Getting Unstuck

Well, good morning.

I'm back.

Yay, thank you.

If we have not met, my name is Elin, and I just got back from maternity leave.

We had our third daughter.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Her name is Emmy.

She's wonderful.

If you don't know my husband, Tab, he is a football coach and like the manliest man.

And so he's stuck in a house full of women.

Now there's four of us.

He's completely outnumbered.

And you might think that I have, you know, I feel sorry for him or or compassion.

You know that he's the only guy.

But I don't.

I really, I really, really don't.

Because here's the deal.

The way I see it is there are four of us women in the house, and he needs to conform to our way of doing things.

Yeah?

Okay, this is what I'm talking about.

Now let me just start this off by saying, I love my husband.

God bless him.

Whenever I get up here, I always poke fun at him, and I'm gonna do it again, just so you know.

Um, but I do love him, and he's wonderful, and he has a great sense of humor.

So there, okay, now moving back.

Okay.

So, women, I I know you're gonna be able to relate uh with me on this, whether it's your husband or boyfriend or your dad or a brother or some guy you know.

But do you know a man in your life who has trouble closing things?

That's a yes.

You know, like um drawers or cabinets or refrigerator doors or toilet seats.

Anybody?

Okay, well, my precious husband has a problem with um not opening the front door, but this action closing the front door.

And he leaves it open all year, all year long.

Well, it feels like that.

Throughout the year, he leaves it open all the time.

And I have been fighting this battle with him for for years, for years.

And in the winter time, it's so annoying because all the wind and cold comes in, and in the summertime it's annoying because all the bugs come in, and it's just annoying.

And I've asked him to stop, and he doesn't listen, and I don't understand why, because I think I'm pretty nice.

But in his defense, he has a bunch of bags that he has to load in his car, and so what he does is he he gets his bags, his coaching bag, his equipment bag, his workout bag, his laptop bag, his lunch bag.

I mean, the guy's got so many bags, and so he leaves the door open because he has to go and make several trips.

I get it.

But I have my hands full with children who are usually throwing a temper tantrum, and I've got bags, and I closed the door just fine.

I'm sorry, I'm a little feisty.

Okay, so this whole thing came to a head one night.

It was cold, I remember, because I felt the breeze.

And um, it was late at night, and and the girls were asleep.

We had work early the next morning, and it was 10 o'clock.

Tab and I go to bed pretty early during the week because we get up so early.

And so we were kind of a little bit behind on cleaning up and locking up the house and everything.

So I was in the kitchen on the back side of the house, cleaning up, washing dishes.

He was loading his million bags in the car, and again, this cold wind came in through the house, and I knew that's what was happening.

And then all of a sudden, I hear the door slam shut and I hear Tab say, oh no.

And so I roll my eyes and I walk to the front of the house and I'm like, what happened?

And he said, a bird just flew in the house.

A what just flew in the what?

A bird just flew in the house.

I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

Now you might be thinking of this sweet little precious bird.

Okay, bird nature, cute.

Bird, Elon's house, not cute.

Okay, this bird was flying everywhere, running into walls, running into windows.

We did everything we could to get this bird out of the house.

The whole thing started at 10 o'clock.

We turned on all the lights in the house.

We closed all the doors upstairs and opened all the outside doors going outside, which I think Tub kind of enjoyed.

And and we that didn't work.

And then I got a broom and I start like kind of shooing the bird to get out.

That didn't work.

And and then I'm starting to like run after the bird to get him to go, and that didn't work.

And then we threw a sheet.

Don't don't throw a sheet at a bird.

If you ever have a bird stuck in your house, don't throw a sheet over the bird because it makes it angry, and then it starts pooping all over your clean carpet, all over your clean, freshly folded laundry.

And to make matters worse, I had this sweet little picture that I had with my girls and me.

It was like one of my favorite.

The bird pooped, not just on the picture, on my face.

There's still remnants there today.

