The Hero Quest

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Man, I'm so glad to be here.

This is truly my favorite church.

And I'm not lying to you.

This is really my favorite church.

I told Ryan that, and he's like, really?

I'm like, yeah, really.

And I'm so excited to be back with some of you that I already know and some of you that I'm just meeting, I guess, today, you can say.

And part of um part of my own journey personally with Awakening Church and why it's my favorite church is because in the in the season that we were at this church, it was some of the greatest years of my wife, Sherry, and I and our family, some of the greatest years of our life, but it was also some of the hardest years of our lives.

And awakening was the church uh led really by Ryan and Jenny and and some of you even here that loved our family through through some hard things that we were going through.

And I forever carry awakening in my heart.

God led me to other uh places and and and all that in the journey.

But can you turn to your neighbor and say this?

Life isn't easy.

Life isn't easy.

All right, now now turn to the other neighbor that you rejected and tell him, Life isn't easy.

So, one of the things that I've learned about life, perhaps you have too, is that life is a windy journey.

It's a windy journey, and there's many different paths that will present itself to us along the way.

And as we navigate this journey we call life, three questions will emerge before us over and over again.

As human beings in this human journey, these questions we will have to face again and again.

And how we answer these questions, how we respond to these three questions, will not only determine our destiny, but will define our character.

And I want to tell you about one question by really telling you a story that happened in my life a number of years ago.

This is the first question that I faced.

It was it was early on uh in my, I guess you could say, young adult years.

And I'll just, this isn't the question, but I'll ask you a question.

Uh, has anybody been skydiving?

We got some people in the house that have been skydiving.

The rest of you are really intelligent and smart and made good decisions.

Sorry to those who I just offended.

Uh but I went skydiving a number of years ago because my my friend Paul came up to me and said, You want to go skydiving?

We're going with a big group.

I was an intern with about this much budget at the time, but he said he would pay for me.

It was like 150 bucks.

And I'm like, Yeah, I'm in.

And then I was dating this girl, Sherry, and I'll just spoiler alert, she became my wife, but uh at the time she wasn't.

I was falling in love.

It was like a month into our relationship.

I think she was falling for me too.

Uh maybe not yet, I don't know.

But but I convinced her to go skydiving.

And it, you know, as I look back, it's like, I don't know how or why she did that, but you know, maybe I'll just chalk it up to young love, but here we are.

So so off we went.

We crowded into this car.

There were several people in the car.

And these were like back in the day when there wasn't smartphone cameras.

I know that sounds prehistoric to some, but but they had camcorders, is what they called them.

And I kind of loved the camcorder, at least in big moment.

So I brought the camcorder.

So we're in the car, and everybody's scared.

I mean, you pretty much all get scared when you go skydiving.

I mean, you want to do it, you want to face your fear, I guess you could say you gotta have some courage, but but here we are.

So I pull out the camera and everyone's kind of freaking out.

And honestly, at that point, I'm I'm I don't know, pretty chill.

I'm like, I'm excited to do this, I'm not really scared, at least not yet.

So I pull out the camera and I start being like the annoying big brother and asking questions and trying to get it on film.

And at one point I asked my one friend, Jim, who essentially was in major freak out mode, like, I want to get out of this now, take me home, you know.

So I pull out the camera, I record them.

I wish I had that today because I'd show you.

But I said, So, so Jim, tell me, what are your last words for your parents?

Right.

And there was this like collective, shut up, Steve, put the camera down, you know.

So anyway, we drive out to this skydive place, we, you know, sign our lives away, basically.

Then they take us through the training of how to safely jump out of an airplane or something like that.

And and of course they they link you to somebody tandem.

It was all our first time, so this is this big group of us, and we went to this place called Skydive Chicago, which I later found out had the highest death rate in the country.

Didn't know that at the time, but glad I'm here.

And uh, and so and so we get trained and we get linked to a tandem person, and here's where the story kind of took a little diversion.

I looked over at Sherry and her tandem person, and the guy was six foot two, very handsome.

He had been in the weight room a lot, and he had an Australian accent.

I'm like, what is it with Australian accents and the ladies?

But I was jealous to say the least.

