Why I'm a Generous Steward | Lee Domingue

“When you don’t quit… you WIN.” Lee Domingue gives a profound and challenging message on stewardship, being faithful with what God has placed in your hand and using it to build God’s kingdom. This will remind you that your calling is HOLY and pivotal to what God wants to do on the Earth! If you’re questioning your purpose, this message is for YOU. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh but today I want you to open up your ears wide. I mean, I want you to open up wide, and I want you to open up your hearts really, really wide too. I have a friend of mine uh with us today that I've known for a lot of years, a number of years, an individual uh that I respect uh tremendously, and I really feel um I was praying this is the end of last year, maybe October-ish or so of last year. Uh, God dropped some things in my heart for our church, and I was like, okay, Lord, I'll I'll do it. He was one of the names uh that popped into my head and into my heart to have him come and share. Uh, how many of y'all do not work at church? Raise your hand if you do not work at church. I don't have our okay. Yeah, see 99.9% of us. You're in the marketplace. That's why we say we're empowered by the spirit to be the church in the world, not just the church in the church, but the church in the world. And the man I have uh sharing today is a man that has been in the marketplace for years, and God has used him in some really, really powerful ways. Uh, he was a DJ back in the day, not kidding. Uh in his 20s, uh, took a company from zero dollars to fifty million dollars. Then, two years after that, from 50 to zero. He's navigated the ups and downs of life and serving Jesus. And he has been a man that, again, in my life has been a rock, has been faithful, has been consistent, amazing husband, amazing father, great grandkids, all these wonderful things. His life is a life of integrity and character. He is a man of honor for sure. And today I asked him to come and share his story with us. So I want you again to open up your hearts, put your hands together at every location for the one and only Lee Domain as he comes to share with us today.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Love you, man. Love you, love you, love you. Come on, church, let's give it up for Jesus, Shoreline. Come on, you can do better than that on this Sunday. You guys be seated. It is a great day to be in Texas. Come on, somebody. I love Texas. I love Texas so much. I married a girl from Texas. I'm a Cajun from South Louisiana that God, come on. I'm not a saint, huh? Is uh, but God moved me to Birmingham, sweet home, Alabama, to serve and be a part of a great church. They're called Church of the Highlands. And uh I love the season of life, but I'm a I mean I am an avid LSU fan. And so that come on, go tigers. But but to get to have to go and live in Alabama is a little rough. And uh it's kind of lonely there being an LSU fan. But when God calls you, the best place to be is where God's called you. But when God calls an LSU fan to Alabama, it's like getting called on a mission field, an unreached people group is what I would say. But I love it, and uh, but I married this Texas girl about 36 years ago, and her and I got engaged. She was in the Miss Texas pageant, y'all. And uh and so she's in the Miss Texas pageant, and I say to myself, self? You better close this deal because if she wins, she ain't gonna marry you. So I'm like maneuvering and everything else, and we get engaged the night before, and she said yes, and all that. I think I brought an old picture, y'all, of when we got engaged. Y'all got that? Come on. Woo! Come on. That's some, hey, what you can't see is the four inches of big hair that I had back then. I was six foot five. But yeah, we got engaged that day, and um, that's been over 36 years. We've got, let's see, five kids, four boys, one girl. We got our whole family crew there. Um, my little sunshine on my left, Isabella Grace, all four of my sons, four daughters-in-loves, and a bunch of grandbabies. God's gift for not killing your kids is grandkids. If you ain't got if you ain't had kids, if you ain't got grandkids yet, hang on. Better ones are coming. They are amazing. My wife is lovey, that's what they call her, and she is all lovey. Honey, why don't you stand up? I want to honor you. She's the best lovey. Yeah. So she's the best lovey. And so I was supposed to be Pops, and I was not gonna have a lame name. You weren't gonna call me Peapaw. My first name choice was Colonel. My wife goes, you can't go by Colonel. I was like, that's just a cool name. And so Colonel didn't get approved, so but what did was just Pops. And I said, okay, I can roll with Pops. So Pops is a really cool, and but how many of you know it is that first grandchild that names you? I'm a control freak. I'm like manipulating the whole situation, coercion, bribery, candy. I'm trying to get that girl to say pops. And what she did when she started being able to talk, she comes running to me one day and she says, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss, boss. I'm like, yes, I am boss. So I'm boss, and you got lovey right there, and we keeping it. I think boss is the best