WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast. 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:07.040 We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ. 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:08.640 Thanks for tuning in. 00:00:24.719 --> 00:00:25.600 I'm Liz. 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:27.199 It's my first time here. 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:34.719 I am a mom, so I should probably on Mother's Day introduce you to my family, put up a slide with their cute pictures. 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:36.159 I'm just not gonna do that. 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:45.600 So uh instead, I'm gonna tell you a story that makes me sound slightly sportier than I actually am. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.039 And then we're gonna get into the Bible together. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:54.399 We're gonna get real honest and get to know each other real well. 00:00:54.640 --> 00:01:12.239 And then at the end, what I'm hoping for, what I've been praying for, is that we will all leave this place with a good, solid reason to walk out those doors with more hope than we walked in them. 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:13.840 Does that sound good? 00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:16.079 Okay, then let's let's go. 00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:24.480 Um, okay, so a couple years ago, for my birthday, my husband and I left our kids at home and we decided to hike Hafdome. 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:27.200 It's a California tradition. 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:30.799 Uh, we had both done it before, but we hadn't done it together. 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:32.719 We woke up at 2 a.m. 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:41.840 in the pitch wilderness dark to set out on this hike with nothing but headlamps and the moonlight to guide us. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.959 And as the sun rose, this is what I saw. 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:56.239 Now it had been years since I'd done the hike before, but I realized we were wildly ahead of schedule. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:25.199 We must not have realized how incredibly quick we were hiking in the dark until the path, instead of going towards the peak, took a sharp right turn, went downhill the opposite direction, and I realized we had basically just started. 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:30.479 Actually, the trail winds way around and comes up the other side. 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.039 And I don't know if you've ever done half dome. 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:37.759 Um, and maybe it's been a while, maybe you know exactly where this part of the trail is. 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:45.039 Um, but even if you haven't, I wonder if you know exactly where this trail is. 00:02:45.439 --> 00:03:16.960 When you come up to the goal that you'd been waiting for, and it is right in front of you, and suddenly life sweeps you off in the opposite direction of where you wanted to go, and you realize that the wait ahead of you is going to be longer than you've mentally prepared yourself for, maybe going a completely different direction than you had set out in. 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:35.680 When that person who you were sure was the one wasn't, when that job interview that you'd gotten to the final round in and had really let yourself get way too excited about just didn't work out. 00:03:36.479 --> 00:03:50.319 When you went in to the doctors for a little headache and found yourself waiting for test results, we've all been swept off our feet. 00:03:51.039 --> 00:04:00.080 And even if you haven't experienced that kind of wait in your life, we all spend a good chunk of our time waiting. 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:02.800 We're all gonna wait sooner or later. 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:06.800 Maybe you're more of a if only waiter. 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:16.560 If only I was out of debt, then if only I had my person then. 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:39.040 If only I could take this step in my career, then and it feels like your real life is on the other side of this weight that you're stuck in, and it's easy to get stuck. 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:51.199 I was talking with a friend of mine recently who is waiting to find the right person, and she's done the math. 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:59.040 She knows that not everyone gets married, she knows that even fewer people are happily married. 00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:17.600 And when she looks around her, she doesn't see a lot of options, and she's come to the point where I've come to many times in my life before where you realize that God never promised to give us what we want. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.600 He doesn't owe us anything. 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:29.920 So, how do we sit in a wait when we don't actually know if we're really waiting for something? 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:38.480 Like it's waiting in line is hard enough, but you know that the line is going somewhere. 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:48.079 Waiting in the wilderness is really hard because you don't know quite exactly where we're going. 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:56.399 I I can tell you that there's two things that I have tried to do to make waiting easier for myself. 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:01.199 I can also tell you uh that neither of them work at all. 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.319 Um, but maybe you've tried them too. 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:26.720 The first one is to try to hope more, just to really try to hope for this thing more, to plan, to aim, to line yourself up, to move towards that direction, to do whatever you can and pray and try. 