebrate, like a wedding. We'd also love to use

that building for celebrating and walking through the hardest part of losing someone and doing

memorials. And right now that space is inadequate because our needs have grown. The groups that use

that space have grown. And then the next night I got to go to Park Collective in Prescott Valley

in the Commons area. I don't know if you know, if you're like me, you're like, we called it the

Commons. It's called the Commons because so many groups use that space. If you've been to Park

Collective, that mural that's on the wall right behind the park, behind that there's a room that's

called the Commons. And in that room, it is our most used space across any location. There are

groups gathered in there almost every day of the week, whether that be an afterschool group that's

in there Monday through Friday. On Wednesday nights, you have two different groups. One is

in the Commons side, one's in the main room. You have Bible study, women's Bible study meets in

there. We do our meals for the community in there. And so if you've been to a Saturday night meal,

that's the room that that's happening in. Also along with that, you've got Alpha that meets in

there. If you don't know what Alpha is, Alpha is a group of people that get together. It's kind of

a, I think it's eight weeks or nine weeks, something like that. But you walk through

questions. If you've got questions about recovery, you can go to the Commons.

If you've got questions about God, it's a safe space at any stage of the journey to ask questions.

And so all these groups are gathering in there. While I got to go, I spoke at Youth here on

Wednesday and Thursday, I got to go and see Youth in Prescott Valley. I have done Youth for quite a

few years in the Prescott area. I will tell you the things that our kids and PV are dealing with,

the kids that are showing up, they are carrying major, major. It doesn't mean kids here or students

here aren't, but it does mean this, that the ground there is hard going. The gospel is deeply needed.

And what I'll tell you is, as I stood there watching a portable sound system, where students

in the room, if one of them said something, you couldn't hear what was coming from Noah,

who was teaching that night. And I just looked at it and went, our needs have grown. We've grown as

a family. And so with that in mind, and with that, began to look at, okay, if we've grown to this

point now, one of the things that naturally happens is you have rhythms within the church calendar.

You have a spring kickoff and a fall kickoff. And so we began to speak, talk as leadership and began

to look at, well, what do we do to prepare for and meet the needs of those groups that are in those

spaces better? How do we create spaces where, if you go back to Romans, you hear about Jesus,

right? You come to faith by hearing the word and then somebody's got to speak the word. Well,

you got to hear it. And so if you're in a space where that's inadequate, that's going to be hard

for you to make that connection. And so we just began to talk about what would it look like?

One of the elders I love, he comes to me and he goes, Hey, just tell the church what you need.

I'm like, I'm not good at that. So here you go. What we're doing in the month of March,

so that we can get set up for the fall in those spaces is in the month of March, we are

challenging our church family, inviting our church family, whatever language that's better for you

to go above and beyond. So if you give on a consistent basis, that goes towards the budget.

This is not in the budget. We have grown quicker than we had planned for. And so the idea is that

in the month of March, we're trying to raise 200,000, right? So we're looking in going, Hey,

this is the need. It's 200,000 to do what needs to be done in those spaces to make it adequate.

And so we're asking the church family, this service, all the other services, our online family,

would you be a part of helping the gospel make it to people, right? Would you be a part of loving

these groups and these communities? And so if that's you, you'll find that when you go online,

that when you get there, you'll see a short-term facilities vision. You can do it that way. If it's

by check, you just write on there, short-term vision, and that works too. But the idea is this,

that by the fall, we want to be set up to adequately do what we need to do. And it's all of us as a

family, we get to meet the needs that God's put in our lap. And so we'll see what happens, see what

God does. We'll keep you updated as we go. Okay. So we've been in a conversation and the conversation

is around the critical journey. I want to do something really quick to help you kind of reframe

know where we are on that journey. And so we have a graphic that I would love to show you that kind

of helps you just see what have we covered so far and where are we going? Cause we're kind of in the

midpoint of this journey, a little past midpoint. And so if you remember stage one was there has to

be a recognition of God, right? And the critical journey, critical journey is not our language.

It's a book that was written. We're just using it to frame up how you map the spiritual journey,

so to speak, how you map maturity and faith. And so recognition of God is I give my life to Jesus,

whether as savior and Lord, however that works, whenever that works. But the idea is that I've

had a recognition of God. And inside of that now, I just want to learn. I just want to know more.

