Planted by the Water

Like and say, like, I can't do it.

I can't do it.

Can you do it?

Um, and then I was laying there and I was thinking about my funeral.

Um, but I was thinking, do I want to be a person that um was scared and said no, or do I have to be brave?

And I really want to be brave, but that means that I had to stand up there, which you know.

So that's why, yeah.

And then I was thinking about that story in 2 Kings, you know, where there's a widow which is desperate, and the prophet tells her, bring all the jars, bring all the jars in your home, get all the jars up you can find and start pouring from your olive flask into the jars.

And when she started doing that, the olive oil just kept coming and it filled up all the jars, and she'd say, Bring more jars, bring more jars, and it just kept filling them up until there were no more jars.

Um, and then then it stopped.

And I was thinking the hats were kind of like those jars.

Perhaps we just need to come empty and you know, whatever it is that he's asking us to do, and just come empty and he will fill us up because that is literally what I am just an empty jab.

And um, yeah, I just really need his help.

Yeah, so uh great stays.

Let's pray.

Thank you, Lord.

Lord God, we love you so much, Jesus.

We thank you that you're here with us, Lord.

I ask you for your help desperately, and we just pray for your presence.

Pray that you'd fill the room with yourself, Lord, and be with us while we're together.

While we're in here in the next door meeting.

Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

Uh so Levi was doing a series for hearing from God a little while ago, and um and everybody loved that series, can further.

And so today I'm just going to tell you a little story about we recently I felt like I heard from God.

Oh.

So Psalm 55, 22.

Regent.

Get a man.

Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you.

He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Um, so a little while ago, I found myself in a place where I felt like I was in a dark belly.

Um, I felt like really sad and just like a low feeling, a flat feeling every day for quite a long time.

And I was doing a really good job of hiding behind my smile, and nobody around me knew how sad I was feeling on the inside.

Um, and you know, sometimes when you go through times like that, you feel really, really sad and low.

You can kind of get to a point where you feel like, man, I'm never gonna get out of this.

Like, I'm never gonna feel good again.

And you can genuinely feel like that, like this isn't gonna end.

Um, now that I feel good again, thinking back to that time, I'm like, it can't have been that bad.

But you know, when you're in it, you it it is that bad.

Um, and you know, as Christians, we believe that God is for us and he's not against us and that he doesn't leave us.

But when you feel that sad for that long, um, well, I even though I know that that that is true, I was doubting or like, you know, feeling like maybe he has gone far away.

I haven't heard from him in a long time.

Um, and I just felt so sad every day and like I lost my hope.

Um I'm a 45-year-old woman, and there's another thing that happens around this age.

One of our teenage sons calls it meanopause.

So on station and then specific that it was you know, it were just a whole bunch of things um that would invent.

Yeah, so I found myself in this duck.

Um sorry it'd be such a downer.

It's good, man.

Love it.

Uh I love these scriptures because they remind me that I must not be the only one um to sing so low.

Psalm 69, 1 to 3, 5, and 14 to 17.

Save me, O God, for the flood waters are up to my neck.

Deeper at deeper, I sink into the mire.

I can't find a foothold.

I am in deep water, and refloods overwhelm me.

I am exhausted from crying for help.

My throat is parched, my eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me.

Oh God, you know how foolish I am.

My sins cannot be hidden from you.

Rescue me from the mud.

Don't let me sink any deever.

Save me from those who hate me and pull me from these deep waters.

Don't let the floods overwhelm me, or the deep waters swallow me, or the pit of death devour me.

Answer my prayers, O Lord, for your for your unfailing love is wonderful.

Take care of me, for your mercy is so plentiful.

Don't hide from your servant.

Answer me quickly, for I am in deep trouble.

And so one night I was going to sleep, and Jake is asleep next to me, and our whole household's asleep.

And I was laying there thinking about how sad I felt.

And I was thinking, I was kind of feeling like I just reached the end of myself.

You know, when you've been trying to get right on your own for so long, and I was like, I just desperate.

And I just finally said to him, I said to him that night, I don't know how you would do it, but would you please rescue me?

Would you rescue me?

And then um, yeah, then I went to sleep that night, and that night I had a nightmare.

Great.

Um it doesn't actually sound that scary now when I explain it to you, but you know you're at the dream.

No, I think it's very freaky.

So I was walking up to a house, um, and there were people all around me walking as well, and there was a giant tree, like a huge, like maybe a cupboard power or you know, huge, huge tree.

So it's up ahead of me.

So I walked a side bit to walk around it.

And then I heard this almighty like sound, and was like, oh my gosh, what the heck is that?

And I realized that the tree was falling and that huge tube is sprawling, so it junk out of the way and was like, oh my goodness, and it came crashing down.

And um people were like panicking and people were freaking out and like calling calling an ambulance because I think you know they thought that some people had been crushed under the tree, and um, an ambulance showed up, and yeah, everybody was kind of running around like crazy.

Um knowing me, I would have dispersed in wasn't helping anybody.

Um but um yeah, then I woke up and I was like, what the heck was that?

Um that morning when I woke up, uh, I'm sure you guys all know Phil and Nikki.

So Phil's at the back there, and Nikki is his wife, and they're just the legends.

Um, I feel like they're kind of like built into the backbone of our church.

And Nikki, she's one of these friends at church that when you show up and she says, like, how are you?

and you're like, good, and then she kind of looks at you like, How are you?

And so I had I had told just Nikki maybe a couple of times that I was feeling a little bit low.

