- Hi, Saddleback Church. How are ya? Everybody say, "Hi, buddy." - [Audience] Hi, buddy. - There we go. You're all here. It's great to be with you today. If you wanna take out your message notes. I was, Friday afternoon, working on a message about the resurrection
of Lazarus, and I was making progress and really
actually pretty excited about that message. And I had one of those moments, maybe you've had one of
these moments before, where it almost feels
like God just tapped you on the shoulder and said, "(clears throat) excuse me, "excuse me, buddy. "I have a better idea. Tell your story." And I'm thinking, well you know, I'm like into this message. He says, "Yeah, I know. Tell your story." Now I knew what He was talking about because it's a story that I actually told here at the church 10 years ago. It was a story about something
that had happened in my life. I loved to tell the story, but I was a little hesitant to repeat it. So I called Rick, and I said, "Rick, here's what just happened,
here's what I'm thinking." He said, "You gotta tell that story again. "It's been 10 years." He said, "There's a lot of
people that never heard it "and frankly, the ones who did hear it, "probably forgot everything you said." So thank you, thank you, Rick. Thank you. Anyway, so... I'm bringing you a story today. And it's a story about worry. Raise your hand if you have never worried. (audience chuckles) Anybody? Okay, great. So this is for all of us. See, the thing about worry is probably more than anything else, worry has the ability to rob us of joy and peace. And it's amazing the
things that we worry about. If you really stop and think
about most of the things you've ever worried about,
when you look back on them, you go, "What? Why was I
so worried about that?" We worry about the future. We also worry about the past like that's going to do any good. We worry when things change, and then we worry when nothing changes. We worry when the boss
wants to talk to us, and we worry when the boss
doesn't wanna talk to us. My sister got an email one
time from a friend of hers, all it said in the email was, "Start worrying now,
I'll send details later." (audience chuckles) So we just have this
propensity, this need, I guess, to occupy our minds
with all kinds of things that we can worry about. And some of the things
that we worry really are laughable when we stop and think about it but then there are other things
that are very, very serious, real serious things: health issues, financial
problems, family crises. Will my company make it?
Will I have a job next month? Are my kids going to be okay? Are my parents gonna be okay? There's a lot of things
that we worry about, and even when you're following the Lord, even when you feel like you
really are in the middle of His will doing exactly
what He wants you to do, there's still things that
you could worry about. There are also things that
you could worship about. And I believe that in
every occasion we have a choice to make, because
if we spent more time worshiping God, we'd spent a lot less time worrying about things. So what I wanna do today
is I wanna give you a gift of hope by telling you a
story of something that happened to me years ago, it
happened actually 14 years ago. And I realized Friday night
as I was thinking about this, it was 14 years ago this week
when this happened to me. But it's a story about human frailty and God's faithfulness. It's a story about worry and peace. And it's a story about answered prayer. The Bible says in Psalm 84, it says that when you pass
through the valley of tears, dig a well. Now there's a reason for
digging a well in the Bible. You'll often find in the Old Testament that people would dig a well as a memorial to an encounter that they had with God, when something really
profound and life-changing happened for them. And they'd dig a well as a way to remember whenever they would see that well. But the other reason for a well is so that you can offer a drink of water to somebody else who's going
through the same trouble, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians that we comfort others with
the comfort we've received. So my prayer today is
that what I have to say will be a drink of water
from a well that I dug when I was in the valley
of tears 14 years ago. So it started on September the 9th, 2002, and early that morning,
it was a Tuesday morning, and it was about 7 o'clock
and a demolition crew showed up at my house and
started tearing my house apart. Now it was planned, it
wasn't one of those stories of them showing up at the wrong house. It was something we had
planned on, dreamed of for years ever since we
had bought that house, we had already been on it 10 years, and we had been praying over
this and hoping for this day to happen. And these guys showed
up, this demolition crew, and walls came down,
floors were pulled up, the roof line of the house from end to end was ripped open, you could
look up and see blue sky. One of the outside walls,
25-foot wall, came down, and we're just fully exposed
to the possums and rats in the neighborhood. The kitchen was torn out and
thrown into the front yard. Windows, doors, pulled off their hinges. The whole house, the living, dining and kitchen area of the
house was just reduced to studs and concrete. Now fortunately we still had
our bedrooms and our bathrooms, but everything else was
gone, so we kind of moved into the garage for the next few months, and that's where we were gonna actually try to stay in the house while
all of this was going on. And at the end of that
day, as I looked out on the front yard and saw all
these dumpsters full of stuff, full of what used to be my house, I thought, "Isn't it amazing "how long it takes to build something, "but how quickly you can
tear something apart?" Whether it's a building or an idea or even a life, how quickly
you can tear something apart. September the 9th was a hilarious, glorious,