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:37.199 And somehow when we do this, we end up tying our hope around a thing, a person. 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:41.360 But it's really actually a fantasy. 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:45.040 It's something that doesn't even exist yet. 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:57.360 And unfortunately, false hopes that aren't tethered to any reality, they crash and burn every time. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.680 And they're confusing and painful when they do. 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:12.959 But maybe you've done that before and you've been burned, and then you might be tempted to do the other thing. 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:17.920 Or at least that's where I ended up was actually hoping less. 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:26.800 Deciding that maybe if I just didn't care as much, maybe if I just gave up. 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:35.199 At first, it kind of looks like trusting God, like, hey God, whatever you're gonna do, I'm gonna be happy with. 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:54.160 And choosing to live a hopeless life is not what God called us to do. 00:07:57.199 --> 00:08:00.399 There is a third way. 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:33.759 And if we do, we will find ourselves if we can if we can leave this lurching path of Yosemite and make our way to Mount Carmel, we will find ourselves with Elijah, who is in actually the same boat. 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:44.799 Um, if you turn in your Bibles on your phones, or if you have it with you, to 1 Kings 18, we're gonna drop into the middle of a story. 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:53.759 And I'm just gonna catch you up because it may be a while since you turned your pages to this part of the Bible, or maybe this is all new to you. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.679 But Elijah was a prophet, which means he was a messenger between God and humans. 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:09.200 And uh he um told the king of Israel, it is not gonna rain until I say so. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:15.919 Because the king and queen were incredibly evil at this time. 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:26.159 And the the hope was that God's people would recognize we have completely taken for granted the way that God is providing for us. 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:33.600 And if that goes away, we will realize that all of it was because of God and we'll come back to him. 00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:36.320 That didn't happen. 00:09:36.879 --> 00:09:52.799 But even though that didn't happen, even though the land lived in drought for three and a half years without ever turning back to God, God came back to his people. 00:09:53.200 --> 00:10:04.480 In fact, um, where we come, we're just coming to the tail end of where on this very mountain, Mount Carmel, Elijah called down fire from heaven and it came. 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:06.320 And God showed up. 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:25.759 And if there is any time in Elijah's life that he could have been tempted to hope more, to just assume that God is on his side, everything is working out, it's all good, God's gonna take care of it, and have positive thinking that this drought is as good as over. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.320 Now is the time when he could have done that. 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:41.519 He also could have just said, like, hey, man, God just showed up in such a big way, and these people should be happy for it because they'd never even held up their end of the bargain. 00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:43.759 He doesn't owe us anything more. 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.320 He's gonna do what he's gonna do, and we're gonna be grateful for it. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:51.679 But he doesn't hope less either. 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:54.960 He chooses a third way. 00:10:55.519 --> 00:11:07.440 If you'd look at 1 Kings 18, 42, Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah went up to the summit of Carmel. 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:13.440 He bent down on the ground and he put his face between his knees. 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:17.600 Elijah prayed. 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:32.480 We're gonna move through this section of scripture and find these tracks uh that will form the soundtrack of how Elijah models waiting for us. 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:37.440 And I wonder if it will resonate with you the same way that it has with me. 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:49.120 It's really unclear as Elijah prays, whether he had some word from God that there was gonna be rain that the narrator doesn't tell us about, or if he didn't at all. 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:53.200 But either way, he's praying. 00:11:54.240 --> 00:12:10.639 The biggest clue that we have to what's going on here is actually in James 5, in verse 17 and 18, it says that Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:15.360 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the land produced its fruit. 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:26.159 And the inescapable truth is that Elijah was human just like we are. 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:35.120 And James is telling the early church that it's not just the big fancy people who get their prayers answered. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:48.480 God hears all of our prayers, and believe it or not, our little human prayers can move heaven and earth. 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:54.480 Not because of how good we pray, but because the God who we're praying to. 00:12:54.879 --> 00:13:01.039 And here's the deal: I I used to be overly optimistic about this. 