I had a friend of mine who was here for that first week and went, I just need to know more.

Right? And so she contacted a friend that has been a believer for a while. And that lady now,

they're doing a Bible study together. And so it's this beautiful thing of just that need to go,

I need to know more. I need to grow. And so life of discipleship begins to teach you things like,

if you've never read your Bible, how to read your Bible. If you've never had a prayer life,

how to have a prayer life, what it looks like. And what you get from that is you begin to understand

that God made you unique. He has a plan for your life. There's a call on your life. And he gave

you gifts for the kingdom of God. And so within that, you naturally get pushed towards a productive

stage where you begin to work for God. You begin to take all the gifts, all the things, and you

begin to put them into practice. And that sounds great, except for life's not that clean. Right?

When you think about this, don't think linear, even though it feels like that. It's not, I go

from one to the next. The reality is I may be serving God. I may be have a productive life for

God. I'm doing work for God, but I am having fresh recognition of God inside of doing work for God.

I may be bolstering up my life of discipleship while I'm in a productive life. I may be in a

life of discipleship and having fresh recognition of God. It's not this clean, once you're done,

that's it. You move on. It's this thing that you continue to grow. And so last week, we talked

specifically about the wall. And when you hit the wall, it is a pain that you cannot get around.

And that pain is designed to bring you face to face with the living God. It's designed to bring

your will with God's will. It's designed to bring you to a point where you recognize Him as God

and you surrender your ego. And then that can happen. You'll see it's next to stage four,

the journey inward. We're going to talk about that today. But the idea is the wall could be

the beginning of your journey inward. It could be in the middle. It could be something God uses at

the end. But the idea of the wall is that it's something that God is using for you to lay down

your will, your ego. And then you'll notice it carries on to the journey outward. We'll talk

about that next week. And then notice where it ends with the life of love. Where is all this going?

That you would love like God created you to, that you would love like Jesus, that your life would be

marked when someone thinks of you, they think of how well you love people. They don't think about

how smart you are. And in fact, we'll get into this in weeks to come. When people reach the life of

love, they've kind of lost touch with everything else that matters to everyone else. And they

just literally, they go, my life is to be given away for others. And it's this beautiful expression

of what Jesus did for us. Now, this week we are in the journey inward. And I asked you to take a risk

last week. I'm going to take a risk this week. I'm going to read you the rabbit listened. Okay.

You're already laughing. This could be, just kidding.

One day Taylor decided to build something, something new, something special,

something amazing. Taylor was so proud, but then out of nowhere, you got to watch out for those

ravens. I'm just saying things came crashing down. The chicken was the first to notice.

What a shame. I am so sorry, sorry, sorry. This happened. Let's talk, talk, talk about it.

But Taylor didn't feel like talking. So the chicken left. Next came the bear.

How horrible. I bet you feel so angry. Let's shout about it.

But Taylor didn't feel like shouting. So the bear left. The elephant knew just what to do.

I can fix this. We just need to remember exactly the way things are.

But Taylor didn't feel like remembering. So the elephant also left. One by one, they came.

The hyena. Let's laugh. The elephant just laughed. The elephant just laughed.

The hyena just laughed. We introduced ourselves a little bit each time Stephen makes this.

, one by one, they came. The elephant came up.

The hyena did not think.

let's throw it all away and the snake, let's go knock down someone else's.

But Taylor didn't feel like doing anything with anybody. So eventually they all left

until Taylor was all alone. The journey inward maybe is best categorized by being deeply personal,

being disruptive, being painful, and at the end of it you feel like you are completely isolated and

alone. The journey inward will often make you feel like I am the only one who feels this way,

who is experiencing this. I'm the only one. No one else understands, but here is what the journey

inward is doing. You will be forced to ask yourself questions. The journey inward will

force you to ask questions of God. What do I mean by that? If you've ever been around someone who

has lost a child, I can't even imagine. I pray that it's never part of my story.