marvelous day of destruction. It was a historic day for the Owens family because it was the beginning
of a whole new way to live in our house, and as I said
it was something that we had been looking forward to for so long, and it finally was coming true. That was September the 9th. Exactly seven days later, I lost my job. 15 years of service and work was gone (snaps fingers) in an instant. Like I said, it's amazing how quickly you can tear something apart. And the company that I was with, I wasn't a pastor at the
time, I was a businessman, was in the music business, and the company that I
was with had gone through, suddenly, a financial crisis, and the leadership decided
that they needed to change the business model. And so that day they shut down
two divisions of the company and they let three vice presidents go, and I was one of those vice presidents. In mercy, they said, "Look,
you don't have to walk out "the door today," it was September 16th, they said, "but on December
31st, the end of the year "you're gonna have to make this change." And I sat there getting this news, thinking about the condition of my house, and my wife and my four kids, and what was the future gonna look like, I had an amazing sense of peace and anticipation. I believed that God was somehow involved in what was going on, because I had learned years before that God is never surprised
by anything that happens, and that He is also not
afraid of the outcome of anything that happens in your life. And the Bible says that
when you commit your way to the Lord, He directs your steps. And I had committed by way to
the Lord everyday for years. And we had committed
this plan of our house everyday for over a year, praying about every detail constantly, presenting it to the Lord. So I made a choice that I was gonna take
God at his word because it's either true or it's a lie. And I chose to believe that it's true, that when you commit your way to the Lord, He will direct your steps. So I chose to believe
that God was involved, that He knew what was going on, He knew it before I knew
it was going to happen, and that He was making a
way and building a future and building a home for my family a place where He would be glorified. So I made that choice that
I was gonna trust Him, and I was gonna just follow
Him into the whole thing. And as I sat in our president's office, sitting with the owner and the president, and they're telling me the
reasons for all this change, I did what most males
do, I stopped listening. (audience chuckles)
Right girls. You know what I'm talking
about, right, okay? It's like turn off the ears because other words came
flooding into my mind at that moment. And what I was hearing
in my head was something from a book that I had read years before, I'd only read the book once, many of you have probably read the book. It's a daily devotional by Oswald Chambers called My Utmost for His Highest. I'd only read it once, but that moment, the words from June the
8th, I had to go find them, the words from June the 8th
came flooding into my mind, word for word. He says, "If you yourself
do not cut the rope "that keeps you tied to the dock, "God just might send a storm
and set you out to sea." And he finishes by saying, "So be careful "never to go back or even to look back "at what you once were
when God wants you to "become something that
you have never been." And those words were so loud in my head that they distracted me from
the rest of the conversation. I knew that God was involved. I knew that He was doing something, and I didn't know what it was, I didn't know what the
future would look like, I just knew that my life
would never be the same again. You see, because when
God wants to bring you into something new, He
first has to take you out of something old. And sometimes He has to drag
you out kicking and screaming, because God knew that
there was no way that I was gonna cut my rope at that moment. Why would I make a change? I was happy, everything was great, I had a nice job, I had a nice income, my house was a wreck. I was not about to cut that
rope, and God knew that. But He also knew, and I knew, deep in my heart, I really did know that there was something
else He wanted me to do, and I couldn't do it where I was. But I wasn't gonna leave
on my own, so that day, on September the 16th, God sent a storm and sent me out to sea. But I want you to see
something in the Bible about what God says about storms. Look at this verse here on the screen, from Nahum 1:3. It says, "The Lord has His way "in the whirlwind and the storm, "and the clouds are the dust of His feet." Well there were clouds on my horizon, so I chose to believe that
they were the dust of His feet. That means that's where He's going. So I decided I was just gonna follow Him. I wasn't gonna fight it. I
wasn't gonna argue with Him. I was gonna follow Him,
because I had also learned long before that when you're in a crisis, the quickest way around
that crisis is through. So I was gonna go through it. And the other words that I heard that day, that verse that so many of
us cling to in Psalm 46, be still and know that I am God. Did you know that be still in that verse does not mean be quite? You can talk all you want to the Lord, doesn't mean be quiet. It means calm down. Settle down. I believe that in the
throne room of heaven there's a sign that says no freaking out. (audience chuckles)
That's what the verse means. Don't freak out, don't panic, calm down, and know that I am God. So those words were in
my head that day too. Of course, that was that day. And some other days were
coming when other words would be in my head. But when I got home that night, now I had to explain to my
wife what had just happened. So all we had was our bedrooms, there's no other place to sit. So we're sitting in our
room, sitting on the bed in our room, she was reading a book, and I finally got up the nerve to tell her what had happened, and I said, "You know, babe, life's about
to get really interesting "around here."