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:09.120 And and then I thought that when the prayers didn't happen and the miracles didn't explode everywhere, that I was doing it wrong. 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:15.200 But prayer changes everything. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.240 And it starts with us. 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:26.320 I have found that prayer isn't just the fastest way to get what you want. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:38.639 In fact, it rarely is, but it is one of the fastest ways that I can get on alone. 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:46.639 Because God is with us, but it doesn't always feel that way. 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:53.919 And man, there is something deeply lonely about being stuck in a wait. 00:13:55.120 --> 00:14:18.240 When we pray and invite God into our wait, when we invite him into our tension and everything that's going on, our unmet desires, our fears, that is an incredibly intimate place for us to be with God. 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:39.039 I um I was once in a wait, and um it felt to me like I was sitting on a bench in a sports game and just watching everyone else play. 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:47.440 Now, bear with me because I am the last person who should be allowed to use a sports analogy up here. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:52.000 And I will probably get this wrong, but just roll with it. 00:14:52.240 --> 00:15:03.600 Um I it just sort of felt like somehow I was on this bench and I'm just watching everyone else on the court or field or whatever do their thing. 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:06.879 And there's some people who I am genuinely cheering for. 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:18.080 And I'm watching some people mess up, and I'm just dying to get in the game, and I don't understand why I am stuck on this bench. 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:34.559 And there are lies that I believe on this bench, that somehow I'm not good enough to be in the game, or somehow the coach is holding me back because he doesn't trust me, or I can't keep up with the other players. 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:51.279 I think as I was holding this image and sitting in it, one of the things that I realized is that in those seasons when we feel like we are stuck on the bench, we are sitting right next to the coach. 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:53.360 That's where he is. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:59.759 He's on the sidelines, in the dugout, other sports word, other sports word. 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:05.759 And like that's when we are closest to our coach. 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:11.440 And sometimes the reason that we're on the bench, it's not because we're not good enough. 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:17.200 It's not because the coach didn't like what we had to offer in practice last week. 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:22.960 It could be that the coach is inviting us to that space. 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:32.240 And he wants us to rest because he's planning to send us in at the end, and he knows what we can do on a full tank. 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:42.960 It could be that he's inviting us to sit on this bench because we're close to him and he's got this clipboard with crazy stuff written on it. 00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:48.799 And he is watching a totally different game than we are watching when we're on the field. 00:16:49.039 --> 00:17:06.079 And he's inviting us to see the game in a different way, to see things the way that he sees things, in a way that we can't see when we're so busy and wrapped up and in the middle of it, but we can when we step back and spend time with him. 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:14.079 There's a million reasons why it's important to spend time on the bench. 00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:35.359 But how would it change the way that we felt if instead of being stuck there and held back, if we were invited there, and we were with our coach who didn't need us to be winning, to be proud of us. 00:17:36.799 --> 00:17:42.079 And we wouldn't even really know that unless we spent this time here. 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:51.119 The truth is that sometimes we want to shortcut our weight because waiting is not fun and it's not easy. 00:17:51.440 --> 00:18:03.920 So we don't realize that even if we can shortcut it, even if we do, we are shortcutting ourselves from things that we don't even realize. 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:15.119 Let's uh we are never as alone as we feel when we're waiting. 00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:20.960 When we pray, we realize that God is with us and we are with Him. 00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:28.319 But also it's a unique environment, a unique opportunity for us to invite others into our wait. 00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:39.920 It feels very, very vulnerable to let other people know that we're waiting for something, to let them see us in our not yet place. 00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:50.880 But there was a couple years ago a friend of mine who got into Harvard and he announced it at a dinner. 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:57.599 And I think he expected all of us to say, congratulations, you're amazing. 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:00.720 But I was furious. 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:09.119 Because here's the thing: I don't know a lot about business school, but I'm pretty sure they don't just call you and say, Hey, you're in. 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:14.960 He had to fill out an application, he had to decide he wanted to go. 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:21.759 And I just thought, I cannot believe that he did not trust us to wait with him. 00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:36.000 That he was more interested in impressing us with what he had done than in inviting us to hold this with him, even if it ended up being in disappointment. 