So anyway, she's gonna fly through the air with him, okay?

But I had to put that aside.

So anyway, we we pile into this plane, and as we walked up to this plane, it's like, okay, you look at the plane, it's like, it's more invention of Wilbur and Orville Wright than Elon Musk, I'll just put it that way.

But but we get into this plane, we pack in there like sardines, everyone's nervous, it's crazy energy, and up we go, 1,000, 3,000, 7,000, we go up to 13,000 feet, and then the doors open.

Okay, this is when fear exploded in me.

It's like this is about to get real.

And one by one, I'm in the back of the plane, there's only one person behind me.

I'm in the back of the plane, and people start, you know, inching up to the edge and then disappearing within a half second.

And it's like screaming with like terror.

And uh, and one by one they go, they go, they go.

And and my guy who's linked to me, harnessed on my back, he's like, it's gonna be good, man.

You ready for this?

I don't know if I'm ready.

And I and I start contemplating, is it too late to bow out?

Right?

And so I'm literally thinking this like my fear is just like it's like latent fear, and all of a sudden it's greater fear, I feel like, than anybody else.

And it's like one by one, it was like 25 of us to me, it's like 13, 15, 18.

It's getting close to me, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm gonna bow out.

And then I have this thought there's only one person behind me, it can't be so bad.

But guess who's behind me?

Sherry, boom, right?

I told you it's a group of smart people in the room.

So Sherry's behind me.

So I look back and I'm hoping she's like terrified and she's gonna be like, Save me, Steve, let's not do this, you know?

But no, she's like, you know, brimming over with anticipation, practically pushing me toward the door.

And I get to the edge, right?

And we'll sort of slow down time for a second, but I get to the edge, it's my turn.

Somebody's harnessed on my back.

It's like my manhood is basically on the line at this point because I can't bow out, there's no going back.

And my guy's like, okay, it's time to jump.

And I just wait.

It's like I freeze and I don't want to jump.

Sorry you're judging me right now and thinking I'm not a man, but I was I was that was what I was feeling, you know.

Anyway, about I don't know, a few seconds later, all of a sudden I'm spinning in the air doing a 360.

Thank you to the guy on my back, right?

I black out, I'm pretty sure, because I don't remember that after a few seconds, you know.

And for 60 seconds, we just free fall through the air.

And it was thrilling and amazing.

And once you're out there, it's like, well, there's definitely no going back now.

And then along the way, I forgot the one thing that you don't forget when you go skydiving, which is what?

Pull the parachute, right?

So the guy's like tapping my hip, like, you know, doing this, pull the parachute, you know.

And uh finally I, you know, make sense of it.

I'm like, oh yeah, I gotta pull the parachute.

You know, I think I flew like free flu, like 10 extra seconds, so I think it was worth it.

But um got closer to the ground.

But anyway, so we pull the parachute and we're gliding through the air, and we have this kind of conversation up in the air.

And he's like, Man, I had your back the whole time.

I knew you could do it.

We pushed through that, you know, and uh and I was like, just thank you.

We were just kind of rejoicing, looking, you know, out.

And anyway, we we got down, and um, and I love that that picture or that that metaphor you could say, because it's it's so much about life.

It brings us to the first question that I want to present to you, and it's this question that will face us over and over in life.

It's a question of will you choose courage or fear?

Will you choose courage or fear?

And there's a fitting quote that captures the importance of the idea of courage.

Says this we have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

You know, when we look at the scriptures, there's there's a command that God gives more than any other command in all the Bible.

Perhaps you could guess it.

It's the command, fear not.

Fear not.

Or you could say it, do not fear.

And the human journey, there's so many fears.

There's fears you have to all face as human beings.

And I think part of why God tells us this over and over throughout the scriptures, fear not, do not fear.

It's because there's a lot to overcome.

There's a lot to overcome, there's a lot of fears we have to face.

And our natural instinct as human beings sometimes is to what I call fear and freeze.

We fear and freeze because we have a hard moment, we have a crossroads moment.

And what I believe God wants to develop inside of every one of us is a God instinct over a fear instinct.