(audience chuckles) And she put her book down, she said, "What does that mean?" So I told her what had happened. But then I also said,
"But here's the thing." I said, "We know that
we have been faithful "to present this plan
to God the whole time. "We have been telling Him,
'Lord, if you don't want us "'to do this, stop it. "'If we're getting ourselves
in trouble, close this door.'" So we had been presenting
this idea and praying about this everyday for over a year. And I said, "And I know that
He knew this was coming. "So we're not gonna change
anything in our plan. "We're not gonna cut back on the budget, "we're not gonna change any,
nothing is going to change. "We're moving straight ahead with the plan "because at this point
it's not our problem. "Now it's His problem. "He got us into this,
okay? It's His problem. "So we're not gonna change anything." She said, "Are you worried?" And I said, "No, I'm not worried." And she said, "Then I'm
not gonna worry either." I have an incredible wife. She said, "I'm not gonna worry either." And she picked up her book
and started reading again. (audience chuckles) Of course, the book was upside down. (audience laughs) But I made the decision that I was not going to worry, that I was going to worship God, because that's the business that I was in. The music part of the
business that I was in, it was creating worship music. So I thought well now God's
putting me to the test, so I'm gonna put Him to the test too. He says He's a provider, I'm
gonna put Him to the test. He says He's a counselor, I'm
gonna put Him to the test. So I decided instead of
worrying, which really isn't going to accomplish anything,
that I was gonna worship God. And so for the next weeks that went by, everyday, I never asked Him for anything. Instead of asking Him to meet our needs, I worshiped Him as my provider. I thanked Him for being the provider, but I didn't ask Him for anything. And instead of asking Him for guidance and direction and wisdom, I
worshiped Him as my counselor. And I didn't ask Him
to take away my fears. Instead I worshiped Him as my comforter. I thought, I'm gonna put God to the test. If this is who He is,
then here's my opportunity to see it. Here's His opportunity to show Himself to be true to his word. And so I made that choice
that I was not going to ask, I was not going to
worry, but instead I was going to worship, and I was going to do it while I was in trouble. Because here's the deal, if you wait to worship God
after the trouble's over, well then that's gratitude. But if you worship Him while
you're in the middle of it, that's faith. And the Bible says without
faith, it's impossible to please God. So I wanted to be a man of faith. So I said, "Okay, I'm gonna worship Him "in the middle of this." And for the first couple of months, I really was doing a pretty good job of just staying focus on the Lord and not worrying about things. But a couple of months in, I started wrestling with an old enemy named worry. He came knocking on the door. And I thought, well you know, in any kind of a struggle or a battle, it's usually good if you study your enemy so you know what his
tactics and strategies are. So I thought, you know, I got
some time on my hands here, I'm gonna do a little study about worry and find out what worries all about. So here's what I did, I
went to my dictionary, and I got the definition of worry. I put in on this card. I've had this card in
my Bible for 14 years. And I wrote it down in
the order that it's in in my dictionary, I'm
not changing anything. It's my bright red 3rd College
Edition Webster's dictionary. So here's the definition
of worry. Here we go. Number one: To strangle. To twist or choke. To harass or treat roughly with or as with continual biting
or tearing with the teeth like a dog worrying a bone. To pluck at, push on, touch, et cetera repeatedly in a nervous or determined way like a worrying a loose
tooth with your tongue. To annoy, bother, harass, vex. To cause to feel troubled or uneasy. To make anxious or distressed. That's who worry is. Now let me ask you a question. Are you worried about something today? Something got a grip on you, strangling you, choke the life out of you? Something have you up in
the middle of the night pacing the floor? What's going on? I got a feeling there's probably something with just about all of us that
we're worried about today. That might be why you
came to church today. There may be something
happening and you're thinking, "I need to go see if
maybe God has something "to say about it." And if that's why you came here,
I'm really glad you're here because I think you
came to the right place, because I believe God does
have something to say to you about what you're going through. I wanna begin by looking at
the words that Jesus said. In Matthew Chapter 6, when
he talked about worry. Here's what he said: "Therefore I tell you, "do not worry about your life, "what you will eat or drink; "or about your body, what you will wear. "Isn't life more important that food? "Isn't the body more
important than clothes? "Look at the birds of the air; "they do not sow or reap
or store away in barns, "and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. "Are you not much more valuable than they? "Who of you by worrying can
add a single hour to his life?" That's a great question. "And why do you worry about clothes? "See how the lilies of the field grow. "They do not labor or spin. "Yet I tell you that not even
Solomon in all his splendor "was dressed like one of these. "If that is how God clothes
the grass of the field, "which his here today and
tomorrow is thrown into the fire, "will He not much more clothe you, "O you of little faith? "So don't worry, saying,
'What shall we eat?' "or 'What shall we drink?
