Lysa TerKeurst

[Music] well thank you lisa it's a joy to be with you and it was funny because yesterday i stacked my meetings at proverbs 31 ministries like as if i was working two days and that way i could come and today take off work and spend time with my friend but then as i was flying here today i thought that was so unnecessary because actually lisa is a board member and so we just considered it a ministry board day while we were shopping all day and having fun so it was great um what an honor it is to be here and it was very funny to me i told lisa this is the only time i've ever gotten an invitation with the invite being can you please come on a wednesday night because it's half price wine night and i was like i i i've never actually had an invitation like this this is amazing wow okay um so yay for wednesday nights that's amazing um many years ago i had this funny thing happen with my family and i've shared this story many times but i really love the point of this story and so if you've heard it before just go with it as if you've never heard it but i pulled it out of the vault of archives because i really do think about the lesson i learned from this story very very often so it was many years ago when and like lisa said i have five kids and my kids were very passionate about wanting to do more adventurous family outings and so my kids came to me and said can we please get certified to go scuba diving and i for many reasons said no no that's a that that's actually a terrible idea one reason is because i have complicated hair and i don't want to get my hair wet and i i just knew like i'm gonna have to get my hair wet so many times i'm not gonna be able to time it like on day one of my hair i don't want to go get my hair wet like this makes no sense so i said no for that but also i asked my kids do you really think it's wise to go swimming in the water where people get eaten by sharks i just i don't think that's wise like i i really have no desire to do that um but they were very passionate about it and said how much it would mean to them and so manipulated me into doing this and uh things were okay when i went and got certified and and did the classroom work and then you know we practiced in the pool we practiced in the lake and then it was time for our first big family dive um i was not excited on this day because we actually had to get in the ocean water and just as a little side note this will mean something to you in a minute ocean water is different than pool water or lake water just just make that little mental note so we get in the water and we have all of our equipment we practiced everything should be just fine when the dive master gets in and gives us our last minute instructions he he finally says it's time to let the air out of your air vest and descend in increments just like we practiced and i could do that yes 100 the problem was when we all let the air out of our air vest everybody started descending like they were supposed to except me nothing happened truly nothing happened like they were all going below the water and i was not i was just floating just as if there was all the air in my air fest so i thought i really don't want to cause a scene so i'm just going to put my head down i'm just going to swim to my people and so that's what i tried to do the problem was that my bottom was like a cork very determined to float back to the surface of the water and so eventually the dive master saw it was happening he came up and he said oh you have buoyancy issues and i guess by the look on my face he felt the need to just keep explaining and so he said let me just i'll just explain it very clearly to you he said fat floats in salt water oh wow i i've i've literally waited my entire life for a man to say just that thank you and he was like oh no no no it's no big deal i'll go on the boat he said and i'll get a weight belt and we'll we'll put that weight belt around you and it will force you to go down to your people and i said okay great i've always wanted that kind of fashion accessory perfect so he goes on the boat and he gets a weight belt and he straps it on me nothing happens and so he's like no it's no big deal we'll just put more weight on it and so he starts sliding these weights on it and nothing is happening you guys i mean i would have paid so much money just please let me sink please please i mean desperate prayers lord override my buoyancy issues please help me see finally he said to me wow you need as much weight to help you sink as a very large man i will cut you like you need to be thankful i spent time with jesus this morning you really do so finally i i was able to sink the problem was that because the weight was on this top half of my body my bottom half was not cooperating it was still pointed due north and so i got to the bottom and i'm like this and i cannot stand up not for the life of me and so have you ever been in a situation where you could feel the people you're with you could kind of feel your people's thoughts you know i could feel my kids thoughts i felt them saying to themselves what's up mom's bottom that's what's up constantly up and so there we are standing 30 feet below the surface of the water and the dive master is giving us signs and they're standing i'm hanging in v formation and all of a sudden a creature whips through our group now it had a head like this a fin like this and it swam around us in a circle call me crazy i thought it was a 100 100 and so i looked at the dive master and said we are done here like that thing it will eat us like daddy shark eat us right and he said it's okay and i looked at my people and all my kids are like it's okay and i'm thinking yeah it's okay for y'all because you don't have as much meat on your bones so that thing is going to come after me first like i am the juiciest chicken tender under the sea right now and and so i stayed because they all stayed but i am terrified and then the divemaster pairs us up and so my daughter and i we just barely had turned from the side of the group and were headed over here to look at something and the creature came back and rammed itself