Yes.

Um, we literally, we we we tried we tried everything.

At one point, I I promise you, I whistled.

You pretty, you pretty pretty.

Yes, I did.

You get desperate, and I didn't know what to do.

And so now it's 12 o'clock midnight.

We had been doing this for two hours.

So every sense of humor thing that we sometimes have, we did not at this point.

And and and I I feel like we just like sunk against the wall, like down into the ground, and you know, our hands are in our foreheads, and and we think about the morning we gotta get up.

And how are we gonna get this darn bird out of the house?

And we're just sitting there, and all of a sudden, Tab goes, oh my gosh.

I'm like, what is there?

Another bird, please don't tell me there's another bird.

He's like, no, Google, Google! I'm like, why didn't I think of that?

So Tab gets out his phone and he types in the search, how do you get a bird out of your house?

Well, apparently, a lot of people have this problem.

There were thousands of results, and he read the first one, and it was so simple.

Said, turn off all the lights in the house and close all the doors except for one light and one door.

The door that you want the bird to fly out of, open and then turn the light above it.

So he did.

And within three seconds, maybe even less.

I am not kidding, that bird flew from the back of my house and he landed in front of the door and he hopped his twiggy little legs right out of my house.

And I swear he turned around and stuck his tongue out of me as he left.

It was it was so uh funny and frustrating at the same time.

And you can probably see where I'm gonna go with this because Tab and I spent so much time and energy and really frustration trying to solve a problem within our own selves, within our ability and our knowledge of a problem that clearly was not uncommon.

When there all the while was uh was a solid answer that was outside of our own knowledge.

And and I think that that happens to us so much in life.

Because see, Tab and I were stuck in a situation.

And I think most cases, almost every day, we find ourselves stuck in some kind of situation.

Stuck in a conversation that we don't know what to say, stuck in a decision that we have to make that we don't know how to make it, stuck in a confrontation, stuck in a relationship, stuck, stuck in a job, any kind of situation where we feel trapped and we want out, that happens in our experience.

And you know, God's people for all time have been have shared that feeling that we so often have.

And there's this really great story in the Bible.

We're most of us are pretty familiar with it.

It's the parting of the Red Sea.

And and I just love what God has shown through his word in this story.

So so just to kind of catch us up to speed, so we have the Israelites, and they have been in captivity and slavery under Pharaoh's rule, uh, the Egyptian armies.

Okay, but Pharaoh has decided to let them go.

And the leader of the Israelites, leading them to the Promised Land, is Moses.

And he is this guy who hears from God, he speaks to God, he seeks God out, and he's a great leader.

He's very, very wise.

All right, so Moses changes his mind.

The Israelites are on their way, and Moses changes his mind, and he sends his best, his best chariots, his best commanders, actually his whole entire army, now after the Israelites to destroy them.

And the Israelites find themselves literally stuck between a rock and a hard spot with nowhere to go.

Here they have the Red Sea on one side, and then they've got mountains all around, and then on the other side, they've got these Egyptians in hot pursuit coming to take their lives.

And I just find it really interesting their response, because if I'm being honest, I feel like a lot of times when I feel trapped, and actually scripture says they felt trapped.

A lot of times when I feel trapped or stuck in a situation or in a mindset, I actually respond, in initially anyway, the same way the Israelites did.

Let's look at it together.

In Exodus 14, starting in verse 10.

That's what it says.

As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them.

They cried out to the Lord and they said to Moses, Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness?

Weren't there enough graves for us in Egypt?

What have you done to us?

Why did you make us leave Egypt?

Didn't we tell you that this would happen while we were still in Egypt?

We said, Leave us alone, let us be slaves to the Egyptians.

It's better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness.

And yeah, I am kind of dramatizing it a little bit, but actually, that kind of sounds like me sometimes.

When something is happening, when there's a problem happening in my life, my first initial response a lot of times is to panic, which is what they did, and to ask why.