Or 'What shall we wear?' "For the pagans run
after all these things, "and your Heavenly Father
knows that you need them. "But seek first His kingdom "and His righteousness, "and all these things will
be given to you as well. "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, "for tomorrow will worry about itself. "Each day has enough trouble of its own." I love that he says look
at the birds of the air, because I love birds, I'm a bird guy. And the thing about birds is they're everywhere and
they're constant reminders to us, that's what Jesus is saying. They're constant reminders
to us of God's faithfulness. And this is gonna sound a little weird, but hey, I'm a little
weird, so there you go, but for all of my adult life, God has used birds to send me messages. Now it's not like Snow
White with a little bird talking to me, you know.
(audience chuckles) But there have been times,
I couldn't even tell you, it's almost daily, where God will remind me through a bird. Let me give you an example. Sitting in my kitchen one morning, this was before all of
this had taken place, sitting in my kitchen, early in the morning, paying the bills, and it had been one of
those months where there was more month than there was money. You know those kind of months? We'd had some unexpected things happen, and I'm looking at this and I'm going, "I don't know, how are we
going to get through this?" I started to the Lord.
"What are we gonna do?" And right then a robin hopped past the patio doors, and I remembered, look
at the birds of the air. Your Heavenly Father feeds them and you're more important than they are. There was another time in
this company that I was in when we were about to launch
a whole new product line, it was actually a partnership
with another organization. And we had been working
with these guys for months and had invested all kinds of time and energy and money into this launch. And at the last moment, they disappeared. Shut down, closed their doors, and left, moved away. Out of the blue, we had
no idea this was coming. Gone. And I hung up the phone
from getting that news, and I just kind of turned in my chair, and I looked out the windows at this field across the parking lot, and I said, "Father, what are we gonna do? "How are we gonna get through this one?" And just then a hawk started
to circle over the field, and I remembered, look
at the birds of the air. Your Heavenly Father takes care of them. He's gonna take of you too. So all my life God has used birds. And the thing about birds is, yes, they work very
hard to find their food, but I have never seen a worried bird. (audience chuckles) So the more I thought about worry, I realized that worry
really is not the issue. The real issue at hand is trust. Worry is a decoy. It's a distraction. The real issue is trust. What God is saying in all of
these things that we go through is, "Do you trust Me? "Do you trust Me? "Are you sure that you trust," it's almost like he's asking the question. See, God had sent me into
a storm in my little boat, but it was beginning to
feel like Jesus was asleep in the stern, and he's going,
"Yeah, but do you trust Me?" And I'm, "Oh of course,
Lord. You know I trust you." And God would say, "Really? Are you sure?" You ever found that when
God asks you a question, it's not because He's
looking for information? He wants to know if
you know what He knows. So when God said, "Do
you trust Me," I thought, "You know, before I just
come up with a quick answer, "I should probably find
out what that means." So I did a little homework
on what trust was all about. And I have some things
for you to write down, because I looked up the meaning of trust, and it changed how I thought. Write this down. Here's the
first definition of trust. It means to allow someone to do something without fearing the outcome. To allow someone, give them permission, to allow someone to do something without fearing the outcome. So when God says do you trust Me, the question is are you gonna let God do what God wants to do and not be afraid? He's not afraid. Are you gonna let Him
do what He needs to do and not fear it? Look at this verse from Psalm 56:11. It says, "In God I trust; "I will not be afraid. "What can man do to me?" And even though somebody
had just pulled the rug out from under me, the question was what
really can they do to me if my trust is in God? So it's to allow someone to do something without fearing the outcome. Here's the second meaning of trust. One of the Bible words for trust means to run into a shelter. To run into a shelter. So it's an active attitude. It's not a passive thing. Trusting God is an active word. You're running into something. That's why you'll see
so often in the Psalms these pictures, "The Lord is my shelter, He's my fortress, He's my hiding place, He's my stronghold." He's talking about trust. In fact, here in Psalm 27:5, it says, "In the day of trouble, "He will keep me safe in His dwelling; "He will hide me in the
shelter of His tabernacle." The third meaning for trust is to rest your mind, to rest your mind in the faithfulness, reliability, integrity or friendship of another person; to rest your mind. Well I start thinking about that. What does it mean to rest your mind? Well you can think of rest like sleep, as some of you are doing right now. (audience chuckles) Remember, I can see you.
