How To Remember God's Faithfulness — VOUS CREW Live

[Music] my name is joshua and welcome to another vue crew live hey we are so excited for you to be joining us here today i'm here with a bunch of amazing people you get to meet them in a few moments but if you're wondering what a crew is crew is simply the small groups of our church it helps make a big church feel like a small church i found some of my first friends in a crew and look jesus had a crew amen so you need a crew the good news is we've got one crew week left we're in our last crew week for this season we operate in three seasons this is our second season the final week of season two and so it's really it's a perfect time to go and find a crew that might be a really good fit for you so you can go to voochurch.com cruise and you'll see all the crews there we've got high school crews college crews fitness crews uh co-ed crews guys crews girls cruise but take a look and see what works for you and and just jump in see what it's like don't miss this week don't miss this moment to find an opportunity to get into a circle like this and have a conversation about your faith uh this past week uh pastor tim timberlake came through yeah and he brought an incredible message you know some things he shares things i've never known right and we're gonna obviously get into that but we don't start a crew without an icebreaker so i'm so excited for us to to jump into it let's get your your name and let's go with your coffee order okay um my name is michelle and my coffee order is just very standard basic like just a small black coffee no cream no sugar um even in hot miami i still drink it hot i drink iced coffee sometimes but um i drink it too fast and then i like halfway through it i have heart palpitations so i'm like the hot coffee helps me pace myself so for those of you who don't know my name is bijan and i always have a cup of coffee in my hand in fact they made me leave it off the stage having heart palpitations i have a cold brew sitting about 10 feet from me i always have a cold brew in my hand and if you see me at a coffee shop i probably have a cold brew and an espresso beside me wow that's kind of the true test of you know that is if you want to know if they know what they're doing you gotta ask for an espresso and the cold brew is just my indulgence wow wow hi everyone my name is ambry and my coffee order is nitro code group with almond phone wow wow okay that sounds sweet it's really good you should really try it um my name is axel and um my coffee order changes right now i'm in a a hot um oatmeal latte seasoning so fancy my name's jackie and my coffee order depends if i'm home or if i'm here by home i'm in honduras and we have like the best coffee ever like if you haven't tried hunter and coffee you definitely have to do that every time i go back home i bring 10 bags with me like i'm not even kidding but when i'm over there i just have a straight up black coffee feel the flavor it's great when i'm here i have to switch it up because i don't know where the coffee comes from so i just i also changed right now i'm in a like chilotic kind of thing um always with almond milk though so i'm always amazed when i hear like coffee waters i don't drink coffee so i don't know but it is i mean you're sounded like a whole transformer like i was like wow that's one tap too i do um i have two orders at starbucks one is a venti h2o light on the rocks and the second one and the second one is a black tea so those those are my orders when i go i know you order like a java chip frappuccino [Laughter] you got milkshakes good stuff um yeah but let's let's jump into it uh pastor tim's message this week was so so good um it was one of those ones where i feel like i have two full pages of notes yeah you guys ever get like this when you're taking notes it's like there's so much to write down and then i i'm like panicking because i'm missing the next thing they're saying like i gotta i gotta listen how do i pause in real time yeah other people's information yeah yeah you're like like you're cheating on a test yeah but one thing that he said that really just i've been thinking about it since sunday is he said um our destiny is moving towards us at the speed of our obedience and i think it particularly like it stood out to me in particular because um two weeks ago we did baptisms at vu and i got baptized come on i know and i i was sharing with everyone here before we started recording but it was kind of one of those things where i had been baptized as a baby and then since i had really gotten serious about my faith and my walk with jesus i hadn't done it but it was something that especially lately i just felt that holy spirit tug like there's something you gotta do this is something you gotta do um and then like sunday baptism sunday would come and i wouldn't do it and then another one and as i kept running away from that like it kids kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger where i'm like man i got just do this um and it just made me think like like pastor rich's message that that sunday was about baptism just being basic and it just made me think when he said that about i know my my destiny coming at me at the speed of my obedience is like remember high school psychology you learned about like maslow's hierarchy yep that's right and it always kind of made me think like especially since i was baptized it's like god's asking you know i'm asking for like the things at the peak of my pyramid and god's like man do that basic foundation thing i'm asking you to do and continue to be obedient in those foundational things and then those you know the the things that are more elevated in that and that pyramid will come um so i thought that was that's so good that's really