grandpa name on the planet. Boss. I can't get my wife to say it, but all the grandkids will say it. I love this house. I got to tour it before the renovations happened, and uh, but it's so much more than just this building. The integrity of your pastors, the hospitality, the consistency. I have admired this couple for a long time. It is my joy and my privilege to be here in this house with this family. And I just want to honor both of you because you have not only led well, you love big. Anytime I'm ever around either one of you, it's like, man, I just feel better. Man, you the gift of encouragement and exhortation on your life, it's not something that you even try, it's just who you are. The culture of this house, see, you can't build culture, you can only be it. And the expression of everything from your staff, the spirit of excellence. You want to reach people in this world, you better have an excellent spirit. And you guys exude that the way you love each other, the way you love your kids. I got to meet Grayson in the back. I'm like, come on, man, you amazing. What a leader. But that comes from you guys. And so we just want to honor you and I want to thank you for doing it right. All right, we're gonna have some fun today, and uh I just want to share some of my story with you. You know, was in business, still have some business stuff, but for over 40 years, and uh, you know, I'm 61 now, and whoever said 60 is the new 40, they lied. 60, 60. I don't care what you say. 50 is the new 30, it ain't. You 50. And so being 60 years old, things are just different, but I got more zip in my step now than I ever have. I didn't start out well if you knew my whole story. DJ back in the day, the plain white rapper they call me. Come on, somebody. I know I look like an accountant right now, but I'm telling you, I could bring it back then. With the vinyls, techniques, 1200 turntables, new mark mixer. I was putting it in the mix, y'all. Don't get me started. Um that that old man is dead. Hallelujah. Don't want to resurrect that baby either. But it is, I'm having the time of my life because I'm giving away what I've learned and what I've lived. When you give away something that you have learned, it has value. No doubt about it. But when you've lived it, it has authority. And so I'm not going to share anything with you that's hypothetical, that's just theory. I'm gonna just share with you what I've done and more importantly, what God has done in my life. Who's taken somebody who's experienced tremendous failure, shortcomings, second chances, third chances, and fourth chances. But I'm here to tell you today, and you need to write this down if you're taking notes. If you don't quit, you win. If you don't quit, you win. Don't let the naysayers get you to shrink back. Don't let people in your life suck the life out of you. God's got a plan and a purpose for your life, but you've got to step into that plan. We're in a steer stewardship series, and uh this is week three, and I'm known for being uh, my wife and I for being uh honestly just being generous. Um we know that God gives seed to the sower, not the keeper. We know that God wants to bless us, not just so it's so we can have nice things, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as those nice things don't have you. But it's so it comes to me to go through me because God's interested in one thing. He's interested in people. He wants to see, he this is even a horrible business strategy when you think about it. Jesus said, leave the 99 and go after the one. That's horrible business strategy. But he said, those 99 are fine. I'm interested in that one. This house, this church is interested in that one. This house, this church is interested in reaching the people. That's why you have more campuses, not so you can say you're multi-site or say, yeah, we're a big church. No, no, no, no. That's not the vision of this house. It's to reach that one more person. It's to see that marriage healed, that addiction delivered, that child come back to Christ. And so what happens is it's stewardship, generosity, honestly, it's simply the fuel that goes into the engine because pastors, Earl and Onika, set vision for this house. But you set the pace of it. It's business people that really matter. See, for years I was a business person that I didn't know where I fit inside a church. I'm busy trying to build a business. I'm trying to grow. We were in uh a financial technology where basically, for real quick, is if you go in the Bass Pro store, you go into RV dealers or boat dealers or car dealers, more than likely somewhere in the around the country, it's our technology that would be doing the loan originations. Very boring. Compliance, risk mitigation, fraud prevention, very lucrative. Come on, somebody. And just because it's boring don't mean it ain't lucrative. And so we took a multi-day process down to minutes and patent it, and then sold it to the largest compliance company. So everybody knows in my business life knows of our success in healthcare, success in oil and gas, in aviation, in different types of uh sectors, but it was that fintech company that was the primary business, the primary driver. And um, I look at that and that, by the way, I