Pastor Phillip Deas

Well, good morning, one church family.

It is an honor for me to be here with you today.

And I know I do not have to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

You are some of the most blessed people in the world to have the leaders that you have in this house, Pastors Greg and Shaylen Ford.

Come on, can you just show them some love this morning?

Man.

Greg has been a great friend.

And listen, I say one church family intentionally because I am a part of the one church fam online, okay?

I am a watcher.

And I say that to let you know, if you hear something that sounds really familiar, I'm telling you right now so that, I mean, I mean, no, listen, when I came, I said I had to double check, like make sure, like, you know, Pastor Greg didn't preach this message before, right?

Like that I didn't take this message from him and then re-preach it to you.

And so I just I need to let you know.

So if you sound something, if you hear something really familiar, you can say, I mean, this guy might be a thief, at least he's an honest thief.

Okay, he told us in advance, I love your pastor, I love what he teaches, I love what he preaches, and I honor him today.

Happy to be here.

Um, not only uh am I part of the One Church family, I have my own family in Louisiana.

I want to introduce uh them to you today.

We've got a picture that's gonna be going up on the screen.

My wife, Destiny, we've been married for 18 years.

She graduated uh from Duke Law School.

She works at our church, runs three businesses, raised five kids, and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

I know what you're thinking right now.

Why in the heck did she marry him?

We have had five children.

That's Carolina Lee, our oldest, Julieta Marie, Ella Francesca, and then our two boys Jacob and Coda.

And that family picture is complete.

There will be no more children joining us on this journey.

At least that's our prayer.

Okay.

Hey, I'm really happy to be a part of this lemonade series, uh, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

And if you've been here for the last few weeks, you know that we are in the story of Joseph.

And the story of Joseph is really a story about the lemons of disappointment.

You know, Jake uh Joseph was the favorite son.

He got a special code, he had this big dream that he had shared with his brothers.

His brothers didn't really like that dream, and finally, his brothers got to the place where they had just kind of had enough of Joseph, and they devised this plan that they're going to kill their little brother, tell their dad it was an accident.

They had this whole plan, and then all of a sudden they got a better idea.

As they had thrown him in the pit, coming up with the plan of how they were going to kill him.

There's some slave traders, Midianite slave traders that happened to be passing by.

And so they said, let's not just kill him, like let's make some money off of him.

Like this would be even better.

So they sell him to the slave traders, and Joseph makes his way into Egypt, where he's purchased by a man by the name of Potiphar, and he's doing great work in Potiphar's house, so much so that Potiphar uh puts him in charge of the entire estate, only to have Potiphar's wife lie about him, and then the next thing that Joseph knows, he is thrown into prison.

While he's there in prison, he does such a great job that the warden says, Hey, look, man, you can run this whole thing.

You the Bible actually says that the warden had no more worries because Joseph was handling all the affairs of the prison.

And finally, Joseph sees a way out.

Somebody from the king's court gets thrown into prison as a cupbearer, and he interprets his dream and he's going to get out of prison.

He says, Hey, whenever you get back in front of Pharaoh, the king, remember me, put in a good word for me.

Please get me out of this prison, only to have the cupbearer get out of prison and completely forget about Joseph.

Until a number of years later, and uh through a strange series of events, and and he remembers him and goes to Pharaoh and they bring him out.

And then if you know the end of the story, he gets elevated to the second most highest uh position in all of Egypt.

And that's the part that we like to celebrate.

Wow, look what God can do.

You know, wow, from the outhouse to the pen, ah, look what God can do from the pasture to the palace, oh, look what God.

We love to celebrate that, but don't miss the series of disappointments through Joseph's life.

You know, think this is why the story relates so well to us, right?

It's because everybody in this room has been disappointed.

Yes, sir.

I mean, if you've been disappointed, lift up your hand, right?

If you've been disappointed, look around.

If somebody doesn't have their hand up, they'll lie about other things too, okay?

Everybody knows what it is to be disappointed.

It doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter how much potential you have, doesn't matter how good you have performed in the past, you will still find yourself on the receiving end of disappointment.

I like to say it this way: being disappointed is a part of life, but staying disappointed will destroy your life.

Being disappointed is just a part of life, but staying disappointed will destroy your life.