into my daughter's head she was no longer okay no no no no she was not at all and so she jumped on top of me because she knew that it would eat me so she's like pushing me toward the creature because she loves me like that right well she caused so much commotion that all my people start jumping on me but then i remembered my gift i ripped off that weight belt and we did right [Applause] oh yeah i got on the boat and i was like my banana cannot save all you people but that's when the dive master came up and i could very much tell he was not impressed with me he looked at me and he said you need to get all your people and sit on the edge of the boat like we were in boat time out i'm not kidding and then he said do you know why you got in trouble down there because you took your eyes off the dive master and the master knows things that you don't know never take your eyes off the master never take your eyes off the master and i've thought about that so many times since it happened you know sometimes what makes faith complicated is that you're facing things and you don't know how it's going to turn out you're facing things and you don't know how long the pain is going to last you're facing things and you want to believe it's going to turn out okay but everything you're seeing is pointing in a direction it might not be okay and i have to be honest and just tell you that the past seven years of my life have really been the most brutally difficult that i have ever faced i've sat in my bed at 2am 2am such a complicated hour isn't it it's way too late to call most people way too early to call other people and so you're just absolutely on your own at 2 am right and if you're prone to being afraid 2 a.m feels super scary and it's in those moments where you're just absolutely alone that you cry out to god and maybe it's because he's the only one that's really there and there have been so many nights at 2 am where i wake up and the wave of the world crashes down on me when i can't figure out when things are going to be better how they're going to get better and then when more hard things get added on top of the already hard things it starts to feel so incredibly unfair and so i know what it's like to wake up at 2 am and to have your prayers reduced down to just this god i know you love me and i love you and i don't know much else so i stand before you today not as an educated bible teacher although i think that's why lisa asked me to speak so i will be teaching the bible i promise um but i stand before you today as a friend i wish so much that you were just over at my house we were seated around my kitchen table we were breaking bread and sharing our broken hearts and i really believe you would have experiential wisdom to share with me as much as i have experiential wisdom to share with you now truly if you all did show up at my front door today it would be complicated because i can't fit you all around my table but i want you to have that picture in your mind that we're just women who are doing the best we can facing hard things and sometimes feeling a little lost in the process now i feel certain i could pass the microphone around tonight and you could share your hard stuff and you could share your hard stuff and you could share your hard stuff and then over here i'd say okay now let's share some family dysfunction and you could share your family dysfunction and you could share yours if we got to someone that said no i have no hard stuff and no family dysfunction i would say you are the family dysfunction like truly and that's okay i have lessons for that too like i've been in i've been in good christian counseling so i know how to talk about that as well but here's what i know to be true we've either all just been through some stuff we're in the middle of some stuff or headed toward being in some stuff and and you may say well that's not very positive no i'm positive you've either been through some stuff you're in the middle of some stuff or you're about to go through some really hard stuff so what do we do about it well i want to read you some scriptures that at first you may feel a little confused you may think these scriptures do not comfort me at all but i want you to hold on and just let me get into the message because i think you're going to see something maybe you've never seen in these scriptures if you've read them before i'm in matthew chapter 5 starting in verse 3. blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy blessed are the pure in heart for they will see god blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of god blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when people insult you persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you now i would love to tell you that when first reading these verses that i was like oh yeah totally when people insult me say all kinds of false things about me i just want to throw a party because i'm so blessed i just feel so blessed really blessed like you know you get on facebook and you put something up and you're like i really want to put this up to encourage people bless people honor people and all of a sudden it's like in our very opinionated world where people's opinions are so polarizing i can't even think about all the opinions that might come my way and then somebody really misunderstands and they just send a zinger of a comment right and not just one it feels like then they go and recruit their friends and then they're friends it's like they're committed that day it's like who are we gonna attack oh right over here in my little space on facebook right and i i read those comments and i i cannot tell you that my first inclination is to feel very very blessed i i just don't i don't want to rejoice and be glad i want to defend myself i i i want to go dig into their facebook and see all the really bad things that they're doing and like say wow how dare you attack me because look at what you really have going on over here and i'm not proud of that and i want to know like why would jesus give us these scriptures why and how are we realistically supposed to find comfort in them and actually live them