really good that there was a there were there were two things that really stood out to me i mean the whole imagery around the staff you know i had never known that and i've i've been around my bible a long time yeah but to have that that that insight that these peop these men would grow with their staffs and the staffs were their stories of moments that god showed up was so powerful to me and really just unlocked a lot of stories and scriptures in the bible for me that involve a staff or a rod i'm like like it it was honestly it was very profound i went home i looked up the articles like i did my own research i'm like this is blowing my mind right now um more specifically was hey in his presence are pleasures and pathways and joy are you missing out on clarity right now you're missing out on god's presence are you missing out on pleasure right now you need more of god's presence are you missing out on joy right now you need more of god's presence those are indicators that you need to get in god's presence and so man i really appreciated the passion and directness that he brought in the message that's great yeah the message was great there's one specific thing he said and i wrote it down like boxed it out and he said when we create memories we return and i really like that because i started thinking of my own memories that i have created and there's memories that you know there were times in my life like that i can remember exactly like things that i returned to but also spaces and i started thinking like oh like in my room like how many times i pray like sitting in that particular chair or like when i was like sitting in this particular coffee shop that i returned to every like every week like the times that god was just speaking to my life and it was really good to just like sit down and like remember those things and actually be like where am i returning i don't know if you guys have seen the movie um inside out and like like core memories i just kept thinking about that like what are my core memories like what are the core things that i'm returning to and how are those glorifying god and in within those um i remember one particular time that i was reading exactly the scripture that we're reading today and how god really spoke to me in that time and hebrews 11 is one of my favorite chapters in the bible and i'm so happy that the pastor tim was able to preach on that yesterday but now we can see and just go ahead and read the scripture which is hebrews 11 21 and it says by faith jacob when he was dying blessed each of the sons of joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his stuff great scripture yes that was beautiful and with that um we'll jump right into the main idea and for all of you watching uh if you you want to follow along you go to vuchurch.com crew and um our main idea today is um just about everyone has a favorite childhood memory and while everyone's childhood varies there's usually at least one place you can remember that you would love to return to but what to do about those memories that were great but you just can't recall in biblical times children were given a staff and on it would be inscriptions of god's faithfulness towards them in this way the staff represents so much more than what the shepherds used to guide their flock it was their walking memory stick and um i love that part really i have to circle it where it was it was their walking memory stick because i think of for me i love to write my prayers right so i pray a journal and um there's so many times where i'll go back to something that i wrote like a year ago or a few months ago and i look at i'm like you have so little faith or what you're really worried about this you know i can say this now so um it really uh helps you know put things into perspective and bring me back to today where it's like hey you know this worked out better than you could even plan it there's nothing that you couldn't plan how it turned out so don't worry about it just pray about it you know and um to continue here he says um as jacob and his old age lean on his staff to bless his grandsons we can only imagine what he was thinking as he looked back on god's faithfulness towards him and his family memories are powerful and we have the power to create and keep them by staying in the presence of god taking time to be with him brings peace and joy and goes beyond a momentary happiness knowing god breeds an everlasting confidence to push past disappointments and into his promises within you as he reminds us of what he's done and that he has the power to do it and will do it again right i love this quote from the message he said um you have to create a memory that will strengthen you to stand when you're about to fall great yes and that brings us to point number one each day a gift we tend to give up on whatever we feel we won't succeed in and unfortunately the attitude bleeds into our prayer lives when we ought to dwell in the secret place of prayer with god we lose focus because we don't hear what we want back from him but god is looking for a people who will wait on him and remember his faithfulness his presence is a gift we can receive every day yeah we have three points attached to that the first one is spend time with god so he can make you who he's designed you to become yeah point two stay in the secret place until you hear god's command in the third one your destiny moves at the speed of your obedience and i know i'm slow and this is a good quote from the message as well each day is god's gift to you what do you do with it what you do with it sorry is your gift to him so it brings us to our first question what priorities do you need to shift so that spending time with god can be your first one i know for me it's my work schedule i'm