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:42.799 Because disappointment is heavy and it's not meant to be held alone. 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:56.400 When we pray and we invite God into our weight and we invite others to pray with us and invite them into our weight, things are already changing because we're no longer alone. 00:19:57.359 --> 00:20:06.960 If we keep reading in um in verse 43, Elijah is praying, and so what is happening? 00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:12.160 Well, he says to his servant, go up and look towards the sea. 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:17.839 So he went up and looked, and he said, There's nothing. 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:29.759 Elijah is praying on his knees with his face pressed to the ground. 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:36.720 And he sends his servant to go look at the horizon and see if God is sending rain. 00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:43.599 And the servant comes back and says, There's nothing. 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:51.759 I don't know how many times I've looked at the horizon and seen nothing. 00:20:53.119 --> 00:21:05.359 There's no houses I can afford, there's no people who look like they're gonna be my best friend, there's no jobs that are the right fit for my weird background. 00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:06.960 There's nothing. 00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:30.240 And this posture that Elijah has is not just one of humility and supplication, but if we look at other places in the Bible, being down on the ground with your head to the to the floor, it's also a posture of grief. 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:41.200 Because sometimes the reason that we look and we see nothing is because there's a giant hole left by what used to be there. 00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:50.240 And sometimes waiting is what we experience on the other end of loss and grief. 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:59.599 And we're forced to be in this space where life is never going. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.759 Going to be the same. 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:07.039 And we talk about drought all the time in California. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:14.720 But back when this drought happened, the economy and the access was totally different. 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:18.079 This drought was devastating. 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:20.240 The crops weren't growing. 00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:22.240 People didn't have water. 00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:24.559 Terrible things were happening. 00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:26.079 People died. 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:37.440 And even if the rain came, it wasn't going to get rid of all of that loss, of all of that pain. 00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:41.839 It wasn't going to bring anything back. 00:22:43.839 --> 00:22:54.559 And one of the ways that when we when we wait and if we spend that time in prayer, like grief is often a part of it. 00:22:55.519 --> 00:23:03.680 Whether that's being angry or lamenting or just holding the pain. 00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:09.920 God is so much more comfortable with our pain than we are. 00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:18.480 He can hold that and he can hold us even when there's nothing. 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:25.200 But here's the truth about nothing. 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:30.160 It's actually never nothing. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:38.160 We can feel like we are in the pitch dark and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. 00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:40.799 All it is is darkness. 00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:45.839 But when nothing is happening, something big is usually happening. 00:23:46.319 --> 00:24:15.039 It's like if you were a seed and you were in the dirt, all you would know was complete darkness, and you may not perceive the amount of nutrition that was soaking into you, the imperceptible ways that you were growing, or the fact that there is a gardener on top of that soil who is tenderly taking care of you to bring you back to new life one slow step at a time. 00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:22.400 And sometimes God's time feels slow. 00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:36.480 If we keep reading in verse 43, it says that seven times Elijah said, Go back. 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:42.000 Seven is the number of perfection in the Bible. 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:52.400 And so as he is on the floor and and he is sending his servant to look and see if God is doing anything, and all that there is is nothing. 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:04.079 Some of us have prayed and we've looked and there was nothing and we gave up. 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:11.599 Or we waited and there was nothing twice and then we gave up. 00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:15.680 What have you given up talking to God for? 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:19.680 Because you waited and prayer didn't work. 00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:28.799 Seven times Elijah sends his servant back. 00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:39.119 Seven times because God's timing is perfect, and it's very rarely ours. 00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:50.240 If there's something that you have stopped talking to God about that you have given up hope for, I would just encourage you to go back and look again. 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:09.440 I did that with some friends of mine earlier, and one of the sections invites us to pray about something that we stopped praying about. 