But if you've been around somebody who has, it's really easy to ask, you say God is good, but is He

good? If you've been around somebody who has lost their job, it is easy for them to go, hey, you said

He's provider, but is He really? Is He really provider? These questions that flow naturally

out of the wall, out of this pain, that force you to go inside your own soul to be healed, to be

put back together so that what is the goal of the journey inward? That when you come out the other

side of the journey inward, what happens is you accept reality with joy. You see, the wall is to

bring you to your knees. The wall is your will meeting God's will. It's your surrender. It's your

acceptance. It's your awareness. It's your beginning of the death of ego, where your will,

you realize, is not aligned. What the journey inward is doing is taking your will and your ego

and you die to self. You die to what you want so that you can sit in the reality of what God has

given and you can do it with joy. There is such a difference between God, I accept this. I don't like

it versus going, God, I accept reality with joy. This is my body. This is my life. This is my home.

This is my marriage. These are my kids. This is my story. It's a much different experience. The

Bible, I love that the Bible didn't just give us the moments of the super saints. It didn't just

give us these stories where you're like, oh, I could never attain that. In Matthew 16, verse 21,

Matthew 16:21

there's a moment in Peter's life and the moment in Peter's life comes on a highlight reel.

Jesus has asked him, hey, Peter, who do you say I am? You're the Messiah. You're the chosen one.

You're the one we've been waiting for. You are the savior of the world, to which Jesus replies,

Peter, you couldn't have known that unless God revealed it. It's this highlight reel moment so

much so that God goes, hey, Peter, on you, I'm going to build my church on this rock. He tells

I'm going to build my church on this rock. He tells everybody I'm going to build my church.

And then this is what we have recorded next. Verse 21, from that time on, Jesus began to explain

to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders,

the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day

be raised to life. Peter took him aside. Okay. Him is God in human form, just so we're clear, right?

Like he takes Jesus and pulls him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said,

this shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a

stumbling block to me, and you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

I mean, this is a moment for Peter, right? I don't think there's anybody in the room that goes,

oh, I wish Jesus would look at me and go get behind me, Satan. Right? Like I don't think

there's any of us that want that experience, but Peter is holding onto a truth, right? That Peter

is going, this is my will and my understanding. And so in this moment, what's happening is what

he thinks the savior should be, what he thinks the Messiah should be. It is not lining up with what

Peter has come to believe. And what it's creating in Peter is a crisis of faith. What it's creating

in Peter and what can often feel true in the journey inward is that you feel like you are losing

your faith. That there is a theological point. There's something that I know about God, this

biblical truth that has been challenged. And because it's been challenged, now I feel like

everything else is in crisis. And with Peter, you have this moment where he's got this view of what

God should do. If you're the Messiah, here's what the Messiah is going to do. So what you're saying

right now, Jesus, does not make sense. I will not accept it. It's not the way it's going to go.

To which then Jesus goes, hey, you've got your concerns in mind, not my concerns in mind. It's

the death of the will. He has an invitation by God to die to himself. It's interesting.

Kind of a buzzword in Christian circles, buzzword in our culture has become deconstruction.

Right? And so, common story, you go to high school, you're in a youth group, you graduate,

you go to college, and at college somebody comes along and they challenge something that you say.

They challenge something that you believe. And because our theology is more like a brick wall,

that brick begins to crack and crumble because of what you've been challenged with. And all of a

sudden the whole wall comes down. And what happens is if we begin to look at things,

that we begin to look at biblical truth and we hold everything as accurate as I believe it,

I'm just here to tell you that what I believed in my twenties, I don't believe in my forties.

Right? God has matured and changed me. He's changed the way I view this book.

He's changed the truth that I understand in this book. And so we have to create space.

Our growth as we mature has to create space. Now, don't get me wrong. Don't walk out of here and go,

well, we don't believe in it. No, no, no. Jesus, the centrality of Jesus, and Jesus is the Son of

God, and Jesus went to the cross and paid my penalty that I could not pay, that He was raised

to life again. And resurrection, because resurrection is real, I have new life today

and I will live with Him forever. That's not up for debate. But there are so many other things

that you've picked up along the way that you think is true, like Peter going, hey, when the Messiah

comes, the Messiah is going to save us physically. He's going to go and get rid of Rome. So no, you

can't go and die, Jesus. And now all of a sudden, His faith is shaken. I heard this picture of this.

It's not mine. I heard it this week. There was another speaker and he was talking about

the idea of a house, right? So if you can't, a little while ago, there was a knock on my door,

and I didn't realize this was controversial till I said it out loud on the stage.