have a two-year degree from LSU. Some of you'll get that here in a second. They wanted me to leave after two years, and I was happy to leave after two years. I wanted to go to work. I love work. I think hard work is a holy calling, by the way. I never I'm not a shortcut guy. I'm gonna outwork you. I'm gonna outwork you. I think I think hard work blesses Jesus. I think it's a great witness when we have that spirit of excellence in everything we do. Why do you think Chick-fil-A is kicking everybody else's tail on one less day? Because they're operating under God's principles. God's principles work, you know, and so from my perspective, I look at it and say, okay, God, where do I fit inside a church? And I could never quite figure it out until about 20 years ago. I used to feel guilty for having a business career, and it was almost like it was less than. And let me explain something to you. I don't care if you cook in the fries at Chick-fil-A or you own 50 Chick-fil-A's, this message is for you. I don't care if you're a student, if you're retired, God's not done with you yet, retired person. You got wisdom that a younger generation needs. And you know what? You know what, when you give away that wisdom, you're gonna get fulfillment. Because every single one of us in this congregation, kind of dated myself there. Every single one of us in this auditorium, every single one of us in this building, we have different things we like. Some of you like the cowboys, some of you don't. Some of you like this, some of you don't. You like some of you like Papocitas Fajitas, some of you don't. Some of you like this kind of music, some of you don't. You like this fashion, some of you don't. Every single one of us in this room, don't miss this. We all have this in common. Matter of fact, every single person in the Dallas Metroplex has this in common. Every single one of us long for the same thing. And you know what that is? Fulfillment. Fulfillment. We're trying to do things that at some point in our life will get us fulfilled. Let me give you a little news flash. Colossians 1.16 says, I'm created by God, but I'm created for God. So outside of that equation, you're never gonna be fulfilled. You may have moments of enjoyment, but that's not fulfillment. So you're only gonna fulfill and get truly fulfilled in doing what the creator designed and created you to do. So if you're a business person, go kick tail in the marketplace. Partner up with the vision of this house or where wherever your your home church is or what have you, but you need to pastors set vision, business people set pace. And they're equally as important. Let me say it this way we esteem Dr. Billy Graham, probably one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the world. Integrity times a hundred. Started out well, ended well. Quite rare when you really think about it. But watch this. He said this before he died. Next great move of God is coming through business leaders in the marketplace. This is before he died. And that just resonated with me because your calling and what God's designed you to do, I don't care if you work at a plant, you work downtown, you work for government, you whatever, you're a teacher in a school system, whatever that role is, it is a holy calling. It is redemptive in nature, and it really matters. And let me frame it up for you. It's equally as important as the calling that was on Billy Graham's life, and it's equally as important as on the calling that's on the McClellan's life. You don't have a second-rate calling, but I think we have a mindset that we've imposed on ourselves, because see, I never looked at my business career until a pastor affirmed me one day, because in, you know, the first business I had, uh, full disclosure, was the we created uh a virtual way to buy and sell automobiles in the mid-90s. Never been done before. Went from zero to fifty million, as pastor said, and then two years later was out of business. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. Okay? Best way to do something, number one, the right way. That's wisdom. Number two, again. Again. And again. If you don't quit, you if you don't quit, you right. And so I looked at my life and that business failed, and I can give you a hundred reasons how we were lobbied and got got lo uh uh they passed laws that prevented us from doing what we were doing because we disrupted a multi-billion dollar market segment. Man, I thought I was gonna retire before I'm 30. And I'm sitting in a fetal position in a bathroom, three-story house, and private planes and Ferraris and all these things that the world could that you would buy and and all that. And I'm looking at my life, giving away 20% of my income, so I'm double tithing. Lord, how could you let this happen to me? Why'd this happen? I'm giving to you somewhere in Malachi or that Bible says that you're gonna protect me, rebuke the plagues and the devourers. Well, I'm getting devoured right now. Where are you? And I'm telling you, I didn't have the character to handle the blessing. Some of us are praying for things that we need to be focused on building the character, which is the foundation to handle the house we pray and to be built on that foundation. And so I'm sitting