And what I mean by that is when we get to that moment, when we get to that crossroads, when we get to that decision, that choice, that moment where we have to choose courage or fear, that God is inside of us, empowering us to make the right choice, to do the right thing, even when it's difficult.

And it's interesting when you read fear not, do not fear, all throughout the Bible, through Old Testament and New, there's a little phrase, a four uh-word phrase that often comes right alongside that command.

And it's the promise that God uses most frequently in the Bible.

There's many texts that could show us this, but I'll bring us to one.

Isaiah 41, 10 says this.

It says, Do not fear or fear not.

For I, God speaking, for I am with you.

There's the four words.

I am with you.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

And these four words bring us back even to the metaphor of tandem, right?

Because it's like God is flying through life with you, tandemly connected to you, or at least wants to be.

And he's there for you, and he's got your back, and he is with you every step of the way.

He is faithful to living that out.

He is present with you in every moment.

And as we just sung even in one of the songs, make me aware of your presence, God.

Because God is with us.

And in those difficult decisions where we choose fear or courage, he is the one who will strengthen us if we will stay connected to him, if we will lean on him.

And then in Romans 8, 31, we we see this truth echoed once again, where Paul writes, When then shall we say in response to these things, if God is for us, who can be against us?

God is for you, and God is with you.

And then no matter what you're facing in life, and no matter what fears you're dealing with, he is saying, I am with you.

And sometimes I picture myself in difficult decisions in life, and you're at this crossroads.

And so imagine yourself there, and this way is courage, and this way is fear, and then and then picture Jesus right there with you, riding tandem with you in life, tandem with you in that decision.

And he's saying, I want to help you, I want to guide you, I want to get you through this, I want to steer you in the right direction, I want to help you make the right choice, even though it's difficult.

Because bravery, courage, choosing that direction is never easy.

And we're all gonna face, already have, and soon will again, if we're not already in it right now.

We will face challenges that come because it's what it means to be human.

It's what we have to face over and over again.

And my hope is that when this question presents itself to you, will you choose courage or fear that you will be ready for that moment and that you will choose well?

So I took you into the skies with me.

Now I want to take you into Lake Tahoe on the snowy mountain with me for just a moment because another story happened to in my life that was kind of fun for a little bit and then turned unfun.

Uh, and it brings the second question before us.

How many of you are skiers snowboarding?

Snowboarders, yeah.

How many are not?

Right?

Okay, there's a lot of you, okay.

Well, so so years ago, I was a youth pastor, and we did this youth trip, and off we went to Lake Tahoe, okay?

And uh, and it was it was a group of maybe 25 you, 30 youth, something like that that went on the trip.

And we we were kind of hosted by this guy named Eddie.

And so we get to the mountain.

I've never snowboarded before.

This is my first time ever.

And I get there, and of course, you know, I don't want to be here, but you got to start on the bunny slopes, I guess is what they call, right?

And all the youth are like, you know, flying everywhere, and they're all way better than me, and I'm, you know, 20, whatever, and I'm on the bunny slopes.

And Eddie comes over to me and he's like super good snowboarder, lives in Lake Tahoe, and he says, Hey man, he's like being encouraging, you're doing a great job, you're looking like a great snowboarder, man.

You got it, man.

You are you're an A plus snowboard, you know.

He's saying all this stuff.

It's like, no way, he's not right, you know.

And basically he's manipulating me because then he says, Okay, I want you to go up.

You see that mountain up there?

He says, I want you to go up there with me.

It was a double black diamond, mind you.

And I mean, I didn't know that much, but I knew black diamond didn't was not where I needed to be.

Okay, and my wife is there with me, kind of watching me, and she's way better because she used to ski.

And and she's like, You are not going up there.

I'm like, No, no, I know that's foolish.

I'm not going up there.

And then Eddie's like, What are you, are you gonna listen to her, not me?

You know, it's like you gotta go up there, right?

If you're a real man, all the youth are going up there, like model this for them that you have courage, you know?

And uh Sherry's like, no, this is not about courage, this is about wisdom versus foolishness, you know?

And then somehow Eddie convinced me to go.

So off we went.

I get into the ski lift and then try to get off the ski lift, and I wipe out at that point.