To ask why, to whine, to complain, to vent, to question and doubt God.

And all that does is it leads to a bunch of confusion.

But but I love what Moses says next, because remember, Moses, he had a close relationship with God, and he sought him and he prayed to him, and and God gave him an incredible solution.

And it's really a mindset for us today that we're gonna talk about.

So this is this is what he tells Moses, right after what I just read.

Okay, now this is in verse 13.

But Moses told the people don't be afraid.

Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today.

The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again.

The Lord Himself will fight for you.

Just stay calm.

So this is kind of where we're gonna hang out.

From this, we can get what we're gonna call mindsets, five mindsets.

And I know that seems like a lot, and I want you to know that I there's no expectation for you to walk out of here remembering all five.

And if you want to go back and and recall them, it's all from Scripture.

But really, my hope is that we will walk out of here with one or two that we can apply today in a situation where we might be feeling stuck today or this week in life in general in our future, that we could come back to this and we would have these mindsets to hold on to and to help us get unstuck.

The first mindset that we need to have to get unstuck is to be confident.

Now, from the scripture, it says do not be afraid, and I'm gonna flip that and say, let's be confident, but let me talk about fear for just a minute.

365 times in the Bible, 365 times in the Bible, we get some form of the phrase, do not be afraid.

It's almost like God knows that fear is gonna be a struggle for us, so he's given us a verse for every single day of the year.

Fear.

A lot of times when we think of fear, I think we initially think that fear is like the fear of death or fear of happening to someone that we love or anxiety.

But the reality is, is fear actually, it manifests itself in so many different ways, but the root of it always is fear.

So you, your negative experiences, your negative thoughts, or negative responses that you and I have to life, if we were to stop and say, wait a minute, why am I feeling this way?

Why am I saying what I'm saying?

Why is the situation the way that it is?

Almost every time if we trace it back and we stop for a minute, it's gonna come back to fear.

Things like anger and resentment and jealousy and control and pride, they all start with fear, fear of something.

And the thing is, is the enemy, he wants to trick us.

He likes to disguise our fear to be something else.

Because if he does, we will never ever overcome that fear.

But see, God over and over and over again in his word, he tells us that where there is light, there can be no darkness.

And if we were to shine that light on the lie of fear and what it truly is, the enemy will flee.

And so, if we're not going to be afraid, then then we need to be confident.

Now, when I was praying about this message and God gave me be confident, I literally was like, well, that doesn't make much sense because when I'm confident or try to be confident confident about myself, I actually get the most scared.

And then he reminded me, well, that's because you're finding your confidence in yourself, Elon.

And every single time you are going to be afraid.

He pointed out to me that being confident is not in ourselves, it's being confident in God.

Let me tell it to you like this.

Okay, so when I was growing up, my family went snow skiing for most of our vacations.

So I grew up a snow skier, and my dad was an incredible, incredible skier.

And for whatever reason, he always thought that I had way more ability than I felt that I had.

And it always played out the same exact way.

We'd get off the ski lift and we'd go to the top of a slope, and we would look down, and it'd be a black diamond.

And if you don't know anything about snow skiing, all you need to know is black diamond, scary.

Okay?

And so we would be standing there at the top, and I'd be looking over, and you know, there's all these people whizzing by and these big moguls, which are these mounds, and they're just lining up, and I am thinking, how in the world am I gonna get down?

I can't go anywhere else, I have to go down, and I start to panic.

And my dad every time would say, Elon, I'm gonna go ahead ahead of you, okay?

And I want you to follow in my path, and I'm gonna take you down the safest and quickest way.

And so that's what he would do.

He would start to go, and then I would literally watch his ski, his ski uh path, and I would follow in mine.

And then he would stop and he'd wait for me, and then I would go to him, and then he would continue on down, and we'd do that all the way down the slope.

It was almost like my dad had gone before me, and he was with me also at the same time.