there looking at my life, going, okay, wow. And then, man, I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit just nudged me and said, You were giving to justify the private life you were living. That's hard. But God loved me so much, and he gave me a second chance, and he starts to rebuild my life, kind of like restoring one of those old cars where they sandblast that metal. I was getting sandblasted, y'all. And it didn't feel good. But God was trying to build something so that he could lay the proper foundation to build what he wanted on my life, and he's trying to do that with you. So sometimes you gotta embrace, embrace that affliction, embrace that situation that requires a different level of surrender. And so God took me on this journey and started over completely over. We eat and peanut butter and jelly, and every now and then Vienna sausage. Come on, somebody. If you take Vienna sausage as occasion, and you cut it right down the middle and you put it in some real butter and you saute that thing, whoo, with some white bread and some mayo and mustard, sauce bon, y'all. It's gonna help you out. May make your cholesterol go to about 500, but it's gonna help you out. All my California friends, they're like, Man, you you you know, you eat all that crazy food. I say, Yeah, you can you can have your tofu and all that other stuff you want, and you may outlast me by two years, but I'm gonna die with a good taste in my mouth, y'all. Hallelujah. But it wasn't it wasn't until starting completely over that God started to work in my life, and and I remember missing three Sundays because I'm trying to meet with these lenders and banks that because we sold financial technology too, about ended up being 19,000 banks over a period of years. And uh the company was very successful and then sold it, it's still successful today. But at 50 years old, God said, I want you to give your life away. I want you to help others. It's not about you, son. See, I've never written a billion-dollar check to my church, I've written millions of dollars to my church, but never a billion. But watch this. I am today to the tune of about eight to nine billion a year, through the 20-something thousand churches that we're able to impact, and millions of business leaders rising up saying, you know what, I'm not just gonna sit back on the wings. I have a role to play in the kingdom of God. I'm gonna come alongside my pastor and say, let's go get that hill together. Because if you set pace, I set, if you set vision and I set pace, that means that there's a partnership here. Don't discount what you do at all, ever again. I think that there's a massive convergence happening right now with pastors and business people. I think it's provision and vision coming together. I think it's calling and capacity coming together. I also think that the church, it's not a charity, the church is God's strategy for earth. And this house, this house is a safe place, this house is a healthy place, this house is a house of order, and order always precedes growth. So there are gonna be more people coming in here. There's gonna be more campuses to be built. But I thought about in my own life when I connected the kingdom purpose and started aligning myself, things started falling in line, and I didn't really even make sense of it in the beginning. I just said, you know what, God, I'm gonna just kind of a little bit of blind faith, step out and just trust you. I probably can't take three steps, God. I don't trust you that much, but I'm gonna take one. And then he would meet me wherever I am. I love the grace of God. I love the grace of God over my life. You know that God is more interested in you experiencing his grace and you trying to be some jumping through hoops. You know, God told me one time he said, Hey, my grace is more important than your preparation. Now you need to prepare, you need to pray, you need to study, you need, but uh understand, son, I know you're gonna have some hard days. And I need you to experience my grace because my grace is what's gonna carry you. And he's done that over and over. But I thought about my why. You know. If you lose your why in life, you lose your way. And I think some of you need to be reminded of your why. Some of you may need to go back to the place where God originally called you and told you what you were supposed to do. But life, setbacks, challenges, different things that you've had to go through maybe have gotten you slightly off course. I think a day to reconcile that is today. But if you lose your why, so is you lose your way, and I was thinking about that, and people would say, Lee, you know, you and Laura are generous, and in our stewardship series, I wanted to give you a couple reasons why my wife and I are generous stewards. Because I can only share with you what I've done. That's the only thing to me that has authority and impact. It's not a thought, it's what I've lived. Number one is I give and live generously, and I want to be a good steward because the God I serve is a giver. He's given me everything I need. He doesn't have to, he doesn't owe me anything else. But he gives seed to the sower, not seed to the keeper. There are people that keep, but they have no