Why?

Because if you are not paying attention, the enemy will use your disappointment to hold the door of your heart open just long enough for his friends, discouragement, and disgruntlement to make their way into your heart.

There's a moment of disappointment.

And what the enemy loves to do is to use that disappointment just to hold the door of your heart open.

That's why we say being disappointed is a part of life.

But if disappointment stays too long and we don't know how to handle the disappointments of life, then discouragement makes its way into our heart and we start losing the courage we need to move forward.

We start feeling hopeless, we start feeling despair, and we can even fall into depression, and we can almost always tie it back to a moment of disappointment.

And if it's not discouragement, then it's disgruntlement.

We get disappointed, and it holds that door open, and the next thing that we know is negativity and pessimism and resentment and bitterness and anger begin to take root in our heart, and we know whatever takes root will produce fruit.

Friends, one church family, listen to me today.

The enemy is never going to miss an opportunity to do his best to turn a temporary setback into a long-term drawback.

Make no mistake about it.

The enemy is going to do everything he can to turn your momentary disappointment into a permanent prison and trap.

See, how does he do that?

He does that through his specialty of lying.

It's what he does, he lies.

And so you have a moment of disappointment where you failed.

And the enemy comes in and he starts lying to you about that.

And it's not that you failed, it's that you are a failure.

He takes your disappointment and he gives you an identity.

He takes a moment of rejection and betrayal, and it was a moment of disappointment, but he begins to lie to you about that.

And he says, You weren't just rejected, you are actually unwanted.

It is a label that he puts on your life, an identity that he tries to give you.

Why?

Because he's not interested in a temporary setback.

What he wants is the long-term drawback in your life.

So, this is what we need to know.

How do we handle the lemons of disappointment that life hands us?

We've already said that being disappointed is it's a part of life.

Life is going to hand you a lemon.

How do you handle the lemons that life hands you?

Well, one thing is certain we cannot take our cues from culture.

We cannot take our cues from culture.

And I believe this is what the apostle Paul, a leader in the early church, was saying in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, when he says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world.

Romans 12:2

Now, if you've been in the church for a long time, you know that it's the church and the world, and there's the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

That's not all that he's talking about here.

What he's saying is that there is a pattern that exists within the human experience.

There is a pattern that exists within the world, within our human nature, within our own fleshly desires that exist on this planet.

And he says, you do not have to conform to that nature.

You do not have to conform to that way of being.

You don't have to conform to the way society does it.

Because here's what society says society says, whenever life gives you lemons, throw it at the person that gave it to you.

And if you can't find the person that gave it to you, just throw it at the next available person to blame.

And so we spend our lives throwing lemons, blaming people for what has happened to us in our lives.

Society says when life hands you lemons, it's okay to get sour like the situation.

It's okay to get bitter.

It's okay to put your pity party hat on and just have yourself a little pity party.

Society says that's okay.

Society would say if life hands you lemons, why don't you carry those lemons around and complain them, complain about them as much as possible?

Let everybody know about, well, this happened in the third grade, my teacher did this, and in middle school, I got cut from the basketball team, and then this happened when my dad left my mom, and then this, and just go ahead and tell everybody the reason I have this burden, the reason in life, so is because I've got this bowl full of lemons of disappointment, and let everybody know that it's not really you that's there, it's what all of these people did to you.

That's what society says, but but the apostle Paul says, you don't have to conform to that pattern, you do not have to copy the behaviors and the customs of this world.

And then he goes on and he says, but you can actually be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

You can let God transform your life by changing the way that you think.

You see, whenever life hands you the lemons of disappointment, church, you can handle it.

But you're going to have to think different about it so that you can do something different with it.

I don't say that again.

Life is going to hand you lemons, but you can handle it.

But if you're going to handle it, you have to think different about it so that you can do something different with it.

You see, and I believe this is what we learn in the story of Joseph.

Because when we get to the end of Joseph's life, in Genesis chapter 50, we we see this moment where now he's been reunited with his brothers.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

He's the second most powerful person out of all of Egypt.

He's taking care of the family, he's feeding them in the midst of the famine.

And the brothers were scared that whenever dad dies, Joseph's gonna take out revenge on us.

He's only being nice because dad is still here.