But there was a knock on my door and it was a guy who has a roofing company, and he came

to my house after a hailstorm and he goes, hey, it looks like your roof has damage.

You know, your insurance will pay for that. And I'm like, hey, if my insurance will pay for it,

sounds like a good deal to me, right? Well, he didn't know. He didn't know. He didn't know.

What he didn't know is that ever since we moved into that house, we've been fighting a leak

in the roof. Now, how ridiculous would it sound if I looked at him and went, you know what? We don't

want a new roof. That one's leaking. We're just going to rip the whole house down and start again.

You'd be like, bro, your house had a leak, right? Go fix the leak. But isn't it interesting when it

comes to faith and theology, there's one part that doesn't line up with what we thought.

There's one part that's challenged, and we go tear the whole thing down,

right? Destroy the whole house. No, no, no. You deconstruct to reconstruct.

We deconstructed our roof. Why? So that we could reconstruct and fix what? The leak.

And so somewhere along the way within our culture, we've got this thing of, well, if I come across

one thing, it's like a thread, and I'm just going to keep pulling it, and the whole thing unravels.

It's not meant to be that way. The journey inward, hear me please. If you hear nothing else,

the journey inward, you asking questions at your core, you figuring out what you really believe

is just as vital, just as vital in your maturity to a life of love, your maturity to be like Jesus

as it is that you step into a life of discipleship in stage two. It's just as important as you

getting a productive life, you stepping out and doing work for God. It's just as important

as those. It's a necessary step that you would have a moment where you feel like I am losing my

faith. It's so important that we don't run away from it. It's so important that we don't abandon

it. You think about what happens. People come and they have questions, and what often happens?

We don't have answers, so who gets nervous? We get nervous. We don't have answers for their questions,

right? And so what happens is we begin to push them away, and pretty soon they begin to pull away.

And before you know it, they are outside of any church family, any community, and they are left

in this deep questioning that guess what? Somebody will come alongside them and validate.

And church, we have to be a place. We have to be a place where people can wrestle with their faith

and not be afraid because it is a necessary part of growth. And in this context, Peter, right,

you go a couple of chapters later, and they just got done with the communion meal that we talk about

often in here. They sang a hymn, and now they're on the way out, and it says in verse 31, chapter

26, 31, then Jesus told them, this very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is

written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have

risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee. Peter, here's Peter again, Peter replies, even if all fall

away on account of you, I never will. Truly I tell you, Jesus answered, this very night before the

rooster crows, you will disown me three times. But Peter declared, even if I have to die with you,

I will never disown you. All the other disciples said the same. What do you have after this? They

go out into the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus begins to become troubled. Jesus goes and prays,

and he begins to pray, hey, could you take this away from me? What's going on? Is there any other

way? And he's aligning his will with God's. He comes back, right? He's taken Peter and two others.

He comes back to them and they're asleep. And all he'd asked them to do is stay awake for one hour.

This is, remember, this is Peter who had just said what? I will die. Right? And here he is.

It's only an hour, champ. I'm just so tired. And everything begins to shake for Peter, from his

belief about what the Messiah was doing to this moment now in a garden where he sees Jesus

troubled and it's all too much. And then is that the last, in verse 46, it says rise, let us go.

Here comes my betrayer. So as they're leaving the garden, verse 47, while he was still speaking,

Judas, one of the 12 arrived with him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the

chief priests and the elders of the people. What happens? Jesus is arrested and he is taken.

What happens? Jesus is arrested and he is taken. One of the things that happened

in the stage of the journey inward is that you are going to feel like you have a loss of things

that were once certain. Things that you were so sure on at one point, like Peter, I'll die with

you. This is not going to happen. And now he has no control over what's happening. Right? Did he not

believe it? No, I think he believed it. And you're going to have these moments where the certain,

you were so sure this was a hill you would die on. And now all of a sudden you're going, I'm not so

certain. Why? Because of the wall you faced and now the questions that are coming. And you begin to

wrestle with those questions. And the more you wrestle with those questions, the less that you

find you have answers. I can remember coming out of Bible college, man. I was like, I know this

book inside out. We studied it. Right? Like I'll tell you what it is. And I told everybody what it

was. I would argue in a heartbeat. You know who was normally arguing with me? Now that I think back,

people the same age who all thought they had the answers. You know who wasn't arguing? People who

had journeyed with Jesus awhile. Because the longer you journey with Jesus, the less answers you feel

you have. There's less hills you'll die on. Why? Because within the journey inward, there is a

loss of certainty, which sounds terrifying. Why? Because we all want security. We all want certainty.