And that is what our heavenly father, that is what he promises to us, that he has gone before us and he will be with us, and we do not need to be afraid.

And I'll tell you, that slope, it didn't change.

It was the same exact slope that I stood looking at fearful before.

But everything changed because my confidence was in my father, not myself.

I trusted him to take me down the safest path.

I trusted him to take me down the path that was gonna get me there the best possible way.

And I trusted him to wait on me and to be with me the whole way.

And it actually became fun.

That's what confidence, real confidence, is when it's confident in the Lord and who he is.

So we gotta be confident.

The second mindset to getting unstuck is we have to be firm.

In the scripture that we read, it says stand still, but if you look at many other translations, it says to stand firm.

You know, I automatically think of feet when I think of standing firm.

I think of feet.

Actually, let me let me let me back up and go to this verse real quick, sorry.

Um we have this verse that we're studying in my family right now, and I want to explain what firmness means, what it means to stand firm.

Okay, it comes from 1 Corinthians 16, and I love I love this.

It says, be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, and do everything in love.

That's that's the kind of woman that I want to be.

That is that is it right there.

And what it's saying is to stand firm in the faith, in the faith, and that's where I start to think about shoes.

And I and I immediately go to Ephesians 6.

You know, Paul talks about this armor of God, and a lot of times we hang around talking about um the helmet and the breastplate and the sword and the shield and the the belt of truth, and those are so important.

But if you're anything like me, sometimes you just kind of read over the whole shoes of peace, and what does that even mean?

But but I want to look at that really quickly because I think that's where our answer is.

Ephesians 6, verse 15 says, For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news, so that you will be fully prepared.

Ephesians 6:15

You see, the part of the armor for these soldiers of the shoes is very, very, very important.

It's very important because these guys were fighting for their lives.

They can't be worried about their feet when they have their enemy in front of them.

There was debris all over the ground from from the from the war.

The terrain was rocky and hilly, and and and if they got one cut on their feet, well, that could be infection and death just from a silly little cut.

They went on these long marches.

These soldiers, they had to be prepared, and a lot of times their their sandals, they were fitted on the bottom with with these nails or spikes.

That would allow them to put them firmly in the ground and fight their enemy without falling over.

And what the scripture is saying is that when we know God's word, when we know his truth, when we firmly plant ourselves in his truth and believe it for what it is, the truth, then we will have peace.

So a few weeks ago, this became like a reality.

This was a living example for me.

Our our baby, Emmy, she got this cold.

And, you know, for most of us, a cold is no big deal.

You cough, you sneeze, and in a couple weeks you're fine.

But but she's, you know, 12 weeks old, and and that can get really serious for a little tiny baby.

She's just so little.

And and it did, it got really serious, and her temperature was really high, and she was very lethargic and kind of actually limp, and she wasn't responsive, and golly, it was it was tough.

Her temperature, I said, was really high, and one night um she was having trouble breathing, and we gave her a breathing treatment, and and it didn't really work.

And it was 2:30 in the morning, and I called the after hours line, and and this nurse calls me back, and she listens um to the baby, and she says, You gotta hang up the phone and call 911.

And I I remember just sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, like I've never called 911, this is real.

Like a medical professional has told me it has come to that, and I will never forget it.

I I faced my faith.

Like, you really don't know what your faith is until that's all that you can focus on.

And I went downstairs, it was dark, I was waiting for the ambulance to come, and it's just God, me, and my baby.

And I'm just standing there reminding God of who He is.

That's all I could do.

And I just said, God, this baby is yours.

And you love her more than I love her.

You love me that much, and you tell me in your word that you have a good plan for my life, that you are always with me, that you will never leave me, that you are good.

And so, God, I I proclaim that that's who you are.

And no matter how this turns out, I trust you.

That was hard to say.

It makes me emotional.

But I said it.

And the ambulance showed up and and she turned a corner right then and there, and and started to get better.