always on and i'm learning to be obedient to pre-covet when i was telling myself okay i'm going to take a sabbath because pastor rich was encouraging us to take a sabbath i read the book ruthless wrote what it you know put my phone on do not disturb at 9 30. um but and when we went into the pandemic it really tested me it tested my work schedule because now i don't really have a off i'm always at home so it's how you balance it so i'm learning again now my work schedule i really need to um just leave it be and leave it in god's hand because that email at 8 pm is going to get the same effect at 8 00 a.m so and in between that time i can spend time with my family i could take time to be with god even setting affirmations on my phone at like 10 o'clock it says it's my time now god that's my time to get in bed pray just dwell in him talk to him that night and i talk to him before i go to bed every night come on yeah that's okay so actually piggybacking off of what you're saying in terms of creating that space in the evening for me it's really about setting the tone for my day so i've always said to people how you dictate you know take control of your mornings as they dictate your day so i know that if i go to sleep with a lot of things undone unaddressed and procrastinated it's actually going to bleed into my next day and i'm just going to be you know playing catch up i'm going to be really a victim to my day reacting to my day rather than being in control and responding so i have found that the more in control of my morning i can be and set the tone from you know right the gecko be it uh worship right when i go to take a shower or let's go go exhaust my physical body so that i can surrender you know my spirit those things really help uh you know what the rest of my day looks like otherwise i'm kind of just stumbling through it feels like right i was um listening this podcast and it kind of reminds me about the host was saying like everyone has a name for that quiet time right it's like it's my prayer time it's my devotional time it's my whatever but she was like in the past few years i changed it and i call it my priority time wow and she's like just that label like we know the power of the words that we give things right and she's like just that shift like okay am i going to have my priority time now or am i going to whatever make pancakes for my kids and it's like it's your priority time um and i'm the same way i like to do it first thing in the day because if i don't man life gets at me and it's too much and i'm beat by 9 pm um so that works for me too but i think when i think about it as my priority time it's like i sometimes i even do before i make coffee i'm like i'm going from my bed to the couch and i'm doing this right now it's great yeah i love that like the reframing of what that time means and i think i've also pat last year pastor they were talking about through the season we're talking about prayer and i was really impacted by that like and jackie i know you you have quite a an active prayer life pastor tim was talking this past weekend about people who pray a lot i'm like jackie's one of those people you know and i'm like man i want to be better at prayer i don't want a prayer time yeah i want that to be that's what you do today right like the praying without ceasing we say it a lot in church i'm like but am i doing it what does that look like what does that feel like and so it it drove me to the psalms and which drove me to read about david right because he was someone i think that was so aware of how accessible god was and so he was always praying about everything yeah and for me my my i don't i just try not to i try to get away from a priority moment yeah i'm gonna start calling it that i like that um while he did have those moments it was throughout the day so for me i'm trying to grow in that whole space and for me it's it's also in the reframing of what prayer is right if this journey is about growing in relationship with god and one of his love languages is quality time and i do think obedience is one of them right then am i avoiding that right i wouldn't do that to a person right that i have that i value and i want to spend time with i'm intentional like i'm planning weeks in advance man i'm going to see you every week this time for an hour like i won't even think twice about it we'll go have to coffee or we'll have tea right so i so i've been thinking of like looking at it differently like there's a song i think about like there's a god who loves me who wraps me in his arms and that is the place where i'm changed if that is true then i need to live differently yeah because otherwise i'm i'm not being changed i'm not having this encounter i'm not being transformed by the renewing of my mind that i'm missing out on the moments and the things that god wants to share with me not only in the morning but throughout my day you know it's so funny you talk about listening to worship in the morning bijan i've only start you know i've got my worship playlist i've got my workout playlist they're very different playlists you know and i was challenged uh recently probably the last month or so like what would it look like if i just leaned into just my what if my worship place was just my worship my everyday list my everything list yeah and i cannot tell you how much more aware i am that i need it how much more i question myself i question where god is bringing me i questioned how how was that interaction did i miss this did i not do that or like i cannot tell you how much i'm in my head and i wondered like i found myself today wondering like how many of these moments did i have that i just didn't pay attention to because i was just in a like in a different space right so i think by spending but trying to