And whenever dad dies, we are doomed.

And so dad passes away, and the brothers are terrified.

And then Joseph has this statement in Genesis 50, verse 20.

Genesis 50:20

This is what he tells his brothers.

He says, You meant to harm me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done.

You meant to hurt me, but God took your evil and he turned it into good.

You see, I don't believe that this was just Joseph's conclusion at the end of his story.

I also believe that this was his resolution in the midst of the story.

He didn't just get to the end, look over his shoulder and go, oh wow, this is unbelievable.

I believe that this was his resolve, this was his resolution in the midst of his adversity, in the midst of his challenge, in the midst of the disappointment.

You say, Philip, why do you believe that?

Because we don't ever see Joseph in the scripture blaming or complaining.

We never see him resentful and bitter and negative and pessimistic.

We never see Joseph.

Now, was the reality of his disappointment real?

Absolutely, but we never see him allowing disappointment to stay long enough to turn into disgruntlement or discouragement.

You say, how does that happen?

From a person that's betrayed by their own brothers.

How does that happen from a person that's just lied on?

How does that happen to a person that has been forgotten?

How does that happen?

I believe this.

I believe that Joseph was thinking different about the lemons.

Joseph was thinking different about the lemons, so he didn't have to do what society did.

He didn't have to do what he had seen other people do.

He said, I'm gonna think different about my disappointment so I can do something different with my disappointment.

And I'm understanding that what you meant to harm me, I've got a God who is so faithful and so good, he's gonna find a way to work it out for my good.

Not just at the end, looking back over his shoulder, but right now.

And here's the awesome news.

The awesome news is that every single one of us can have that same posture in our hearts.

Why?

Because we have a promise from God in the New Testament.

The apostle Paul writes in Romans 8 28, and Pastor Greg referenced it last week, and it says this, and we know that God causes everything.

Say everything.

God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Now it doesn't say that everything that happens to you is good, and it doesn't say that God caused everything that did happen in your life, it just implies that God is so powerful and so sovereign and has so much providence that He can take all of the broken pieces of your life, and out of the brokenness of your life, he can put all of the pieces back together to create a masterpiece that will turn out for your good and for his purpose.

You see, this verse became my favorite verse.

I I had a uh radical experience with Jesus when I was 16 years old.

I fell in love with Christ.

I began to preach the gospel when I was 18 years old.

And this verse, Romans 8.28, became one of my favorite verses early in my in my teenage years.

It was one of the first scriptures that I memorized because I was like, man, this verse is like incredible that no matter what happens in my life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the valley, and the mountaintop, God has a way to take it all and work it together for my good.

I was just mind-blown by the promise that God gave us in this verse.

And you see, it was this verse that really helped me.

Whenever life gave me my lemon of disappointment.

Because Pastor Greg referenced it.

I had a pretty successful high school career, broke a few national passing records, signed with the University of North Carolina.

My first year at the University of North Carolina, we were uh 11 and 1.

We finished number four in the country.

The program was on the rise.

But what happens in college sports when a program is on the rise, a bigger program always wants your head coach.

And that's what happened.

Our head coach Mac Brown left the University of North Carolina and went to the University of Texas where he would go on and win a national championship there.

But the problem was that the coach that came in after him did not want a quarterback like me.

He wanted a more athletic quarterback, a quarterback that could run.

And listen, friends, I can't run out of sight in a day.

So I had a very honest conversation with this new head coach.

I said, Coach, if I'm playing, you're losing.

So I'm gonna do you a favor and I'm going to transfer.

And I transferred to Louisiana Tech University.

And there went my first dream of being a quarterback at the University of North Carolina.

And now I'm at Louisiana Tech University.

My first year back at Louisiana Tech University, I rupture a disc in my back and have back surgery.

The doctor told me you could be well in three months, you could be well in three years.

We don't exactly know it's going to be how fast your body heals.

And I tried to come back that next spring practice.

And I remember, I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was throwing a deep comeback route on the outside at spring practice, and I really let I really let the ball go and I threw it.

And man, I felt something just boom pop in my back, and I went back down on the field.

And as I was laying there, I knew somehow I just knew this will be the last time that I would ever have a helmet on.

It's the last time I will ever be wearing shoulder pads.