00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:17.039 And um, and one of the women in the group started praying for something that she had completely given up for. 00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:24.400 And two months later, after our Bible study had ended, she texted a picture to our group. 00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:35.920 And the little seedlings of new hope and new life in this area that had felt totally dead, that she'd utterly given up on, they were coming back to life. 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.680 It was so amazing to celebrate that with her. 00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:42.240 Keep praying. 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:45.519 Go back and look again. 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:48.960 Maybe it's not that your prayers didn't work. 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:51.599 Maybe it just wasn't time yet. 00:26:52.319 --> 00:27:03.440 If we keep reading, it says that on the seventh time the servant reported, there's a cloud as small as a man's hand coming up from the sea. 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:11.279 And then Elijah said, Go and tell Ahab, get your chariot ready and go down so that the rain doesn't stop you. 00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:15.680 Before it started raining, the king needed to move. 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:21.440 They're in the desert, and this sand is about to turn into a giant mud pit. 00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:31.839 And there are times that you need to make a move before you're ready or before you're sure. 00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:34.160 Because the rain is coming. 00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:46.960 Are you allowing yourself to be so stuck in your weight now that even if you get what you want, you're gonna be stuck still? 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.240 There might be ways that God is inviting you to get ready. 00:27:52.559 --> 00:28:01.359 The truth is that the thing that we're waiting for has so much power in our lives. 00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:05.920 More than we consciously realize that it has. 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:49.119 When nothing is happening, something is happening. 00:29:50.319 --> 00:29:52.720 Your right now is not forever. 00:29:54.319 --> 00:30:01.119 And lastly, God's imagination is so much bigger than ours. 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:20.480 Ephesians 3, 20 through 21 says, Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. 00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:21.359 Amen. 00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:28.720 Because hope, hope is not a dream that something will happen. 00:30:29.599 --> 00:30:35.119 Hope is the anticipation that there is good in our future. 00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:53.359 And I know that no matter what I am waiting for, of the infinite futures that could possibly be what's next, I know that there is not a single one of those futures where God does not exist. 00:30:54.319 --> 00:31:03.839 I know that there is not a single one of those futures, even in disappointment or grief or loss, where God's goodness cannot find me. 00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:10.160 And that is the hope that Elijah leads us towards as he prays. 00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:22.000 That is the hope that we're invited to remind ourselves in and settle in as we pray and invite God and invite others into our wait. 00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:29.359 There's another prayer that I've borrowed while waiting. 00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:38.799 Sometimes when I'm in the thick of my own wait, it's hard to come up with my own words to pray. 00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:44.000 And I love to borrow this prayer from Henri Nowen. 00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:50.000 The mean time can be such a mean time. 00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:55.440 And so I hope that we can close by praying this prayer together. 00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:24.319 I'm gonna pray it aloud once over us, and then I want to leave some space for you to pray it or your own version of what it would look like right now to invite God in to the place where you're feeling stuck, to the thing that your heart most wants and doesn't know if you'll ever have, to the thing that you're not sure if you'll be okay without. 00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:32.240 And see if we can receive from God some hope while we wait. 00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:39.839 And then as after we close, the band is gonna come up and sing a blessing over us. 00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:52.480 I would just encourage you to receive what is being sung over you and also to sing loudly over those around you because there's plenty of us who just need to be unalone today. 00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:54.720 Let's pray. 00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:02.079 Dear God, I want so much to be in control. 00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:06.799 I want to be the master of my own destiny. 00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:14.240 Still, I know that you are saying, let me take you by the hand and lead you. 00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:23.759 Accept my love and trust that where I will bring you, the deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled. 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:29.759 Lord, open my hands to receive your gift of love. 00:33:33.839 --> 00:33:36.160 We hope you are blessed by this message. 00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:40.799 Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded. 00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:43.039 And hey, we'd love to connect with you. 00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:49.119 Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.