And I'm telling you, you can call it coincidence if you want, but it wasn't.

I know that that was a response to my father to me.

He was loving me, yes, but I was firm in my faith.

I spent a lot of time studying his word, and I and I want you to know that that's what got me through that.

I didn't have my Bible right there.

I couldn't look up something on my phone.

Like, I had, I needed it then, and it gave me peace.

And if you feel overwhelmed or like I don't even know where to start, I just want you to know we love you.

We're here for you, we want to help you.

You know, just let us know, and we will help you.

We've got an app that we're adding things to the learn section all the time.

So I just wanted to make mention of that.

Don't let that stop you from from getting into God's word because it helps us, and that's what it is to stand firm.

And I believe that part of the reason that things turned out the way that they did is because God was reminded of who he is.

Moses even did that a couple chapters later from this story.

When God is, his anger was burning against the Israelites for for their mistakes and their choices, and God was about to destroy them.

And Moses reminded God of who he is and what his promises were, and God changed his mind.

And I'm not saying that that's what happened in the situation, but it could be.

It's a chance I'm willing to take.

We've got to stand firm in our faith, it will give us peace.

The third mindset is we've got to be watchful.

Okay, I I don't have much to say about this because I think it's pretty simple.

I wonder how many miracles you and I miss every single day that the Lord does in our lives and in the lives of the people around us simply because we aren't paying attention.

Because we're distracted, or because we're focused on the problems instead of our God.

Our God who has the solution.

How many times are we missing the miracles that He is doing?

We have got to be watchful.

It's summertime, so we're at the pool all the time as a family, and I've been going with the girls in the morning, and my kids are still young, so I have got to watch them.

I cannot be distracted when we're at the pool.

I can't be digging in my bag, I can't be on my phone, I can't be, you know, off in some conversation somewhere.

I have got to keep my eyes on my children.

And that kind of watchfulness allows me to be able to see trouble up ahead.

When my youngest is running and I'm like, you gotta stop running, you're gonna slip and fall, or there's a puddle right there.

Or when they're holding on to each other in the water and one of them's kind of holding on too much and the other one's going under.

You gotta let go.

But you know what's amazing is that watchfulness that I have, it doesn't just allow me to see trouble up ahead.

It actually also allows me to enjoy the moments that would pass by if I were distracted.

You know, the moments like one of them taking off their floaties for the very first time and jumping in the deep end, or another one going underwater without our goggles for the first time.

I would miss that if I was not watchful.

And and the way that that translates to us in our faith is when we are watchful, God will show us when it's Him at work and when it's the enemy at work.

Because we've got to be aware that we have an enemy, and sometimes we confuse the enemy for God, and it messes us up.

But when we are watchful, when we are watchful, God will show us when it's him.

We've got to be watchful.

Okay, the fourth, the fourth mindset for us to get unstuck is to be quiet.

That's not really a quality that I have.

This this scripture that we were looking at, it actually says stay calm.

But if you go into like Bible Gateway or something like that and you type in this verse.

And look at all the English translations, you're going to see a ton of them say something along the lines of keep your mouth shut, be quiet, be silent.

It is something that we as humans aren't really great at.

We gotta have the last word.

We gotta whine and complain.

We gotta gossip.

We have to tell God how we feel about everything, which, you know, obviously there's a time and place to be talking to God, and we can be honest with him for sure.

He can handle it.

But sometimes we talk too much.

And God has a lot to say in his word about what we're supposed to do and how there is so much wisdom in remaining silent at the right time.

I'm gonna read a couple verses.

I'm just gonna go through them quickly because I want you to know I'm not making this up.

James 1.19.

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters.

You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

Lamentations 3.26.

So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.

Proverbs 10.8.

The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.

If you're looking for wisdom, turn to Proverbs.

It is the book of wisdom.

It will give you wisdom for all of the things that you face.

Two more verses.