I just felt it, and and I knew it, and that my career was going to end right then.

So you have this promising career, these big hopes and these big dreams of what can be.

And in just a moment, I'm laying there realizing that everything is going to go.

And you see, in that moment, it was this verse that welled up in my heart.

No, no, let's be honest.

Not while I'm laying out there on the field, because I'm hurting, okay?

I'm not thinking about Romans 8.28.

But in those days after, I start reflecting, and Romans 8.28 starts rising up on the inside of me.

Because here's what Romans 8.28 can do for every believer.

It can put us in the right posture, the right position and posture to be able to respond and move forward even in the face of disappointment.

Now, I didn't just play sports.

I came out and then I started coaching football.

I coached at Evangel Christian Academy in Louisiana.

I was a had the opportunity to win multiple state championships as an offensive coordinator and a head coach, coached all the way up until 2016.

So a big part of my life wasn't just playing football, but but coaching football.

And so I am a coach.

And actually, somebody, whenever they came to our church, one of the first things they said to me is they said, Man, this feels more like a locker room than a church.

I said, That's the greatest compliment I've ever been given.

And as a coach, we're we're always talking about being in the right stance.

You got to start before the play even begins, you have to get in the right stance.

Why?

Because some adversity is going to be coming your way.

Some challenges are going to be coming your way.

There's going to be some tough things that you're about to have to deal with.

And if you don't start in the right stance, you don't have a chance.

You've got to get in the right stance.

And so what I call this in life is I call this the stance to advance.

Because we have to advance in the midst of adversity.

We have to advance in the midst of challenge.

We've got to advance in the midst of our disappointment.

Now, whenever we talk about stance, the thing that comes to my mind first, because I'm a player and a coach, I think of the athletic stance.

I think of the athletic position.

Drop your butt down, bend your knees, wait on the balls of your feet, chest up, head up, right?

I mean, it doesn't matter.

Baseball, basketball, football.

It's all kind of the same stance.

But I want to talk to you about a different stance today.

There's another definition of that word, and this is what it means.

It's a mental or emotional position adopted with respect to something.

See, we all have a stance, and people would understand that.

Like you have a stance on issues, right?

You have a stance.

This is what it's talking about.

You have a mental and emotional position adopted.

Say adopted.

You see, that's really the key word there in the definition.

Adopted.

Adopted means to choose to take as one's own.

See, everybody in the room would understand, I cannot force you to adopt a child.

You have to make that choice.

You have to choose to take that child as your own.

So what this definition means is that the mental and emotional uh position that we walked in with today is the one that you adopted.

Now, if you've chosen to take it as your own.

Have people influenced it?

Mom, dad, teachers, coaches, people in your life?

Absolutely, they've influenced it, but listen, nobody can force that position on you.

The mental and emotional position that you are living with today is the mental and emotional position that you have chosen.

And some people don't think about this, but but every single day when we get out of bed, we get out of bed in a stance.

And that stance is going to determine how we play the day.

So we get out of bed every day in a sense.

You have a stance of what you think about your past, your present, and your future.

You have an emotional and mental position about possibilities.

What's possible in your job?

What's possible in this city?

You have a stance whenever it comes to your marriage or your parenting or other relationships in your life.

You have a stance.

We even have a stance about things like Monday.

There's a mental and emotional position about Monday.

We hate Monday.

End of the weekend.

Beginning of the grind.

You know, I hate Monday.

And so what happens is on Monday morning, we get out of bed, and instead of getting in a good stance on Monday, we have a way of thinking and feeling about Monday already.

So when we get out of bed on Monday, this is our stance to attack the day.

Now, anybody in this room could knock me over right now because I'm not in a good stance.

And that's why it's not even 9 a.m.

on Monday, and the day is already going downhill.

And it has nothing to do with what happened.

It has everything to do with the stance that you got out of bed in.

Why?

Because society says hate Monday.

There's a million memes out there that are bashing Monday.

But can I tell you there's 52 Mondays in every year?

I can't throw away 52 days a year just because it's labeled Monday.

If you throw away every Monday, that means every seven years you've thrown away an entire year of your life just because it was labeled Monday on the calendar.

We have stances that we don't even know.

It was a uh not too long ago.