be intentional to spend more time in the presence of god has made me more aware of how much i need him every day yeah the more you dwell in him and the more you seek him you will automatically change and people around you will see it like that you want to be like moses when he went on the mountaintop and he spent time with god when he came down his presence god's presence was on him they couldn't even look at him because he was shining so bright so when people see you now from before a year or two ago because you've taken that time and dwelled in him you have changed we are our worst critic you're always battling the person in the mirror right yeah but we see the change in you so you've done it yep keep it i look i love that point that both of you made there about it just because um i think of you know like you said making that priority time how it changes you for me it's more of um i find myself more available to people right when i'm really intentional about my time in the morning and kind of writing in my prayer journal reading and really spending time in the presence of god um i noticed that throughout my day i'm okay with being interrupted by someone who needs help you know whereas when i'm caught up in my own thought or my own you know dysfunction or i need to clarify this whatever it is someone here you know a friend my wife anyone could be asking me yo i need your help to do this and that and it's easier for me to like dismiss it or not see it you know but being more intentional and just spending that time it allows me to be more available for others yeah these were some good responses i have another question share your favorite memory in the presence of god and everyone has to share i can start so my favorite memory is y'all don't laugh at me it was sixth grade i was in my science class and i did not study for this test and i my grandmother always said before you study you should pray after you finish studying you should pray because it's not about you it's about god so after lollygagging um i sat down and shout out to miss morgan um and when i tell you i went into a deep prayer and jesus showed up because i got a hey i was like oh i know the answer i know the answer i know but when i tell you at 36 that memory still sticks with me because it was not me answering those questions it was jesus yeah answering those questions because i if you give me that test today i probably will fail it i knew nothing but i think he understood whatever was going on in my life at that time i just couldn't make my brain available for it um but he stepped in and showed me i got you don't worry about that i love it i love it when god just steps in and i had a a moment where i just every time that i'm like overwhelmed or anxious i always go back to that moment and this was my second semester of college um i had just moved countries like i came from honduras the u.s and i was just realizing that i was in a period of anxiety and depression during that time and um i was new to the city i didn't really have like a lot of friends like my roommate was there but like i didn't really have a connection with her so i remember that a lot of times i would just be in my dorm room like tiny little dorm room in my bunk bed just laying down and like doing nothing and one day in my thoughts i was just you know being there and my mom called me and she was like you need to get out right now and i was like mom like i don't want to get out of my bed like i just want to be here she's like you need to get out right now go sit by the lake that is at your school and open your computer and just start watching any message that you find and i was like okay i'll be a video to my mom like it's fine like i don't want to do it but just to make her happy and i remember i went and i just sat at the lake and i started watching this message the message itself like it was not getting to me so i just like got frustrated and i shut down my computer and i just started talking to god and i didn't even like consider it prayer at that moment but sometimes prayer is just talking to god and telling him all the frustrations that you have and at that moment that's what i was doing and i was like god i don't feel you i'm trying to find you i i can't sense you i don't know what to do i'm just frustrated and i remember that at that moment just i saw like one bird come right in front of me and after that bird there were like another bird and another bird to the point where there were like a hundred birds just sitting in front of me and i just started like looking at them just like you know grabbing food or like the mom just like giving like the food to like the little bird and i was just observing these um birds and then at that moment i just felt god just speaking to my life like that verse that it says like if you see like the person how much more will i care for you and yeah i remember i just broke down in that moment and i was like wow like that's the word that i needed right now and like just like realizing that god really has me and that it's gonna be okay like i was gonna get through it like this was just the season that i needed to get through and i remember the second i said thank you jesus all the birds just got up and like wow and that's a memory i treasure and every time i something's going on i just go back to it because it was just so special for me to feel the tangible presence of god and i carry that with me now and it's just so special to just have like those god moments where we really have an encounter with him yeah it's beautiful you know when i hear these stories i think about pastor tim timberlake last night said to us that there are probably people in our lives that think we're crazy so i hear these stories and i could think of so many people that