Proverbs 17, 28.

Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent.

With their mouths shut, they seem intelligent.

Proverbs 29, 11, fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back.

I mean, there's so many more where that came from.

I mean, we have one mouth and two ears for a reason, right?

Because we we should be doing a lot more listening than we are talking.

Because our our talking can get us into trouble because God is a gentleman.

He doesn't push us around.

And a lot of times, some of the most powerful things he shows us and tells us is are in the quietest moments when we are silent.

You can't talk and listen at the same time.

It just wasn't meant to work that way.

Not long ago, Teb and I, we got in this argument.

And I know none of you argue with your spouses.

We got in this argument, and it was it was a doozy.

I had to go get a breather.

Anybody ever have to do that?

Okay, no one?

Okay, well, I'm just confessing up here then.

Okay.

Um, that's okay, I have no problem.

All right, so we get in this argument.

Of course, I was right.

And I needed, I needed some air.

And so I went outside and I went for this walk and I went for a long walk, and I'm joking now, but it really wasn't funny.

Um, and and I didn't know what in the world I'm, you know, what am I supposed to do?

Because I really did think I was right, and I knew he was thinking he was right, and we are very strong-willed people, and we love passionately and we get angry passionately, and I just didn't know, I just didn't know what to do.

I shared this at the women's uh sacred event last month, and and and it's just so powerful.

I I gotta share it again.

So I prayed to God, and I was just like, Lord, uh show me what I'm supposed to do.

I don't even know.

I don't even know, and I'm I'm kind of angry right now, so you're gonna have to tell me.

So I walked through the front door, and God clearly told me, Elon, go sit next to Tab on the couch and don't say a word.

And and you might wonder, well, how do I know that that was God?

Well, that's easy.

Because anytime I'm a fight with Tab, the last thing I'm gonna do is go sit next to him and not say a word.

That is not how I roll.

But I obeyed and I went and I sat next to Tab.

He was watching TV and I just sat there and we just stared forward at the TV.

A few minutes passed, and then we're still looking at the TV, and he says, You want to watch a movie?

And I said, Well, okay, sure.

And then he reached his hand over and he held my hand.

And honestly, I don't even know what the argument was about.

But we didn't need to resolve it because God resolved it.

I'm telling you, that's God did that.

God resolved it.

He fixed it, and what's amazing is I didn't have to do anything except be quiet.

I think the loudest clap I hear is tabs.

No, it's it's so powerful when we are quiet.

When we are quiet, and we just pause for just a minute before we speak.

It's wisdom, and God blesses us when we seek Him and when we are wise in that way.

All right, the last mindset.

The last mindset is be ready.

Be ready.

If you've done all of these things, if I've done all of these things and I've gotten my mind in the right place, ready to receive God, you better believe, I better believe that he is going to respond.

And when he does, it's time to get moving.

In fact, he says this in the next verse in Exodus.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me?

Tell the people to get moving.

I love that.

Yes, God tells us that we should pray about everything and we should, but there is also a time for action.

There's a time for us to be ready and go when he opens up that door, when he makes that way possible.

We've got to be ready.

I don't know where you're stuck today.

But usually when we feel stuck, it's because we don't see any way out.

And I just want to remind all of us today that we have a God who makes a way where there is no way.

Right here after this verse, he is so creative.

The solutions he comes up with, right after this verse of get moving, I mean, God sticks this pillar of cloud between the Israelites and the Egyptians all night long to keep them separated, to keep the Israelites safe.

Then he dries up the ground, as we know, and they walk through safely.

And then it says that when when when the Egyptians are in the middle of the sea, that he twists their their chariot wheels and he throws the army into confusion.

And then he closes that sea up, and this is the best part because that enemy is never seen again.

And that is what that is what our God does.

He is in the business of making a way when there is no way.

In Revelations, he says that he will open doors that no man can open, and he will close doors that no man can close.