(audience laughs) But you can also think of rest like this, leaning. I'm resting all of my weight on this chair, and I'm trusting that this
chair is not gonna break and let me fall. It's sort of like a column
resting on a pedestal, and because the column
has a firm foundation, an unshakable foundation, now the column can hold
up what it has to hold up. This is the idea of resting, is resting your mind, resting
the weight of your life, resting, leaning into the Lord with everything you have. That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 3:5, that verse that so many
of us have on the fridge: "You trust in the Lord
with all your heart and "lean not on your own understanding." He's talking about the
resting of the mind. So when God says do you trust Me, you have to make a decision. Am I going to let God what he
wants to do and not be afraid? Am I going to hide in Him, run into Him, hold onto Him and not come out? And am I going to lean
the weight of my life, my family, my world, put it all on God all of it, no hedging of bets, everything's going on Him? Am I going to do that? And it's interesting to
me that that verse says you trust in the Lord with all your heart. It doesn't say you trust in
the Lord with all your mind. And here's why. It's because sometimes you
don't know what to think. Trust is a heart issue. In fact, you might even
write this down some place on a page. Trust is not rational. It's relational. You trust in the Lord, you're
not trusting in an idea. You're trusting in a person. Trust is not rational.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense. But it's relational. So when you're facing
something and you go, "I don't understand this. "But I do understand You. "I know God, and so I
put my trust in Him." It's relational, it's not rational. That's why we have to
be people of the word. We trust people that we know. So we have to be people of the word to know what God has said. We have to keep track
of the things that God has done in our lives. How has he answered prayer for you? How has the Lord come
through for you in the past? What you're doing, pardon the pun, but you're filling up a trust account. When things are good, you're
filling up a trust account so that when things are bad, you've got something to draw from. When everything was wonderful
and you were thanking God, now when things have turned the
other way and you're saying, "Lord, I don't get this, but I get You. "I don't know what to do,
but I know who You are." And so you have an account
that you can draw from. You trust in the Lord with all your heart. So like I said, I was doing pretty good for the first couple of months or so. But then December the 16th came along. And on December the 16th, I woke up like a worried bird. And it's because not
only had I not ever been through a situation like this, I was about to have a
conversation that I had never had before either. I was gonna go in and talk to
these guys about severance. It was two weeks away from
me walking out the door. I had no idea what my future held. And I was gonna go talk
to them about severance, and I didn't know what
to say, what to think. And so I woke up, my
head was just spinning. I couldn't complete a
sentence, I couldn't sit still, and it's because I was afraid. I didn't know what was right, and now my imagination took off on me. Well what if they do this,
and what if they do that, and what if they say this,
how am I supposed to respond, and what's gonna happen to the family, and what are we gonna do in two weeks? And all of this, my
imagination was just going absolutely crazy on me,
and I was in trouble. I knew that I could not
go into that meeting in the state of mind that I was in. So I thought I've gotta do something. So I cried out to the Lord. I said, "God, you've gotta help me. "Please, help me." And at that moment, He brought
back a word of scripture that I memorized when I was 16 years old, a verse. I didn't know what it meant when I was 16, I was just memorizing a verse. But I knew what it meant now. And it's from Isaiah 26:3, and it says this: "You will keep in perfect peace, "him whose mind is stayed on You, "because he trusts in You." You'll keep in perfect
peace the one whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You. Well I didn't have perfect peace. So I knew that I wasn't trusting the Lord. If you think about that
verse, there's another way to think of it, another way to say it, you might wanna write it down this way. It means that if you want
the perfect peace of God, you have to trust the
God of perfect peace. If you don't trust Him,
you won't be at peace. If you want the perfect peace of God, you have to trust the
God of perfect peace. And I found that the
word mind in that verse, the Hebrew word is not
referring to your logical, rational, problem-solving mind. The word in that verse, Him
whose mind is stayed on You, that word is a word imagination. And what it's saying is its
your imagination that goes wild. It's your imagination
that can keep you from thinking clearly on the rational side. He's saying basically
you take your imagination by the scruff of the neck