We all want our cute little boxes. I love that when you read some of the Psalms in Psalm 42,

it says, as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. Sound like a song?

Anybody remember a song? As the deer pants for the water. Right? And it sounds so cute. Maybe you've

seen a picture. And the picture is it's lush, it's green, and there's this deer and it's down by the

stream and the brook is flowing. That is not the picture that's created here. As the deer pants for

streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with him? There is a desperation. The picture that is given here

is that the deer was so thirsty and at that point where I just, I have to get a drink,

went down to the brook and the brook was dry. And now there's this desperation of where can I go?

Where can I go to quench this thirst? The Psalmist is in the midst of wanting answers.

Life has changed for the Psalmist. There's later in here where it's believed that the names that

are used are as far away from the temple that you can get in Israel at that time. There is

distance between the Psalmist and between God. And the Psalmist is speaking to that distance.

I don't feel you anymore. You're not present anymore.

My tears, verse three, my tears have been my food day and night while people say to me all day long,

where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go to the

house of God under the protection of the mighty one with shouts of joy and praise among the festive

throng. Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? That word disturbed

can be translated depressed. Why are you depressed internally? Put your hope in God. That word hope

can be weight, weight on God, for I will yet praise him my savior and my God. What is the

Psalmist doing? He's putting language to this deep ache of the journey inward where my soul is so dry.

My soul is so burdened. I heard it put this way this week. Have you ever been to church and you

well, you've been to church, you're here, right? But you got here and you went to worship and it

tasted like there was ash in your mouth. Is there maybe no better description of just the dryness

that you came to worship and it was dry. It felt empty. You sat and you've prayed and you're like,

I swear my prayers aren't making it past the ceiling. You sit and you pray and you're like,

God, you're not answering. I don't hear you. You're not doing what you've normally done.

That's what the Psalmist is saying. The things that I've normally done, they're not

working. Why? Because God is moving the Psalmist through an inward journey.

Why? The Psalmist would come to a point to die to self and accept the reality with joy.

It's this incredible moment. You think about Peter, another characteristic of these moments

are that there's a box that God's got to stay in, right? And Peter kind of comes to the conclusion

or comes to a point where he realizes the box isn't working. In Matthew 26, now Peter was sitting

out in the courtyard and a servant girl came to him and said, I'm going to go to church.

And the servant girl came to him. You also were with Jesus of Galilee, she said, but he denied it.

So Jesus is on trial at this point, right? But he denied it before them all. I don't know what

you're talking about. He said, then he went out into the gateway where another servant

girl saw him and said to the people there, this fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth. He denied it

again with an oath. I don't know the man. After a little while, those standing there went up to

Peter and said, surely you are one of them. Your accent gives you a way. Then he began to call down

curses and swore to them, I don't know the man. Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered

the word of Jesus, the word Jesus had spoken before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.

And he went outside and wept bitterly. What will the inward journey do to you? It will show you a

God that does not fit your box. It will show you a God that is not going to act the way you think

he should act or demand that he acts. What is the inward journey doing? It is destroying these

preconceived ideas that if you are God and you are good, then you can only show up in this way.

If you are God and you are provider, then you can only do this.

I remember I was telling you about studying. I remember studying in the stream of theology I was

in, they had whole constructs built so that they could explain God's behavior.

And I'm just here to tell you, you will never have the market on God's behavior.

His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts are higher than ours. He is not going to fit a nice

clean box. And the problem is when we lose our box, it becomes really unsettling.

What I love about Peter's story, you guys, is he has to go through Good Friday. What is Good

Friday doing? It's pushing him into this journey that is so deep within himself that he's asking

questions. He is walking away, weeping bitterly. But what does Peter do? Peter comes out the other

side, right? He has to go through Friday. And Saturday when Jesus is buried and Jesus is in

the tomb, it's silent. And then Jesus is raised to life. New life has come. And it's a picture

of what happens that you have to make it through Saturday. Why? Because new life is coming on the

journey with God. That you may be sitting today going, I've got more questions than I got answers,

John. It's okay. Keep going. Don't give up. Sunday's coming. I mean, are we not surprised

that who gets to preach the very first message? Who is it? It's Peter. God chooses Peter,

who has gone through a journey with God where God brings him to accept with joy in John 21,

the reality of who he is and who God is. But you got to keep going.