But all we need to do, actually, you know what's really awesome is we don't need to do anything.

These are all mindsets.

It's all starting up here.

All we need to do is align ourselves and say, okay, be confident.

Not in yourself, not in myself.

We won't get very far.

Be confident in who God is.

Don't be afraid.

It is alive from the pit of hell.

And it manifests itself in a really confusing way, but it all roots back to fear.

Don't be afraid.

Stand firm in your faith.

Hunger down.

Put your feet in the ground physically if you have to.

Well, get in the word.

Be firm in your faith.

Be watchful.

Be watchful.

Look for what he is doing.

Be quiet.

And be ready.

Because I do believe this.

He is going to make a way.

He is going to open up a way for us to unstick ourselves and to be free in whatever it is that we feel trapped in.

It's his promise, not mine.

And I'm believing it today.

My prayer, my hope is that we will walk away and we will start living this out.

And we'll experience a whole bunch of triumph that I know that we all crave.

I do.

And so that's my prayer for you and for me.

We're in this together, right?

Yeah.

Alright, let's pray.

God, thank you for for all these people.

Thank you for this family, this church, God.

I'm just so thankful.

I'm so so thankful for your word.

I'm so thankful when you make it come to life like this.

And you you make it so practical.

It's so practical.

Lord, it's it you just you know us so well, and I'm so thankful for that.

And I'm asking for your help.

I'm asking for your help, Lord.

Help us be confident.

Lord, fear is such an issue, it's such a problem, and and you've overcome it.

And so help us to be confident that you have overcome it and that we don't need to be afraid, and we can have confidence not in ourselves, God, but in you.

It's an unwavering type of confidence.

And help us, God.

Help us to be firm.

You tell us we can even ask you to help our faith.

So I'm asking you to help our faith.

Help us in the places where we are struggling in our faith.

Help us to understand your word better.

Let us hear from you in personal ways this week.

So that we can know what it means to stand firm in our faith.

And that as a result of that, we will experience the peace that you want to give us, the peace that you died for us to have, the peace that we so long to have.

Help us to be watchful, God, to be alert.

To be alert, yes, to what the enemy is trying to do and to be on guard there, but also, Lord, to be watchful for everything you're doing.

Lord, we're completely taken care of.

You really truly do meet our needs.

Help us to recognize that today.

Lord, I pray that you'll help us to be quiet.

Oh, the human condition.

It's a tough one, but but you answer that too.

You solve that problem as well.

And so I just pray, God, for wisdom.

For wisdom this week.

I pray, God, that we won't we won't just go on our first instincts, but we'll rather seek your word.

We'll ask you for wisdom.

You say that when we ask for wisdom, you will give it to us.

So I thank you for that.

And I ask that you will help us to be reminded of that this week as we go into our week that we need to ask for that wisdom, God, and help us to be quiet when we need to be quiet and help us to not when we need to not, and help us to know what to say when we're supposed to say it, and help us to know it's you who's guiding us all the way, to encourage us to continue seeking you for that guidance.

And God, just help us be ready.

Help us to know when it's time to pray and when it's time to get moving.

Help us not to miss the opportunities that you want to give us to show us that you're here.

You have gone before us, you're also with us.

We don't need any fear, it can all just go away because you are who you are.

And I thank you for that.

And I I thank you, God, because I know and I believe that you are going to part the sea in our lives, whatever that is, and you know what it is in each of our hearts.

You know what we're struggling with, you know, you know what we're stuck in, you know what we have tried to solve on our own, that we've only made worse or just been frustrated with, God, and you have the answer.

You are not stumped by anything.

Nothing surprises you.

You are in everything and you are in us, God.

And I just ask, God, that you would fill us this week with your spirit.

Make us so super sensitive to hearing from you and following your lead and trusting you.

God, I thank you so much for caring.

For caring about everything, about all of us.

You are a really good father.

And we love you, and we praise you.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.