and you bring it to the Lord. You put it on Him. In fact, look at this
verse from 2 Corinthians, it says, "We take every thought captive "to make it obedient to Christ." So when your imagination is running wild with all kinds of fears and
worries and all of the what-ifs, you bring those imaginations to the Lord, you say, "Lord, I'm
submitting this to You. "What do You have to say about this? "What does your word say? "I'm worried that we
won't have what we need, "but your word says that
you're the provider. "I'm worried about what
the doctor's gonna say, "but your word says
that you're the healer. "I'm worried because I
don't know what's gonna "happen with my kids, but
your word says that if "I raise them up in your
ways, they will follow you. "Lord, what does your word have to say?" And you bring every thought
and every imagination captive to Christ. Because here's another
way to write this down, here's the lesson from
that verse, and it's this, that when you fix your thoughts on God, God fixes your thoughts. When you fix your thoughts on God, God fixes your thoughts. So like I said, I didn't
have perfect peace that day. So I knew that I wasn't trusting the Lord, and I knew I had to do
something about it immediately, right at that moment. So I was in my room in the morning, I was getting ready to
leave for the office to have this conversation, and I closed the door to the bedroom, and I knelt down at the
foot of my bed to pray. And I often pray on my knees
because the Bible says that when you bow your knees,
you're bowing your heart. It's a sign of surrender. And at times like this, I
get on my knees before God. I don't just talk about it, I do it. I get on my knees. And I just began to pour it out to him, telling Him all that I felt. I just said, "Lord, I am
in such trouble today. "I am so worried and I'm so fearful, "and I'm realizing that
I'm not trusting You, "and I'm sorry. "But I'm so afraid, and I
just don't know what to do, "and I need your help, Lord. "I need peace in my mind. "I need order in my mind. "And Lord, I know you're faithful, "and I know that you
care more about my family "than even I do. "So I'm putting my trust in You, Lord. "I'm taking You at your word
and I'm leaning into you today. "I'm leaning all the weight of who we are, "I'm putting it all on You today. "And I'm asking you for help." And I just talked to Him for
two or three more minutes, just telling Him what I was afraid of, telling Him all the
details and the feelings. It's not like He didn't already know, but I was just telling Him anyway, getting it off my chest, right? So I got up off my knees, and I sat down at the edge of the bed. I was still praying,
still praying out loud. I didn't feel any better,
but at least I told Him. And I sat down at the edge of the bed, and I was pulling my left
shoe, I still remember this, pulling my left shoe onto my foot, and I said out loud, I said, "Father, "I need a bird today." (audience chuckles) And I did what you just did. I kinda laughed. I thought
well that was kinda funny. Why'd I say that? So I got up, and I went
downstairs, and I got my stuff, and I'm about to walk out the door, and the telephone rang. This back in the day when
you still had a telephone hanging on the wall, right?
(audience chuckles) The telephone rang,
and it was my neighbor, Nancy, across the street. She goes, "Hey, buddy, you got a minute? "I gotta show you something." And I thought, "Sure. I
got a minute for Nancy. "Besides, what are they going to do if I'm "late for my meeting, fire me? (audience chuckles) "I'll show them whose in charge." So I went across the
street to Nancy's house to see what she wanted to show me. And she took me in the house, she brought me in the living
room, it's in the back of the house, she has a chair,
she said, "Sit right here. "Just sit right there," and
there was a window, okay? She goes, "Watch, you're
going to be amazed. "Just watch this." And she left the room. (audience laughs) She shows up on the other
side of the window, outside. She looks through the
window, holds her fingers, says, "Watch." And she reached into her pocket, and she pulled out a
peanut, this is my prop, (audience chuckles) she pulled out a peanut, she
put the peanut in her hand, and she started calling,
started making this noise. I can't even describe what the sound was, it was just a little chirpy,
cally soundish, okay? And she's going on making this noise standing there with
this peanut in her hand making this noise, and time's going by, nothing's going on. I have no idea what she's doing. All I know is my neighbor lady is standing in the backyard making noises
with a peanut in her hand and I'm late for a meeting. (audience chuckles) And a few minutes went
by, and then a blue jay flew out of the trees,
and he landed on her hand, and he picked up the
peanut, and he flew away. She goes, "Watch." She gets another peanut out of her pocket, she puts it on her hand,
she starts making her noise. Now I'm watching. She's got my attention, okay? And I'm watching this. And after about five minutes
of watching her stand there with this peanut, here
came the blue jay again, and he picked up the