fulfillment. You see, I want to be a resource. I've told people this, I want to be a paymaster for the kingdom. So it comes to me to go through me, and it's never about an amount. And by the way, you can be generous with a comment, an encouragement. You can go serve somebody, you can go mow somebody's grass, you can go help somebody, you can open up a card door, you can even open up a door for your wife when y'all go into Walmart that you walk in eight miles ahead of her. You need to slow it on down, and I'm guilty as charged, and uh full repentance, and to be able to sit there and just be hospitable, that's how you can be generous. It's not just all about finances. I remember starting completely over and having one of those prayers. You know, sometimes when you pray to God when you blew it, and you're looking up at the ceiling, you're like, oh Lord, please, if you deliver me from this and help me, if you help me and deliver me from this, I'll never do it again. Anybody? Okay. So I'm sitting here saying, Lord, if you give me 50 million again, I promise I'm not gonna blow it. Negotiating, I'm posturing a little. And I'm telling you, I could hear God laugh. He's going, boy, he didn't say it like that. He is a little cage. If he was caging, he would. He goes, boy, he said, how about you be faithful to the$50 before you worry about$50 million? Because that's all we had after our tithe was$50, starting completely over. God doesn't hold you responsible, young person. God doesn't hold you responsible, unemployed person, for what you don't have. He holds you responsible for what you do have. And so my wife and I had our$50. I called my pastor, I said, I think God's gonna use me to fund the kingdom. He wanted to meet. He was excited. And so we met and he's like, Wow, that's amazing. Tell me about that. He goes, you know, we're starting completely over and we got$50. Okay, we're gonna move the mountain. And uh sure enough, we're sitting there and I he goes, Well, I want to help you with your dream. And he spoke life into me, and so we started giving$25 to two projects our church was involved in, and over a period of years, don't miss this, not months, not weeks, not days, years. Started being faithful. Then the$50, we started supporting three, four, five, ten projects a month, and as months went by, the dollar amounts as our business started to grow, starting completely over, then all of a sudden, then the$50 per project, and$100 per project, and$200 and$300 per project, and then it was 20 projects and then 30 projects and then 50 projects and then 70 projects a month, then 90 projects a month, then 110 projects a month, then 120, 130, 140, and in a period of five years we were supporting 145 different projects and we had given six million dollars away. Now, the moment, that's amazing. Oh, but you know what? The win is not that. The win was being obedient with the 50. And not looking at saying, I ain't got nothing to bring. I ain't got nothing to bring to the table, Lord. He's saying, Would you just please bring what is in your hand? If you will be obedient to what's in your hand, it's the key to what's in your heart. Some of you are chasing your purpose when you need to be faithful to your calling. Your calling is what's in your hand, it's what you're good at every day, but you look at it and say, nah, it's mundane, it's just ordinary, uh, it's just, you know, a means to an end to pay bills. No, no, no, no, no. That purpose is in your heart. It seems distant and you can't figure it out, and you're trying to figure it out. The key is not laying this down, it's being faithful to this so you can fulfill this. Does that make sense? All right, so I serve, I give because the God I serve is a giver. Number two, I give because I want to be an example to my kids. I've got a bunch of them. Come on, somebody. But I want to be an example to my kids, and my son Harrison travels with me, and we were in Detroit. You ever been to Detroit? They got the longest terminal. It's just one terminal. It's not like Dallas where it's all spread out and organized. It's just one terminal. And you are walking a long ways, gate 8,642. So you're you're walking and there's a P.F. Changs. In my house, we call that restaurant Pfff Changs. And so my son goes, who he worked, he worked there in college, he goes, Dad, look, there's pff changs. I said, Let's go get us some pff changs. And so we go in there, and there was a lady there who was serving, and she had this veneer of a smile. You've seen people in pain, the veneer of a smile, but there's a lot of pain going on behind that veneer. And I looked at my son and I said, Son, she got a lot of pain. We talked to her, single mom, multiple jobs, caring a lot. And man, I looked at my boy and I said, We're gonna bless her. He goes, Oh man, he got all excited. He goes, Man, what are we gonna do? I said, We're gonna bless her, like Fox News kind of blessing. He's oh, that's awesome. Man, I'm so excited we get to do this. I said, You ain't doing nothing. You ain't got no money. I'm doing the blessing, you doing the watching. And so, so we get the bill and I write the tip, and then it was a nice size tip. And then I said, and this was my faith moment, we going for another digit.