I went into a coffee shop.

It was early on a Monday morning, and I walk in, and you know, people need enthusiasm, so I just always bring the energy.

And so I walked in and I was like, How are we doing today?

And the little lady back there, she said, Well, it's Monday.

I knew exactly what she meant, but she was talking to the wrong person.

I said, Do you love Monday as much as me?

Her eyes get like this big.

I was like, I love Monday because good Mondays turn into good Tuesdays, and good Tuesdays turn into good Wednesdays, and good Wednesdays turn into great weeks, and great weeks turn into great months, and great months turn into great years, and great years turn into a great life, and it all started because we loved Monday.

She said, That's not exactly what I was talking about, but I'm really glad you came in today, sir.

I started talking to her about a different way to think and feel about Monday, and whenever I was walking out the door with my coffee, she screamed, I love Monday too now.

You see, that's a that's a funny thing, but here's the reality.

We we have this posture and this stance that we've adapted uh adopted to so many things in our life.

And here's the good news because you might be thinking right now, man, I don't have the right stance when it comes to this, and I don't have the right stance when it comes to disappointment, I don't have the right stance when it comes to pain, I don't have the right stance, I don't have the right stance when it comes to Monday, I don't have the right stance.

Listen, this is the good news.

If your stance was adopted, it can be adapted.

If your stance was adopted, it can be adapted, which means every single person in this room can get in a better stance, and your stance is going to determine if you are going to be able to advance in the midst of disappointment and adversity.

Now, whenever we look at Joseph, we say, wow, and this guy, I mean, this guy had to be in a stance, man, to go through everything that he went through.

I mean, he had to be in a great stance to deal with all the things that he had to deal with.

And the same way we would look at an athletic stance and we'd say, there are two pillars, two foundations to that, being being your legs.

Let's look at this other stance, and let me give you two things that I see in Joseph's life that I think will really help us.

It's all right if I coach you just for a minute.

Yes, sir.

Come on, if you're in, say yes.

Two things we see in Joseph's life that I believe will really help each and every one of us.

We we see excellence and we see resilience.

Everywhere Joseph went, he was living with excellence.

And yet he had this undying resilience.

He had this relentlessness on the inside of him.

Let's just break those things down just for a moment.

What is excellence?

What is excellence?

Excellence is the state of excelling, the actual definition.

It means to surpass or outdo.

Now let's remember that God isn't asking us to surpass or outdo others.

That would require us to compare and to judge, and we all know that that doesn't lead us to a good place.

Instead, God is asking us to surpass who we were yesterday and to outdo who we have been in the past.

Booker T.

Washington said this.

He said that excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

You see, there are things that we all do that are common, marriage and parenting and work and church.

These are all common things, but there is a way to do ordinary things in an extraordinary way.

You say, How do you know that's true?

Chick-fil-A.

They serve chicken and fries.

But you leave with chicken fries and a better attitude.

You feel like you've been rejuvenated, been to the spa a little bit, whenever they look at you and say, My pleasure.

It's a common thing.

It's a fast food restaurant, but they found a way to do it in an extraordinary fashion.

And guess what?

All of the common things in your life can be done in an uncommon way.

All the things that you see are ordinary.

You can find a way to do it extraordinarily.

This is my definition for excellence.

My definition for excellence is that excellence is doing your best to bring the best out of you.

This is what we see in Joseph.

He's constantly doing his best to bring the best out of him.

In Potiver's house, in the prison with his brothers, serving Pharaoh, creating a plan, executing the plan.

He is always doing his best to bring the very best out of him.

It was excellence.

It was a pillar in Joseph's stance.

But then there's this other part of the stance, and that is resilience.

We say, what is resilience?

Resilience is actually defined as the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes.

Another part of that definition that says buoyancy.

Buoyancy.

What happens when you're in the pool and you take a flotation device and you pull it underneath the water and then you let it go?

Not a trick question, church.

It floats back to the top.

Why?

Because that's where it was designed to be.

So whenever life comes with disappointment and it's trying to pull you under, you don't have to stay under.

You can keep rising back to the top because you were designed to live on top.

You don't have to stay in disappointment.

You don't have to stay in discouragement.

You don't have to stay in disgruntlement.