peanut, and he flew away. She goes, "Watch." See,
I'm kinda slow, okay? (audience laughs) "Watch." So she puts
another peanut in her hand. She starts making her
noise, and I'm watching. And that's when the Lord whispered deep into my heart. He said, "You see, buddy? "Sometimes I feed you
right out of My hand. "What are you so worried about?" And I watched Nancy, and after a couple of minutes,
here came the blue jay. He landed on her hand,
he picked up the peanut, and he flew away. She waved at me to come outside. I couldn't say a word. I couldn't tell her what this meant. I couldn't tell her about
my prayer 30 minutes ago. I just walked out there, she's laughing. Nancy said, "You know, I've
been working on that bird "for a year and a half. (audience chuckles) "And it was only this week that I got him to come to my hand." She said, "You gotta try this." I said, "Nancy, you just told
me it took a year and a half "for him to come to you. "He's not gonna come to me." She said, "Oh look, let's just try it. "Let's just see how brave he is." And I thought, "Well you
know, in a moment like that "you don't say no, right? "Especially not to Nancy." So I put the peanut on my hand, Nancy stood behind me, I'm
a lot bigger than she is, so she stood behind me, she
starts making her noise, and I'm standing there with this peanut. And going, "Nancy, I don't
think this is gonna happen." She said, "I know he's
around, just hang on. "I know it's gonna work." And sure enough after about five minutes, there was no bird. (audience laughs) I said, "Nancy, he is not coming to me." She said, "Look, I know he's here. "Just give it another minute or so." And about one or two minutes
later, here came this blue jay, and he flew, he was over in
the bushes off to the side, he was watching us, right? And he flew to the far side of the yard, and he landed on a branch of a pine tree, just hanging out in the middle of nowhere, looked like he was floating in midair. And this bird is looking at me. It's like I could read his mind. He's going, "Who's the bald guy with the peanut?" (audience chuckles) And I was thinking about
him and I said to Nancy, "Look at him. "He's trying to make a decision. "He's trying to decide if he trusts me." And that's when I got it.
See, I told you I'm slow. That's when I got it. Because I was looking at a living parable. That little bird was me. He had just flown out of
his nicely feathered nest, he's out on a limb
looking for his next meal, and he's going, "I recognize that voice, "but I've never seen that hand before." Nancy kept making her noise. A couple more minutes went
by, and then here he came, full speed right at my face. That is a scary experience.
(audience chuckles) To have a blue jay coming
full speed at your face. Here he came, and at
the last second he just kind of stalled out and
he landed on my thumb. He landed on my thumb, and
he looked me in the eye. And then he spoke to me.
(audience laughs) I'm kidding, he didn't speak to me, okay? I'm kidding. Don't send me any emails.
The bird did not talk. I had you though. But he did land on my thumb, and he really did look me in the eye. And he picked up the
peanut, and he flew away. I got my bird that day. I still couldn't tell
Nancy what this meant, because I would've been a mess if I tried to explain it to her. So all we could do is just laugh. And I had to leave. So I walked back to my
house, and I'm feeling grateful and guilty. I felt grateful because I knew, I had no doubt,
God had made so clear that He was involved, that
He was paying attention, that He knew what I was going
through, and He was listening. I knew it now. But I felt guilty because
He had to put on such a huge production just
to get me to calm down. (audience chuckles) So I go back to my house,
and I told Linda, my wife, what had happened. And Linda reminded me of something that I had been teaching in adult Sunday school class in the church that I was in at that time. And it was about how God provides. That when you think about God's provision, what the Bible teaches us is
that God sees ahead of us. He provides ahead of time. And you see this particularly
in the book of Genesis. So you think about Adam, for example. Adam was created on the sixth day. But the first five days, God spent providing everything Adam was gonna need before he even arrived on the scene, a place to live, something
to eat, something to do and take care of. Everything was ready
before Adam even showed up. God saw ahead. He did the same thing for Noah. He did the same thing for Hagar. He did the same thing for Abraham. You remember the story
when Abraham thought he had to offer his son
Isaac has a sacrifice, and just as he's lifting the knife, there's a ram in the thicket, a sheep in the bushes, right? And Abraham worshiped God at that moment, and he said Jehovah-Jireh, which means God will provide. He did not say God provided. Said God will provide. There's a prophetic nature to his worship. What it literally means is God will see to the need. He'll see ahead of you. And that's what I learned that day, because a year and a half earlier, Nancy started working on that bird. I didn't know anything about it. But a year and a half earlier, God knew that on December the 16th, 2002, I was gonna be sitting
