Dealing With Uncertainty Pastor Steven Furtick

Now raise your hand if you're in an uncertain place today.

Uncertain what's next in your life. Uncertain how you're going

to put some pieces back together. Uncertain how some things

are going to come together for you. Uncertain whether or

not you can beat what you need to beat. Uncertain

whether it's ever going to change for you. Don't you

ever get to the point, I'm almost 40 now, where

you pretty much give up on you changing? Yeah. It's like,

in your teens and 20s, you continue to imagine this

future version of yourself. And future me is going to

be amazing. If I ever get to meet future me,

I'm going to get his autograph because I can picture him.

And yet every year that goes by, every little birthday

that I have, I kind of feel it's less and

less likely that I'm ever going to meet him. And

if it's not yourself that you're uncertain about, it might

be other people and whether they'll ever be able to

move past the way that they feel about you. And

I know some of you have relationships that are very

uncertain right now. Just wave at me if I'm talking

to you at all, because I prayed about what to share.

And God said, I want you to speak to the

ladies about the uncertain place. Now it's called a certain

place because Jacob has never been here before. So he

doesn't know what to call it. And The town is

actually called Luz. It's a little place. It's not really

a big place. And he has to stop there. Have

you ever had to stop somewhere where you didn't want

to be?

Come on.

Have you ever had a layover that you didn't plan for?

Have you ever had the sun set on your situation

and you had to lay down?

Let's think about this. Jacob has to lay down in

the middle of nowhere. Sometimes in our lives, God will

give us the ability to rename places and things.

That we've been through. God gives you the ability to

call things that be not as though they are.

So that's how you can go through something in your

life that to people, it looks like an ending, but

you can call it a new beginning.

That's what faith gives you the power to do.

Faith doesn't always give you the ability to change or

determine what you go through. It always gives you the

ability to determine what you call what you go through.

Some of us need to rename some places in our

lives because I got news for you. Some of the

people that broke your heart were actually doing you a

favor because if they would have stayed in your life,

it would have limited you. Sometimes when people leave your life,

it's because God is making.

Room for an upgrade.

Sometimes I turn on my iPhone and it gives me

a message that says, an update is available. I hear

the Spirit of God saying to somebody today, I know

you've lost some things, lost some time, lost some people,

walked away from you, and maybe some of it was

your fault. But the Spirit of God says today, an

update is available.

Or....

You can lay down here and die and wish you

were back where you have been or wonder about where

you're going to be.

But the revelation is so good. He says, the Lord

is in this place. Can I just get you to

say that? The Lord is in this place. The Lord

is in this place. Now, some places it's really easy

to say that.

I've had moments in the presence of God, just beautiful

moments where everything felt great. I've had moments in my

life where I've seen God do things that I would

have never even dreamed about as a boy. And then

I watched my dad die of ALS and I watched

him gasp for breath. And I wonder, can I say,

The Lord is in this place when my dad is

gasping for his last breath like I can when I'm

on vacation. I wonder, can I say the Lord is

in this place when I'm still only halfway there like

I'll be able to when I get to my destination? Now,

the enemy is really, really tricky. He always wants to

get you to imagine a place called there. And there

is where Jacob was going.

There is where Jacob had set out for. There is Haran.

It's the place that you're going toward in this place

in your life. It's the place where your finances are

finally able to support.

A reasonable lifestyle.

There is a place where you're no longer controlled and

mastered by the addiction. Where you don't feel the chains

of these habits that have been on your wrists and

your ankles for decades and decades.

There is the place... Where the memory of.

The trauma of what you went through at the hands

of people who should have known better. At the hands

of people who should have protected you. And not only

did they not protect you, but they inflicted pain upon you.

There is the place where you are no longer haunted

by the memory.

Of what they did. And when I get there, I'm going.

To praise God because he brought me out with a

mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And nobody could do

it but him. It's the Red Sea he brought me through.

It's the pit he brought me out of. It's the

lion's den he snatched me out of. It's the fire

he rescued me from. There, somebody shout there. Yet this

is not a message about praising God.

There. I came to tell you, praise him here. Here.

Here.

Here we don't like here in our modern culture very

much that's why i have so many tools to escape

here that's what instagram is.

That's what facebook is it's a way for me to

leave here.

Even if i can't leave physically i can leave mentally I.

Was on vacation this week, last week with my family

on Instagram looking at people who were at work.

Why would you leave work.

To go on vacation to go back.

To work in your mind on your iPhone? Because I

don't want to be here. I want to be there.

I don't want to be here.

Look how broken I am here. Look how bad it

hurts here. I don't want to be here.

Some of you, you don't have to wave at me.

Some of you don't even want to be here. Like

right here, right now.

I know you're grateful and you're smiling and you're trying

your best to look like you're happy.

You're not happy. This is the last place you want

to be.

You think Jacob wanted to be lying on a rock

in a place called Luz? Nobody goes to Luz on vacation.

Luz isn't on anybody's bucket list.

Jacob.

He didn't set out for Luz.

He set out for Haran and the sunset.

And sometimes the sun goes down and the lights go

off and you have no choice but to stop where

you are.

And that's where God shows up. Hey, thanks for watching.

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