Instead, you can be resilient like Joseph and you can keep rising back to the top no matter what life brings your way.

Now listen, I'm not here to belittle anybody's trauma.

I'm not here to make light of what you have been through in your life at all.

I know that some of you in this room have been through major, real things in your life that were very, very, very painful.

I'm not making light of that at all.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to connect your story with Joseph's story.

He's been through some things too.

He's been through some things too.

And we can draw some perspective off of the story because Joseph just kept showing up with this excellence and then with this resilience.

He just kept floating back up to the top.

He just kept floating back up to the top.

Why is resilience so important?

Let me just give you these three things and we're wrapping up today.

Why is resilience important?

Number one is this is that bad things are going to happen.

You're like, man, I'm so glad I came to church today, right?

I'm so glad, man.

Such an encouraging word, Pastor.

Bad things are going to happen, but listen, I didn't say that.

Jesus said it.

John chapter 16, verse 33.

John 16:33

Jesus said, Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.

But you can take heart because I have overcome the world.

Why is resilience important?

Because bad things are going to happen.

Being disappointed is a part of life.

Here's the second reason that resilience is important is that we will miss the mark of excellence.

It's not that things are going to go bad and people are going to disappoint you and life is going to disappoint you.

Come on, everybody in this room knows we'll disappoint ourselves.

We will miss the mark of excellence.

Look, and it and it says in Romans chapter 3, right?

Romans 3 · chapter mention

It says that for everyone has sinned and we fall short of God's glory standard.

I love the amplified version because it says we all continually fall short.

Letting us know that this is not just something that happened in the past.

This will happen again in the future.

But church, don't allow missing the mark to take you off your mark.

Because there's a race that God has called you to run.

And you got to get in that stance and you got to get on your mark.

Don't let missing the mark cause you to disqualify yourself and step out of the race because we need you to run the race that God has marked out for you to run.

So don't get out of the stance simply because you missed the mark of excellence.

No, you got to stay in that stance.

That's why resilience is so important.

You got to stay in the stance.

And here's the third reason why resilience is important is that our response influences the outcome.

Our response influences the outcome.

There's a man by the name of Jack Canfield.

You might not be familiar with Jack Canfield, but if you're over 40, you are very familiar with the book that he wrote, Chicken Soup for the Soul.

If you're under 40, you've never heard of it.

I mean, that was chicken soup for the military soul, firefighter soul, mama's soul, granddaddy's soul.

I mean, he was like chicken soup, he was like, Oprah, it's chicken soup for you, and for you, and you know, chicken soup for everybody.

But Jack Canfield has a success formula.

And his success formula is this E plus R equals O.

Meaning that event plus response equals the outcome.

You see what people would have you believe is that E equals O.

The event that happened in your life, the lemons that you were handed, that's what's going to determine your outcome.

Because you were betrayed, because you were lied about, because you were left, because you were mistreated, because these things happened to you.

Because you were handed that lemon, this is going to be the outcome.

Oh, you were handed this lemon, oh, you'll you'll be dysfunctional.

Oh, you were handed this lemon, things are never gonna work out.

Oh, you were it's easy.

No, no, no.

Don't don't miss the equation.

There's an R in there because your response matters.

And whenever life hands you lemons, you can make the decision to say, you know what?

I'm gonna think different about it so that I can do something different with it.

I'm not gonna do what my mom did.

I'm not gonna do what my grandfather did.

I'm not gonna do what my neighbor did.

I'm not gonna do what I've seen other people do.

I'm not gonna throw these lemons at people and live my life blaming.

I'm not gonna carry my lemons around, complaining each and every day about what other people have done to me.

I'm not gonna get sour like my situation.

No, I'm gonna understand that God gave me a promise, and whenever I get handed a bowl of lemons, I can think different about it so I can do something different with it.

So you you don't get to choose your disappointment, but you do get to choose your response.

You don't get to choose what you experience in life, but you do get to choose how you interpret what you experience.

And whenever life hands you lemons, decide I'm gonna think different about it.

I'm gonna think like Joseph.

Whoo, you might amend it for evil, but I've got a promise from God that He's gonna turn it out for my good and for His purpose, which means it's gonna be about His glory in the end.

Amen.

Church, come on, will you stand up on your feet?