And everyone's looking at me, what is this guy doing at the black, you know, double black diamonds?

He can't even get off the ski uh the ski lift.

Anyway, I I make my way, you know, to where I start to go down.

And man, I don't know how many of you are good snowboarders or have been on a black diamond or double black diamond, but it was fast to say the least, okay?

And it it was it was scary fast.

You know, when you get going like so fast, it's it becomes scary, and you're like, wait a minute, I just crossed over, let's like slow this car down for a second, you know?

So I'm I'm doing that and I'm just wiping out.

I mean, it was like wipe out five feet, wipe out seven feet, wipe out ten feet.

It's miserable.

And you know, I'm like, what do I do?

What do I do?

And the only thing that came to me in the moment, no, you're gonna judge me again, but the only thing that came to me in the moment is I've been sledding before.

So why don't I unhook the snowboard and just sled down?

Because I had to get down the hill.

So unhook the snowboard for real.

This is not a this is not a lie, this is the truth, this is what happened.

And I sit on the snowboard and I'm like, I can just do this, you know, on you know, on the way down, I'll make it there eventually, but I don't want to walk, it's way too far.

And so I start, you know, and you're going so fast.

I mean, you're not even carving now, right?

You're just like, you know, and so I'm like falling over just to slow myself down when it gets to be fastened.

Falling over.

Well, one time I fell over and I lost the snowboard.

I know, right?

It gets worse.

Okay.

I mean, that snowboard was like a heat-seeking missile, and it had a target.

Because there was a dude about, I don't know, 150 feet away, and that thing was headed straight for him, you know.

And what do you know?

He's standing there and the board hits him head on, couldn't be more perfect.

The guy wipes out, you know, lands on his face, kind of deal.

And I'm like, oh no, you know, and this guy wasn't small, by the way.

So I make my way up there, I don't know, 10 minutes later, I don't know how long it took me.

And the first thing he says is, like, bro, hold on to your snowboard.

I'm like, thank you.

I know that by now, but I appreciate your advice, you know?

And um, and it was a bad moment.

It was a terrible experience.

It's kind of funny to laugh at now, but oh my goodness, it was complete suffering.

And I look at that and I go, here's the question that that forces us to choose in life.

You know, it brings before us this question that comes before us all the time.

It's will you choose foolishness or wisdom?

Because sometimes an open door isn't the right door to walk through.

So sometimes a good opportunity, or sometimes an opportunity isn't necessarily a good opportunity.

Maybe it looks like one, maybe it's a bad one, maybe it's not even that it's a bad opportunity, or it's not a God opportunity.

But we have to use wisdom to discern that.

And and once again, there's there's a lot of texts in the scriptures that that tell us the importance of wisdom and the value of it and how that plays out in life.

I want to point us to one that's a really good text.

You might be familiar with it, but it contrasts this idea of foolishness and wisdom.

So it's the words of Jesus, he's telling a parable in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

He says this everyone who hears the words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not fall because it had the foundation of the rock.

But everyone who hears these words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and what did it do?

It fell with a great crash.

I mean, there's the contrast.

Wisdom provides this solid foundation.

So when the inevitable storms of life come, and they will come, your house stands strong.

It's built on the rock.

When things or people or situations or circum circumstances come that may harm you, that may derail you, that may wreck your life, even, wisdom is your path that will build your life strong so that you will stand the test of those storms.

Foolishness, on the other hand, creates the illusion of a solid foundation.

The house is built, everything looks fine, it's on sand, you can't really see the sand, perhaps, but in reality it will not withstand the weight of any hardship that comes your way.

Because you've not built your life on the right truths, on the right perspectives.

And foolishness will in the end leave you without shelter and without refuge.

And Jesus makes something very clear in this parable.

He says, wisdom comes through following his teachings.

In other words, through building your life on the truths of God.

And as with most of Jesus' teachings, it's going to require sacrifice.

It just doesn't come easy once again.

But the rewards are worth it.

The rewards are worth it.

When our lives are built on the rock, on the rock of Jesus' teachings, on who he is and what he's about, the trade-off always goes in our favor, even sometimes when it doesn't look like it.