Um, so that morning I woke up and Nikki had texts me, and she had texts me just a scripture, Jeremiah 29, 11, which says, I know the plans I have for you.

They are plans for good and not for disaster, plans to give you hope in the future.

And tears sprang to my eyes when I read that, like, and I desperately wanted to believe those words, but I just felt so sad.

Um, and so later on that day, I feel like I would have just forgotten about that weird sparing tree dream and my desperate career to him the night before.

Except for later on that day, I was driving along Ocean Beach Road, and I was just kind of zoning out, following the car in front of me.

And then I realized that the car in front of me was an Andalese and it was just going 50, didn't have its, you know, uh lights on or anything, but it jolted my men mind back to my freaky tree dream.

And I was watching the back of the ambulance, thinking about my tree dream, and suddenly I felt, I feel like I felt God come really close to me in the car, and I was like, ah, there you are.

And I was watching the back of the ambulance, and I felt like I was thinking about my true dream, and I was thinking about how I would say, could you rescue me?

And I was like, You said this ambulance to rescue me.

I was trying to disciple, like, what could he be telling me?

Like, should I be staying away from big trees?

Um, I was just trying to figure it out.

I felt like there was something there, but I just couldn't figure it out.

And um, I don't know if anyone else has been listening to Brooke Fraser's new album.

Oh, it's so good.

Uh her surname now is Brooke Ligertwood.

She's done the coolest thing to rap her new album, it's called Eat.

Yeah.

And instead of writing lyrics for her songs, she's just taken scripture straight from the Bible and put it to music.

And so um, you know, you listen to these songs and you're just and if you learn the words, you just automatically like you get about 15 memory versus amazing down.

Yeah.

Um, and I don't know about you, but I I yeah, 45.

I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember all the words to the song that I danced to when it was 16.

There's something like about music, you know.

Um yeah, so I just started listening to her album because I was like, I want to learn all the words so that I'm you know learning all about his memory versus.

And so anyway, driving along, watching this ambulance, thinking about the freaky tree dream, thinking I feel like you're trying to tang something.

And then I thought this song couldn't be a better tree, could it?

And so I turned it up and listened to a couple of lines, and realized, yes, yes, this song was about a tree.

Um, and the words to the song were blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

They will be like a tree planted by the water.

The water it sends out its roots by the stream, it does not fear when he comes.

Its leaves are always green, its leaves are always green by the water, the wildlife.

It has no worries in a year of drought, and it never fails to bear fruit by the way, the water.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

They will be like a tree planted by the water.

And as I listened to those words, and I just like had tears dripping down my face.

I was like, he rescued me with the incholates, and I regented in that moment um who I am in him and who we are in him.

If we bear his name, if we come under his protection, if we're his people, then we're not like a giant tree that will crash over.

We're not like a tree that will end in disaster, but we're like a firm, stable, secure tree that's that's plunged right beside his water, his living water.

And our roots, they grow down deep into his love and they nourish us and keep us strong.

Um, yeah, I I remembered that this is true regardless of the way that we feel, regard, regardless of whether we believe it or regardless of our circumstances, with the things that we can see around us with our physical eyes, yeah, regardless about whether we feel close to him or we feel far away from him.

Because we are his and we are like a firm tree flying to beside him, our legs or newer fate.

They will always remain green.

You know, we yeah, we do not need to fear the long seasons of drought or the times of deep sadness, uh, or the times when he might feel feel far away or where life might feel heavy.

Um because it can be hard to not lose your light out there.

It can be hard.

Uh, but because we belong to him, we will never stop producing fruit.

Not because of who we are, but because of who he is.

Um, because he really is for us, regardless of the way that we feel.

And I remember that we can trust him.

We will not be like a tree that ends in disaster, um, you know, whether in this life or the life to come, we are like that firm, stable, secure tree planted beside the water.

I thought I'd share that just in case there's anyone else that's hiding behind their smile and is sad and has forgotten who where we can live our lives from because we we're his.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trusted him.

Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.

And may you have the power to understand, as all Rose people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

Jeremiah 17, 7 to 8.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

They are like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water.

Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.

Their leaves staggering and they never stop producing fruit.

So it's now I'm just gonna finish by ha, I got through it and did free.

Yeah, boy.

That's my dad's Mother's Day cow, there's my mom, so you can hit that up.

Um, this is a little story that I wrote to Nade Salo.

Salo was a sparrow who loved to fly, but she hadn't eaten for days.

She could feel her energy dropping as she soared with her flock.

She needed food and fast.

They all did.

Salo hadn't gone this morning without eating before.

She kept her eyes on the ground in search of food, in search of anything that she could find.

But there was nothing.

Where were they?

Why had they come here?

And what would happen if she didn't eat soon?

Hours passed by, and Sailor wasn't doing well.

It wasn't long before she felt light-headed, and consciousness began to slip away.

She struggled to stay awake, struggled to stay evil, but starvation had taken its toll.

Sayo fell.

She fell and fell and fell until she hit the ground with a thud and was no longer.

He knew.

He lifted his head from where he sat, and he looked up from what he was doing.

He saw her deceit, and he knew that she fell.

Sailor was caught on the other side of life.

She found herself flying through a golden sky, no longer hungry and no longer distressed, but full of peace.

Matthew 10 29 to 31.

What is the price of two sparrows?

One or cobbly, but not a single sparrow can fall to ground and couch your father knowing it.

And the very hairs on your head are all numbered, so don't be afraid.

You are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Thank you so much.