think we're crazy and my story is no different but i love that like and it makes me it just reinforces that the crazier the story the more likely god's present amen so what i used to also think was crazy i'm now so you know proud about i'm so grateful for it to have had that experience and you know the stories you guys are sharing they're so beautiful and they resonate with me because i feel that same moment of like this this can't be real and mine is taking it back a few years to vue conference when we're at the university of miami and we're sitting there in in a huge worship set i think this is like maybe day two or day three at this point we're all just like exhausted spiritually surrendered we're all broken down in a million different ways and you know sometimes we have our hands up our hands out whatever but for whatever reason i just had like my hands on my face and i couldn't really understand what i was doing i wasn't thinking about myself at all i was just so in love with the worship set and the moment like i went to this school and i can't believe i'm in here worshiping in a school that i've i've walked that stage for high school graduation college law school played basketball like so here i am now worshiping in this building wow and i'm not even thinking about anything but before i know it and my hands are here without even realizing my face and my hands my shirt were just covered in tears i was like what what just happened i didn't even know this was happening in the moment and when i caught that awareness i knew that i was in the presence of god that this room something special was happening and i could never let go of that just moments where it's like so thick right and you just like um one like that for me was so two years ago tomorrow my husband's dad passed away and it was something that happened really quickly he was actually he was at a restaurant they lived in charlotte they lived in charleston um choked on food at the restaurant was in a coma for four days and passed away so jeff went up there and we weren't like we never able i mean you could say goodbye but he's in a coma like there's no real interaction um but i just remember through that whole thing like in something that is or can be so tragic and is so tragic um to watch how god strength just shows up in those moments of brokenness and weakness and like what i saw like moments that i saw jeff ministering to like his stepmom and his sister and like a strength that he found like that comes from nowhere else you know like there's nothing on this earth that can make someone handle something like that in such like a beautiful reverent powerful way um and it's that same thing like i know when you think about that like i can even just sit on you like you're it makes you emotional again um because it's special and it's powerful and there's and there's nothing like it um and you know that's part of the prayer of like inviting people to crew and because you want everyone to have that encounter yeah it's like once you've had it it's like man like you don't know what you're missing like come like you you don't know what could happen um and it's it's just powerful yeah yeah um mine i love those and i think mine um they're kind of like two-fold with both of you here where i can remember um when my wife and i first moved from uh wisconsin we um we had no plan we knew didn't know what to do wasn't really ready for anything we just knew that we wanted to be here and i can remember us being at the uh i-tech i think it was on the second level and we were worshiping and um i just remember in that moment i i was crying and i couldn't control it i didn't even know why i was crying you know but i just felt yeah i was you know i was just dripping i remember the girl standing next to me i put her hand on my shoulder and i looked to my right and then my wife was crying as well you know and um and then fast forward i think of um the testimony is really like a season for us where it was a season of like hey we're looking to get married right we don't have the funds to do it we don't have the connections to do it we don't know where to go or how to do it and somehow someway everything worked out perfectly right from i told you we took the uh the symbols course here that's where we met michelle and her husband jeff who actually came and spoke at our wedding and married us right we uh we were in crew and people and crew connected us with someone who came and dj'd for us come on man and it was like all these things worked out perfectly and we sit back and we look at it and we're like man this whole time we were like scared like we can't do this we don't know how we're gonna afford this and that and it just um it was just like such a beautiful thing to see how like hey just surrender everything to god one thing that we did do was pray about it every day together yeah you know and i think of um just that you know that reminding us that hey we we don't need anything but we need god and that's our everything you know let's lean on that and he answers it and it's like seeing everything play out you're like there's no way we could have like planned this or organize it how it came about and um that's one of my like favorite seasons because of that experience and yeah the emotional roller coaster that we went through yeah what i love about all of our stories and i'll share mine but like they're emotional yeah right they pull at the deepest parts of us most of our stories involve like weeping right but it also involves moments where we chose to wherever we were at in that time to go to god yes we chose to be with god in that moment whatever that moment was whether it was i don't want to leave my bed i don't know what's going to happen i'm for sure going to fail this test what