So if we can learn to trust him, if we could learn to trust his teachings and wisdom and build our lives on that, life will reward us.

And when you think about the idea of bravery and courage, life rewards the courageous.

And when you think about wisdom, it may not always look like it at first, but life rewards the wise.

And first and foremost, my own and my two sons.

And she has such moral clarity and insight and perceptivity and discernment, and it guides her life.

And she's decided to build her life on this wisdom.

And I've been inspired by that and changed by that and blessed by that.

And by the way, on a side note, I don't know, you don't have to raise your hand, but if there's any single guys in the house that might be looking for a wife one day, choose a wise woman.

All right.

And dare I say, but I boldly will, if you're a single woman, choose a courageous man.

I'm just saying that's a talk for another day, but just wanted to say that.

Anyway, um, wisdom, because here's the thing, when wisdom and courage come together, it's a powerful combination.

In your life, in the life of a marriage, perhaps even a friendship, just in life in general.

When wisdom and courage come together, it's a powerful combination because that's how God designed it.

Will you choose courage or fear?

Will you choose wisdom or foolishness?

And then there's a third question.

It's the final question I'll give you today.

And I know that everyone has experienced this.

You you've you've had to face the question around courage and the question around wisdom, and you continue, you will continue to, but but this is another question that you will face because life is full of challenges and even disappointments.

There's a lot of great things about life.

There's a lot of joys and things to celebrate and rejoice in, but there are also challenges and disappointments.

And when we encounter disappointments in our lives, what ends up happening is we have a whole range of emotions.

It goes from discouragement all the way to the other side of the spectrum, perhaps even devastation for certain things.

And how we handle these moments will determine our future, it will shape our future and our lives and who we become in profound ways.

I had one of these experiences when I was a young athlete.

I was graduating.

When I received a baseball scholarship to the University of South Carolina.

And I was excited.

I mean, this is what I had worked for, practiced hard for, dreamed about.

And it was a gift that I got to take part in and was blessed by.

So off I went to South Carolina.

I'm working hard.

I'm doing the best I can.

Along the way, they made a coaching change.

I thought I was, you know, doing pretty good.

I was in the top eight to ten pitchers.

And at the end of the season, the coach meets with all the players.

And he brought me into his office.

And he said to me, Hey, thanks for being here, basically.

But your scholarship is going to be no more.

I'm going to bring in a whole new set of players.

And of course, in that moment, I'm playing it cool on the outside, but I'm devastated.

My dream has just been pulled out from under me.

It took me some time to sort that out and face the reality of that.

But what ended up happening in that freshman year of college was God used what was a setback for sure, what was devastating to me, what was an obstacle for sure.

And God showed me a different perspective.

Because in the midst of that, I discovered what I would call my calling.

I discovered what God's purpose was for my life, or at least got a lot of clarity on that.

And I've learned over and over again that throughout life, opportunities will often disguise themselves as obstacles.

Opportunities will often disguise themselves as obstacles.

And I initially saw losing the scholarship like anybody would as a setback, as an obstacle, as, oh my goodness, this is an interruption in my life.

My plans that I had are ruined.

But this opportunity was before me.

It looked like an obstacle.

Took me some time to realize this.

But 20 plus years later in my life, I look back now, even, I go, that was a defining moment for me, for God to say, there's something greater, there's something bigger, there's something better I have for your life.

You may not see it now.

And here's the thing: we we all have different desires and perhaps dreams and hopes for our lives.

We have plans, and often these plans don't go the way that we hoped.

We dream about things, we hope about things, we're passionate about things, we have these beliefs that make life worth living, and then life takes us this direction.

Or we come into a dead end, or we get derailed in some way.

It's a setback, it's a heartache, it's a hardship.

And we have to figure out are we gonna realign our lives?

Are we gonna see with a divine perspective that this obstacle, this setback, there's actually an opportunity in the midst of it?

And when our lives don't go according to plan, what God wants to tell us is that this is where I want to work.

I don't know if God causes some of those things or not, but I know God works right there in the midst of them.

Because I've seen it in my life firsthand, over and over again.