on the edge of my bed, out of work, worried sick, pulling my left shoe on my
foot and saying out loud, "Father, I need a bird today." A year and a half earlier, God started answering my prayer before I ever said a word. His timing is magnificent. So now I come back to my question that I asked you a while ago: what are you worried about today? What's keeping you up in
the middle of the night pacing the floor? Are you wondering where your
next meal's gonna come from? Have you bitten off
more than you can chew? What's got you worried? I can tell you based on the
authority of the word of God that God will not abandon
you in your crisis, that He has already started the process of answering your prayer. He started it before you
even realized you had a need. The question is I'm I gonna trust Him. Am I going to hold on to Him? Am I going to hide in Him? Am I going to lean the weight of who I am into God and hold on and not be afraid of the outcome of what I'm facing? You have a decision to make. Whenever you have the
opportunity to worry, you have the opportunity to worship and to trust and to follow the Lord
into the whole situation. Hold on to Him. He already knows what's going on. The question then becomes
well how do I find this peace of mind. Well we go back to the verse
that I was talking about. If you want the perfect peace of God, you have to trust the
God of perfect peace. You don't focus on the problem, you focus on the Lord. It's not living in denial. It's that you're focusing
the, A. W. Tozer calls it the gaze of your soul, on your saving God, the one who can solve your problem, the one who is your provider and healer and friend and savior and counselor. You focus on Him. You fix your thoughts on Him because when you fix your thoughts on
God, God fixes your thoughts. So I come back to that verse. Let's look at it one last time. Isaiah 26:3: "You will keep in perfect peace, "him whose mind is stayed on You, "because he trusts in You." Now let me lead us in a time of prayer. Can we do that? And many of you know there's
a way that I like to pray, I actually prayed this way
when I brought the message 10 years ago. And it's a way of praying with our hands. You're not gonna lift them up high, but there's a symbolism in
so many things that we do. Like I said, kneeling is a
sign of bowing your heart. But I like to pray with my hands open because it's a symbol of
bringing something to somebody, presenting something to someone. So I pray just with my palms turned up, and I put my request, my worries, my concerns in the palms of my hands, and I pray and I bring them to the Lord. Then you turn your palms down, and it's a sign of just letting go, giving it to Him. Then you turn your palms up
again to receive His grace. So I wanna invite you. If you feel comfortable
doing that, you can, but all of us, just bow our heads, and we're gonna pray, and I'm
gonna give you the opportunity to bring your worries
to the Lord right now. With your palms turned up, as I pray, you can let
these words be your prayer. And just say: Father, I come
to You today in Jesus' name, and I thank You that you
brought me to another day. I thank You for your love
and your faithfulness. I worship You as my provider. I worship You as my healer. I worship You as my
counselor and my comforter, as my defender, my deliverer, my friend. Lord, I worship You. And I present myself to
You body, soul, and spirit. Lord, I'm coming with open hands. Here's my life. I'm bringing you my
successes and my failures, my strengths and my weaknesses, my hopes, my fears, my dreams and my nightmares. And Lord, you know,
there's just this one thing that I am so worried about today, and I wanna bring it to you. And so now in the
quietness of your own heart with your hands open, tell the Lord what you're
bringing to Him today, what's your worry, just tell Him. Now turn your palms down. And say now: Father, by faith, I release all of these things
into your lap of grace. I put them in your hands, Lord. I surrender to your wisdom, to your sovereignty. As your word says, I cast
all of my cares upon You, and I pray that your will
will be done in my life today. Now just let go. Just let it go. Give it to Him. Now turn your palms up. Say: Father, I now receive
from You everything that your grace will afford today. I receive strength for my weaknesses. I receive peace for my fears. I receive health in my body. I receive provision. Lord, I receive forgiveness for my sins and the grace to forgive those
that have sinned against me. I'm looking to You,
Lord, to meet my needs. I ask You to guide my steps,
to direct my thoughts, to protect me from evil. And, Lord, I invite
You, with my hands open just as my heart is open, I invite You, Lord, to
fill me in a fresh way with your spirit, with your presence in my life. And I pray, Lord, that You'll use me today to change somebody's life,
to touch the world around me. Use me, Lord. Let my life be lived for your glory today. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