You have to keep pressing in. There's a time in my life, in my backyard,

the elders that come is roughly about a decade old. And I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to

lie. The elders that come is roughly about a decade ago. The elders that come and gone, hey,

we need you to take a break. And at that point, youth ministry was thriving. The church was

doing well. We'd taken some new ground, new ideas, new vision. God was moving and we're trying to

fall. And the elders came and said, we need you to take a break. And I'm going to be honest with you.

Well, good luck without me. In my backyard, God began to ask me questions as I remodeled my backyard.

I don't know if you've dug with a pick in Arizona. Some of you have. It's all rocks.

And God's just asking me questions that I don't have answers to. And I'm trying to justify my

behavior. And he's asking me, John, there was a three day period where my hands are blistered.

I'm frustrated. Still digging. It's hot. And he's asking, John, is it enough if you are a son

and nothing else? Yeah. But, and I go into the hole, but you gave me these gifts and I got to use

these gifts and no, no, no, no, John, is it enough that you are just a son? Yeah. But God, I'm so

valuable. No, no, no, no. Is it enough that you are just, and it came to the point where I finally

surrendered and went, God, I accept that if all I ever am in your kingdom is a son, that's enough.

And for the next three months, God did surgery on the inside of me. Why? Because your spirituality

and your emotions, your will, your psychology needs to be fully healed.

And the journey inward is how God takes everything that you think is spiritual

and changes your soul with what it means to be connected to the living God.

And it is deeply painful. And it is painful to be connected to the living God.

And it is deeply painful. It's completely disrupting. It is not convenient in the slightest.

So what do you do? You remember our little friend, Taylor? Taylor's all alone.

In the quiet, Taylor didn't even notice the rabbit, but it moved closer and closer

until Taylor could feel its warm body. They sat in silence until Taylor said, please stay.

With me, the rabbit listened, the rabbit listened as Taylor talked.

The rabbit listened as Taylor shouted.

The rabbit listened as Taylor remembered and laughed.

The rabbit listened as Taylor cried out in the silence.

and laughed. The rabbit listened to Taylor's plans to hide, to throw everything away, to ruin things

for someone else. Through it all, the rabbit never left. And when the time was right, the rabbit

listened to Taylor's plan to build again. I can't wait, Taylor said. It's going to be amazing.

What do you do with someone who you know who is journeying through the inward journey? Just be

there. Just show up. Don't feel like you got to have all the answers. Don't feel like you got to

fix them. Don't get scared by all of the things that they're struggling with, but just show up.

Pray and be present. And what? Just listen. It's God's job to walk them through the journey inward,

not yours. Yours is to be there. If you're in the inward journey today, don't give up. Sunday is

coming. Resurrection, new life is coming. It is worth it. There is life on the other side. I know

today it might feel dark. I know today it might feel like you don't have answers, but just keep

going. Keep praying. God is present and he is providing. Don't give up. I love that both

responses that the person in it prays and the person with them prays. What I love about it is

this, that the Bible talks about your prayers rising up like incense to the throne room of God,

and he collects it in a bowl and it becomes the fragrance. Your prayers are the fragrance

of heaven. And so while you think I'm not doing much, your prayers are in the very presence of

God today. So keep going. Keep showing up. Would you pray with me? God, thank you. Thank you for

being the God who is in it with us. Thank you for being a God who is not in a box. The God,

you don't have to do what we tell you to do, but we honor you as God and we accept your will with

joy. And so God, would you help those that are walking through the journey inward? Would you give

them strength? Would you give them courage? Would you allow them to keep going on days they don't

want to? Would you allow them to stay connected? God, for those that are walking alongside,

would you allow them to just show up, to be present, to pray and to walk with them?

God, as we pray and we worship, we know today that in heaven, in heaven, it is incense to you. Thank

you for caring so much about what we do that it would be the very fragrance you are surrounded

by. Thank you for your love. Thank you that you don't give up on us.