And this stuff, it doesn't stop when you're in your 20s, it doesn't stop when you're in your 30s, doesn't stop when you're in your 40s.

This is life.

This is how it goes, this is how it works.

And God is always at work.

And so this question, this third question is put before us.

When we encounter difficulties and disappointments in life, we have to face this question.

Will you choose to see the obstacles in your path as something that are opportunities for growth?

Will you see them as obstacles or will you see them as opportunities?

And I shared how God used the one obstacle in my college years, and there have been other ones along the way.

They've been opportunities for growth, really.

And these days, my family, my wife Sherry, my my son Hudson, who is with me, and uh my other son Holden, uh, we we have another uh hardship that we carry in our lives.

Some of you know this who know me.

And uh our second son, Holden, uh, was born with a severe disability.

He's 12 years old now, and uh he can't talk yet.

And um he's he's developmentally about what a two-year-old would be.

And you know, when Sherry and I got married and we began to talk about our family, um we had dreams for our family like anybody would, right?

For us, we're like, you can't determine is God gonna give you a boy or a girl or how many, you can't determine all that.

But our hope and our dream was hey, we would love two kids, and we'd love them to be two boys, and we'd love them to be close together.

We had one wonderful son, Hudson, who's now 14, and about a year and a half later, we had Holden.

We were so grateful.

And we had this dream and hope for our family of what it would be like.

They'd be friends and buddies and do a lot of brotherly fighting maybe along the way, too.

But then we found out about Holden along the way.

Of course, it's like a punch in the gut.

It's not what we hoped, not what we dreamed about for our family.

And um, once again, awakening was there in that season of our life when we were uncovering that and working through in the early years.

And this has been hard and it still is, and we're in it.

And like we said at the beginning, life isn't easy, right?

And we all have different things that we have to face.

But our son Holden has been used by God to bless our family and to grow us in unquantifiable ways.

And I remember the day I was sitting at a coffee shop with one of my mentors, and he was listening to me, and he was thoughtful and he was empathetic, and he was listening how it was going with Holden.

And I'll never forget when he looked across the table at me and he said, You know what, Steve?

He said, One day you're gonna realize that Holden has been the greatest mentor in your life.

And I was like, Oh man.

And then he went on to say, he said, Holden's gonna teach you lessons that you didn't necessarily want to learn, but that you need to learn the most.

And you know, I've realized in life that God has a bigger purpose than our sorrows and our suffering sometimes.

It's hard to see, it's hard to be in it sometimes, it's hard to face it in the day-to-day and in the real life stuff.

But I I look back and I know Sherry and I would say in those early years where we were uncovering that and figuring all that out with him.

I mean, we grew more in those years, probably than the previous 10 years combined.

And Holden is has taught us, to our surprise, about unconditional love.

He he's taught us how to listen not just with our ears, but with our hearts and our and our souls.

He's taught us to think differently about God's plan for our lives.

That it isn't always what, like God wants us to dream, God wants us to hope, God wants us to sense his voice and follow his leadership, of course.

But that life often doesn't turn out the way you thought.

But yet in the midst of that, God has also taught us not to look at what we are missing, but to pay attention to what God is doing.

Because it's so much more important.

What is God doing in your life?

What is God doing through your life?

You know, the the first obstacle when I was in college, it really opened me up to my calling and my purpose.

This obstacle with holding, which is ongoing, has opened me up to the transformational power of God.

Like it seems nothing else could.

That God has changed us, and I could tell you story after story about how God has used that.

That God has done things that I don't know if if they would be possible without the divine opportunity that we have in this precious human being called Holy.

And so we open our hands and we open our hearts and we open our lives.

God, what do you want to do?

What are you doing?

We want to pay attention to that, we want to follow that, we want to do that as hard as it may be sometimes.

You know what?

As an athlete, I was an athlete, I like to think I was an athlete.

I'm an athlete now, but I'm not.

But as an athlete early on, you know, we know this to be true, that nothing comes easy.

If you want to be stronger, you gotta suffer in the weight room, right?

And build muscle.

If you want to run faster, you sprint and run and breathe, you know, be breathless and fatigued and sweating.