unknown 28:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

And he goes, Oh gosh, dad, that's amazing. And I'm like, Yep, it ain't about us. We're gonna run out of here so fast when she goes back in the kitchen. We're not putting a Jesus fish or putting, you know, a scripture on that. We just going. We blessing her and we gone. That's between her and God. And all of a sudden we we leave and we're walking down the terminal and we're going and about 50 yards back. She he goes, Oh my god, dad, here she comes. And she is running, she's twice my size. She is running full sprint, just I mean, coming at it. Woo! Oh baby, you're not leaving without giving me the hug. And I'm like, oh gosh, okay. True story. I'm embracing for impact. She's like, I'm like, oh, she's coming in hot. I mean, aprons flying, everything's flying, and it's just flying. And I'm just like, oh. And I'm like, so we we embrace him. I said, you are daughter of the king. You deserve every bit of that. God has not, this is for somebody this morning. God has not forgotten you. God ain't forgotten you. And so I said, You you earned all of this. He's got you. She's crying, I'm crying. My son's hiding. How many of you know I want to be generous and a steward so I can be an example to my kids? They don't listen to me, they watch me. Number three. I'm a generous steward because I want to be what? I'm in covenant. I'm in a covenant relationship with God in my church. Watch this, Shoreline. What you sow in your church doesn't stay in this church. It gets multiplied through this church. The church is not a charity, it is God's strategy for here on earth. Number four, I give and I'm generous because generosity is the bridge from lack to overflow. But there's three things for you to move. See, the problem with lack is lack only points to itself. Think about this. If a church is just trying to keep the lights on, they can never go help a girl get rescued out of a sex trade. They can't help bring water or food or medical or in they because they just have to focus on themselves. They don't even have a choice. They may have the best hearts and motives, but because they're in life, they can't do anything about anyone else. But to move into overflow, and by the way, I'm not a hyper prosperity type person or any of that, but I am a person that believes in a spirit of excellence. And everybody, God's gonna have a different pace and a different place and all of that, but we do need to steward what we have in our hand very, very well. But you need three things to move from lack to overflow. And I'm gonna give them to you real quick. Number one is a surrendered heart. And a surrendered heart simply says, God, everything I am and everything I have, it belongs to you. I think God loathes pride more than anything, He hates it. And it's like, Lord, uh-uh, it ain't about me. I'm gonna deflect anything the world tries to put on me and put it back on you. A generous spirit. Use me, God, to bless others and advance your kingdom. And I think about success. Let me give you a Laura Domain quote. Laura Domain would tell you, success, you gotta be careful. It'll lie to you and tell you you can be great at everything. But success not shared is failure. Success not shared is failure. That$50 obedience over time turned into millions of dollars being funded to the kingdom. But watch this. By when you give your life away after you've lived it a while, it's effectuating billions around the world. And then lastly, to go from black to overflow is a willing step. You know, a surrendered heart, a generous spirit, and a willing step. Let me share with you really, it's a personal story. Put back up my family picture if you don't mind. See the little girl on my left? That's Isabella Grace. 21 years old, student at Auburn University, about to graduate. And this is just factual. She's made wise decisions in her all 21 years. She has been an ideal daughter. Worked hard, integrous, virtuous, loves people, loves Jesus. She's an apple mine. She's my sunshine. About 14 months ago, she goes to the medical clinic at the campus, and she had a little respiratory thing, so they give her a steroid shot, which is common. But they used the wrong needle, injected it in the wrong area, and paralyzed her. Lost bladder control, S5, L1, S5, type, whatever that is, nerves. And uh paralyzed from the waist on uh her right side, raised all the way through her foot. This hit us like a brick out of nowhere. Doing all this great stuff, God, our anti-trafficking ministry. We've rest 549 women out of the sex trade in America. Like, Lord, what else am I supposed to be doing? I'm being faithful. Like, but this ain't, I don't know if I want this. Is this the price? You talk about surrender? Sometimes there's gonna be an audible call. Sometimes you're gonna go through something that isn't gonna make sense to you, like what happened with Isabella. But I can tell you this. We were going week after week after week, sleep deprivation, reaction to meds that kept her up all night. It was just