am i doing in my gym did i my jersey's in the rafters why am i here like we're mourning right now but still deciding like regardless i want to make myself available for god to show up in this moment what i love is that he shows up and the answers are all kind of the same right you're not alone i'm with you um i see you i'm gonna take care of you i love you like i think when the depths of our soul have that affirmation i mean it just brings us to tears yeah that's all we ever want to hear i believe i i i like the simplest part of us you're not alone i'm with you it's going to be okay yeah i remember i was at a prayer meeting like that's just like our stories are basically like the same right i was at a prayer meeting um in dc there was like this day of fasting and praying and i decided to go right so i think there's something to be said about deciding yeah to be in the presence of god regardless of how you feel yes just make yourself available for god to show up i think there's something to that um so i go to this thing and you know they've got different people doing worship different people like leading different prayer moments and i went with a group from my college and i was like you know i just want to break away from like people i just want to be by myself i was reading through john wesley's diary and he had talked about this time when like god's presence was so thick in his office where like he's like he prayed he changed his prayer to whatever he's praying to for to god i need you to chill wow because you're like he has this line where like if you don't relent i don't know if i'll live wow presence is too heavy in this space and so i had i just finished reading through some of this parts of his journal and here i am at a prayer meeting and i'm like well god if that happens man i would love to experience that you know i was i was much more fit at the time like i don't know up front when you got like i got like i've been in the gym you know what i said how arrogant right um as is happening a prayer guy comes on the thing and starts praying for the fatherless generation right there's like just a lot going on with abortions and there's a lot going on at the time and um so just people just like just praying for like lost children and people who were raised without fathers it was just like a very powerful moment and i was just here like praying along with everybody like yeah god i'm like i'm here for this and all of a sudden just my spirit is broken i just collapsed to the ground and i'm like in a fetal position on the ground weeping wow weeping like in this moment like i just reminded just some things that i just felt bad about and then also like a pain like in some ways i was a fatherless child right like in some ways right like as a kid child of a divorce and like that's a weird space and i had like you know my weird years and just i just felt that space of like wow like i'm one of these fatherless kids in a way you know and god has healed a lot almost all of that up to this point but then it would i had just become a woe i woke into it i'm like i'm good like i'm fine everything's fine it's like no man like you've got some pain and i just remember guys saying look i am with you like i have loved you from the before you were even formed and i'm just like crying like a little baby i'm like snot shoulder like this on the ground i'm like what is going on with me right now and i remember the guy saying and in that moment like man no one cares that was those eyes no one cares no one sees me like who what it what does it even matter yeah and i i just i can hear in the distance the guys say if there's some if this is you like raise your hand i'm on the ground fetal position you're doing me like i like i can't move like i'm done like i am finished so raise your hands i'm just on the ground all i had in me was just this oh that's all i had i thought you were going to kick your leg up no no that's all i had in me and i when i tell you just the swarm of hands wow praying for me and that was it that just sent me whatever i had left was full from there but um i will never forget that moment right and honestly there's been so many beautiful moments i think we all have many moments like where god has showed up for us and reminds us we're not alone that he loves us he's with us he's got a plan for us and we've got nothing to worry about we've got nothing to fear and correct i think when we realize that truth it brings us to tears because it's yeah it's too good to be true it's too good to not believe as a worship song but we got point two coming up i don't know who's leading yeah i got it yeah honestly brother that that's fire all these stories you know like i was saying pastor tim was telling us we're all crazy but we might as well be crazy about god and with god yeah so we're still all crazy you might as well join the winning team yeah because i don't think any of us were the same since those moments for sure and that brings us to point two his presence your progress there's no point to making progress in this life without remembering the purpose of life itself when we remember that our purpose is to glorify god for who he is our hearts shift into a posture of humility and acceptance of his restorative and unrelenting love and we have three points it's easier to know who you are when you remember where you came from we can't advance without remembering progress is pointless without purpose yeah and a quote for us progress apart from your purpose gives birth to pride that's good that's real good you know kind of the whole theme of what we're talking about in the beginning you know going back to the scripture and definitely bringing this into crew when i think of like the staff i immediately the whole time was just thinking