And, you know, if you want to throw harder or with more precision, it's like hours and hours and hours of practice while maybe your friends are, I don't know, playing video games or having fun somewhere, so that ultimately you can become the player that you want to become, so you can perform the way you want to become.

And in this wisdom, God uses what we often see as obstacles.

Maybe sometimes it's suffering or hardship, but He uses it, He uses it to stretch us and grow us in ways that we don't necessarily always want, but that we absolutely need.

There's a popular song that you may know, and there's a line in the song that says, Thank God for unanswered prayers.

And the artist, in essence, is saying, Sometimes our human plans aren't what is best for us.

Ever prayed a prayer like that?

Felt like you got a no from God.

But sometimes God has to give us a no so that we can understand what the yes really is, what the greater yes really is.

So maybe even we could say yes to him.

And to say yes to God, it takes courage, it takes wisdom, it takes a willingness to see obstacles as opportunities for growth.

And here's what I believe.

I believe that God created you with great intention.

I believe that God created you with a purpose, that he wants you to discover that, that he wants you to know your passion and find meaning in life and find purpose, and he wants to use you to make a deep impact in this world.

And God gives us this truth in the scripture to underscore that.

When he tells us this, you may know these verses.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

See, once again, God is for you.

He thought you up, he imagined you, he breathed life into you so that you could experience and know him, so that you could experience and know what his purpose is and how you fit into that.

And life sometimes it can be exciting, it can be thrilling, you can look over the horizon and think, I got a bright future, and then at other times it can be overwhelming and difficult and not easy.

But what God wants to remind us of, and perhaps to you right here this morning, is that you have a future.

That God wants to breathe hope into your life, into your circumstances, that he wants to work to help you fulfill your destiny under his greater purpose, that he wants to work to create and transform a different kind of person in you, so that you become someone new and fresh and different, so you become everything God designed you to be.

See, God wants to do a great work in your life, he really does.

It's not gonna be the way you probably think it's gonna happen, it's not gonna come easy.

But you wanna know the path because he wants you to participate in that.

You want to know the path to living out that purpose?

I can tell you something that I've learned in my own life is that it's gonna take courage.

How do you have courage?

You walk closely with the God who created you, you ride tandem with him through life.

And when you fear, because you will, you cling to him.

God help me.

God give me courage.

You remember what he says to fear not.

And what's followed.

I am with you, I am for you.

If you want to live into your purpose and your destiny, do you want to become everything God wants you to become?

Choose the path of wisdom.

A lot of choices we make every day, a lot of choices we make that define and shape our lives in so many ways.

But over and over again, we cling to Jesus and his teachings.

We build our life on the rock, and life will reward not only the courageous and the brave, but life will reward the wise.

And then, if you want to live out your purpose, if you want to live out the life God designed you to live, I'm telling you, obstacles are gonna come your way.

It's not easy, it's not fun.

You want to throw them to the wind sometimes.

I get it, me too.

But guess what?

The opportunities that God has for your life are often disguised as obstacles.

And if you will embrace that, I'm telling you you will be stretched and you will grow into someone you never dreamed you could be, but someone God always knew you could be.

Courage, wisdom, and growth.

It's the path for you to become everything God wants you to become and do everything God wants you to do.

Can I pray for you this morning?

Let's pray.

Father, I just pause in this moment and we all go through various things in life.

We have different fears, we've made different choices, we have different obstacles, perhaps setbacks.

Maybe some of us are in that right now.

And God, I pray two things this morning.

I pray, I pray that the person that needs to know that you are right there with them would sense you even now.

That the God who created them with great intention, the God who loves them, the God is with them and reaching out to them.

God, that they would know your presence and feel your closeness.

And God, the other thing I pray this morning is for all of us.

Because we all have fears and need courage.

And we all, God, sometimes make some dumb decisions, or at least contemplate them.

So give us wisdom, give us courage.

And God, maybe hardest of all, give us the ability to see with your eyes, with your perspective, so that when obstacles and setbacks come our way, we would see them as opportunities for growth.

God, make us who you want us to be.

I pray this for every person listening, for the church known as Awakening, that we all love, and we'll give you the glory as you do your work.

I pray this in Christ's name.

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