chaos, and we didn't understand it. And you know what, church? We were flat tired. I wasn't very spiritual after several weeks and months. I'm sitting here going, I didn't sign up for this. I'm supposed to protect my daughter. There's no money I had, no connections I had. I own an institutional pharmacy. I used to own a bunch of long-term acute care hospitals when they were profitable. Hallelujah. But I couldn't do anything about this, and my daughter is sitting there, and you're picking her up to go to the bathroom, and you're picking her up to go to the shower. Didn't understand it. It was making me a little mad. Do you not see us, God? Your daughter's crying out at night, who's gonna want to marry me like this? Who's gonna want to marry me? Is this my life? And so we're struggling, we're tapping out, we're a strong family, but we're tired. Some of you come in today, you're tired. You want to tap out. That's why you need to be here because you need church family. And I remember, I mean, we're breaking out. I'm getting oil from Jerusalem. I'm going old school, I'm getting like prayer cloths with scriptures on it. Sleep with this baby. Whatever you need to do, nothing. Then I'm with some guy, big hair, big faith, maybe like was TBN poster child back in the 90s. Brother had big faith though. He said, Lee, I couldn't sleep thinking about your daughter. He goes, and I just started praying to God. God, why do you have to wait to heal Isabella? Why can't you heal her right now? And I'm like, man, that'd be awesome, dude. And he said, Man, let's pray for us suddenly. We were on our way to the airport in a van, and he grabs our hands and says, Let's pray for us suddenly. Bella's back at home in bed. And he prays, Lord, I pray you heal her right now. You don't need to wait, you can do it. How many of you know sometimes you got to lean on somebody else's faith, somebody else's courage, somebody else's is that got a little bit stronger than you are in that moment, and you need to lean on them just a little bit. That's why you need a local church, and it's so important to have spiritual family. When we get home, and the moment we get home, it was like we walk in the door, and Bella's crutches are at the stairs, and we're like, oh my god, where is she? She's not responding. We run up to her room. There's she's not in her bed. We're freaking out. This was the very next morning. In church, my little sweet daughter comes walking out the bathroom.

unknown 38:07

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Saying, Oh, oh, mom, dad, I can walk because I can. Mom, dad, I can put my foot like this because I can. Mom, dad, I can do a spin move because I can. Don't tell me that God can't move in a suddenly. Don't tell me that God doesn't see where you're at right now. But you gotta understand. Sometimes this calling requires a different level of surrender. But if you don't quit, you win. If you don't quit, you win. Don't be backing up. Don't be quitting at 1159 when God's showing up at midnight. God has more for your life, but you gotta step into it. And it needs to be a willing step. And that step starts today. I don't know where you're at in your relationship with God, but today is the day that you take that willing step. You need to go all in with Jesus. I want every head bowed, every eye closed. I'm a little bit late. Some of you may have given your, you know, you may have been baptized as a child, or some of you may have been in church your whole life, but you've never made Jesus Lord of your life. Let's rectify that today. You can't be a good steward, you definitely can't be generous until God has done a work with inside of you. Let's rectify that today. So with every head bowed, every eye closed, I'm gonna ask you a simple question, and I want you, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand, and I'm gonna lead you in a prayer, and we're gonna we're gonna take that willing step today, and we're gonna rectify that. And you're gonna leave here different, and you're gonna step in to being that steward God's called you to be, and that breakthrough in that suddenly. So if you want to step into that today, I want you to simply raise your hand and I want to see it. Raise your hand all over the room. Just raise your hand. I see all of your hands. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Don't hold back, don't leave. Don't leave without rectifying this now. Today is your day. Put your hands down. I want you to simply pray this prayer with everybody praying. Heavenly Father, come on, everybody. Heavenly Father, I give my life to you today. All that I am, past, present, and future. Lord, I confess my sin and a need for your saving. I commit my life to you today. Thank you for what you did on the cross. Thank you, God, for raising from the dead to give me eternal life. I commit today that I will be faithful. I commit today that I will be fearless. And I commit today that I will finish well. In Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen, amen. God bless you. Love you.