of my circle of friends and my community and our crews right because i know that as i do life with you know selective or selected people or people that god places in my life i know that in many ways they're carrying those memories that we create together they know my my my scars my pains the things that we've prayed for together they know the things that you know the blessings that have been put in my life so at any point where i feel like i may have forgotten something or i'm going through a tough time and i need someone to remind me of god's faithfulness in my life i've always felt like my circle is very much that that walking stick wow yeah it's good yeah so that brings us to our first question what memory comes to mind that serves as a testimony of the goodness of god guys i think it's so important like we overcome by the blood of the lamb and our testimony so we've just had a round of testimonies in the sake of time let's let's call it lightning round yes yeah let's lightening around these next two questions because they allow us that opportunity but can you hit us with it again and jackie we'll start with you yeah we're gonna work our way around great so um for me it was one time where i was waiting for healing to happen physical healing for six years and i got to a doctor and i thought that he was gonna say again like nope not yet and that moment it was just like you're healed and that was just like everything for me at that moment like it meant so much for me nice and um for me it was my relationship with my dad my dad um got sick when i was 12 years old and uh something that could be you know so scary and losing your vision and everything actually turned out to be such a huge blessing in our life and how our relationship was built off of that time together just me and him and we really got close and i could call him my best friend because of that season yeah um for me it would be after my grandfather got his second leg amputated to watch my grandmother intentionally be there for him to make him feel like um you're not less of a man you're still human and i'm going to be by your side to the last days the last day yeah these moments are so real to me because similarly god has always shown up in my brokenness so when i think of these memories i think of the times that i was broken not necessarily my highs so for me it was every physical injury that literally paralyzed my day and surrendered me to the process that god had in front of me yeah that's really good i think for me um before we before we found vuan started coming to vu um jeff and i we were trying to start a family for quite a while like we'd seen all these different doctors we had miscarriage after miscarriage um and and i think part of that struggle was also feeling like we just didn't have people we wanted to raise kids with in our life like we didn't have the right friends we didn't have family down here we live we lived down here by ourselves um and it was just watching god's goodness in the timing of us like finding vu being surrounded by a like-minded community and then you know we have two kids now um but just to watch the navigation of his timeline and surrendering to it and then just letting him go um is really cool countless stories again i think one that i think of as for my sister um well over two years just trying to have a child right i saw the pain her name is hannah and so there's a lot of similarities parallels with the hand of the bible from meeping and just the pain of it all and like to see her now with three kids like one of one of her own one she's adopted and and then she's a stepmom too i mean it's so wild and so i think god you could do that you could do anything yeah that's beautiful it's like you're saying when i hear michelle talk about herself and jeff not having community yeah all of us here have been impacted by you know this family in one way or another in fact jeff baptized me so she's talking about baptism jeff is the one that baptized me um so it's just crazy like you you couldn't imagine that so when you think of all these stories in retrospect it's like how can we ever doubt that god was gonna show up yeah you know knowing you know just how blessed and loved you are yeah i i'm gonna jump in for a second because that reminds me of something that i heard once it's like sometimes we wonder if god's gonna show up or like like where our faith is gonna come from or what he's gonna do and i heard this once it was like god has done everything like we're here on this stage like we've obviously been through every single thing that we've gone through and the the crazy thing or the irrational thing is to actually doubt that he'll do it it's not you know what i mean like that's the irrational thing and sometimes i flip that i'm like he's always done it so when i'm wondering if he's gonna do it that's weird if i had the ability to not forget you know how fearless i would be that's good that's why i'll do that perspective speech why don't you take the last question and why don't you once you close this out with the answer yeah all right cool uh so our alternate question to question two is going to be to share a time or a routine you have that makes you feel close to god and this kind of like touches on a few things that you and i were saying josh and all of us like for me everyone knows i'm a fitness junkie and i've challenged myself to omit and eliminate the types of playlists that i maybe used to listen to and challenge myself to listen to worship and even the most faithful people in the church like how can you work out to worship so it's actually a really beautiful thing that i experience and that's why i do it because i'm a runner i'm an isolator i'm someone who imposes my will on my day on everything i'm doing and especially training that's a very physical fleshy process and like i said i want to surrender that at the start of my day but there's something about worship and this is where i was going to hit you with it earlier it's like i could be running my body might be running but my soul's still listening so i've always found that as i'm listening to worship while training or going on a long run even if my head is super crowded with something yeah somehow i'm still listening to the music somehow my soul is listening more than i'm physically listening to the music and i have an experience i have an encounter i have a prayer moment i get goosebumps i i get tears in my eyes it's like where did that come from and that happens to me time and time and time again and that's what creates this urgency for me to keep refreshing that playlist because i crave that moment so badly so i always tell people like yo i get it that the worship might not hit the way whatever something else is hitting today but give it a chance it's going to hit differently i love that a lot um for me i think it's like with books um i'm a book geek and i love books and i feel like that's a routine that i've been able to like just build upon the years and it's been really good to just like feel the presence of god as i read those books and create memories through those books and with that i think that we've talked a lot about all our points or our memories and i think it's a good time to just jump into our summary now and just speaking of memories um the summary says our memories are very powerful and they play a crucial role in the way we see the world when there is a lack of joy there is a lack of god's presence therefore it is essential for us to remember how faithful god is with us and seek those memories where he has been good to us i really like what you were saying about writing your prayers and i think that's something i'm going to start doing because then you can just go back to those memories and just see how faithful god has been throughout the years our memories are the only thing that satan cannot steal from us i love that even in seasons when there is a lot of chaos we must set time aside from our day to seek god dive into prayer and worship the story of jacob demonstrates us how faithful jacob was to god by worshiping him even in his time of death worship is vital because god created us to acknowledge that he is god and apart from him there is no other god has never forgotten us as he ultimately demonstrated by jesus's sacrifice on the cross so let's choose to remember and worship as jacob did he's great good stuff good crew guys for those of you joining us online you know that we never end a crew without a call to action it's good for us to all sit here and talk about this stuff but we want to carry out carry it out right live it out so this is our call to action this week today is a great day to make a memory write down the moment god has been faithful and post it somewhere you can always see it to remember his goodness awesome your own walking stick your own staff we also don't end crew without prayer so let's join together if you have a prayer request we'd love for you to throw it in the chat if you don't have a prayer request today grab a piece of paper write down a couple of things that you see coming up in the chat let's um join our friends in prayer let's pray together guys dear god we thank you so much for this opportunity to join together as a crew lord we're so grateful um that you designed this life that weren't it's intended for us to do with community god we're not supposed to do this thing alone we know that um our testimony our so much strength has gained from it so much faith god not only for ourselves but it's important that we remember to keep sharing our testimony god because it encourages others um we know that it's an opportunity to bring uh people closer to you god so just just keep reminding us of of these moments that we have as we gather for our last week of cruise god in person and online we just ask for the holy spirit to show up big in this last week of cruz god we've talked today about these these moments these moments that we want to return to and i'm just believing and expectant that those types of moments are the moments that are going to happen in cruise all over this city and online all over the world this week god um we're just expecting we're believing big things we're so grateful we love you god um and it's in your mighty name that we pray amen amen amen thank you guys so much for being here i absolutely love doing these crew conversations with you guys thank you for being thank you for being vulnerable i thank me willing axel first time in the crew enjoy having you yeah thank you guys so much for being here we hope this has brought you some value hope god is talking to you and he's leading you and hopefully you're getting a moment with him right now um just respond to it be available if this has been meaningful for you share the link it's crew week this week don't miss your opportunity to jump into a crew we love you guys we'll see you next week peace i want to say a big thank you for watching today's content believing and trusting that it impacted you and if it did help you or encourage in any way i would love for you to like it and share it with some other people make sure to subscribe to the vu church youtube page where you can get more content just like this and while you're there go peruse the gallery as they say and see past talks and past content that i believe is going to help you i love you best yet to come

Channel: VOUS Church

Views: 2,308

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: V338nMXAtm0

Length: 46min 41sec (2801 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021