out when so many of us are facing realities that are very much included here so many of us feel pretty poor in spirit that doesn't just mean poor financially it can mean that but it means when you are in so much pain and you've been in pain for a long time and that can be emotionally physically financially spiritually relationally you're in so much pain that you're absolutely exhausted and you're at that point where you're so brokenhearted you just don't know what to do and maybe it's not your whole life but maybe it's this portion of your life that constantly stabs the most tender place of your heart it's that place where you feel unloved unwanted uninvited misunderstood wrongly judged and hurt over and over and over but the scriptures say blessed are you when you are poor in spirit and so maybe we think okay that's for one category of people and then another category is blessed are you who are mourning and then another category is blessed are you who are meek and and then another category is blessed are you if you're hungry and thirsting for righteousness and that's the way that i've always looked at those scriptures until i was going through one of the darkest parts of this journey and all of a sudden i started to think to myself if jesus gave us these scriptures and he was very well acquainted with what it felt like to be absolutely hurt wounded rejected betrayed here on earth then there must be some reason he's giving us this beyond putting a religious teaching on us that feels hard you know we find out in hebrews chapter 2 that jesus came to make atonement for our sins absolutely but we're also taught in hebrews chapter 2 that jesus came to be a merciful and faithful high priest he was made fully human in every way the scriptures say so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest jesus was sin less he never sinned he was perfect in his divinity but make no mistake he was made fully human in humanity he was sinless but he was absolutely sinned against and he knew the weight of being so very hurt and devastated and being misunderstood and wrongly judged jesus knew that and because i know he knew that then i can look at these scriptures and know there's something else for me another place i'd love to turn to in the scripture is mark chapter 14. in mark chapter 14 starting in verse 32 just to set some context jesus has just been with his disciples for what's called the last supper he has loved on them he has washed their feet he has broken bread with them he has prayed for them and jesus knows very much what is about to happen to him one of his closest comrades one of the twelve left that dinner and went for a handful of coins sold jesus out and now jesus has left the dinner he's crossed the kidron valley and now he's in this garden called garden of gethsemane which is a grove of olive trees directly across from the old city of jerusalem and he's there and he is feeling the weight of all he's about to face and he knows his friend judas has betrayed him and soldiers are coming to arrest him and beat him and wrongly judge him and mock him and hang him on a cross for a very very painful death then he will take on the sin of the world and he will die for people who are rejecting him and he also knew that he would defeat death and rise again because remember he's full divinity so he knows he can absolutely knows that he is going to endure the cross for the joy set before him that there will be good on the other side and yet when we get into what he prays in those moments when the soldiers are marching the disciples are in the process of falling asleep and then they will leave him and he's sitting there feeling so alone in that dark place and in mark chapter 14 verse 36 jesus says my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death that's mind-blowing to me because i think sometimes i get overwhelmed with sorrow because i think if i only knew why this was happening or how it was going to get better or or when i'm going to be justified and like finally the world will see i didn't do what i'm accused of doing or or how wrong this was that this thing that is happening to me it's it's so very wrong and it's so very hurtful and sometimes i wrongly think if i had all those answers it would comfort me and yet in that moment jesus had all the answers and his soul was still overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death he's literally saying what we say this is so hard i feel like it might kill me and then he goes on to say something even more mind-blowing to me he says god everything is possible for you take this cup from me in other words jesus is saying god you can do anything so please do this thing and don't let this be my story i relate to those words of jesus so much isn't it the very thing that can make us struggle so much in trusting god when we know he's capable of doing anything but he's not doing the one thing that we have begged him over and over and over to do when we don't want this to be our life when this seems so so unnecessary when we've lived our life thinking that we've done all the things that a plus b should equal c like we've given and we've loved and we've been kind and so it should just add up to this and when it doesn't add up to that it can make us feel so disillusioned and so if jesus prayed that prayer i don't think it shocks god when we pray it either having all the answers didn't make jesus a sorrow go away and being able to look into the future and know with absolute certainty that there would be good on the other side of that hardship that didn't take away jesus's sorrow either jesus sat in that sorrow and fully called it what it was my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death and sometimes when we're sitting in our sorrow and we don't know what to do it's good to recognize how merciful and faithful jesus is because he knew exactly what we felt and because we can truly know that he felt the depth of what we feel we can trust his teaching on a whole other level i promise you i think the reason some of you read my books is not because you need another lesson i think you know when you open up my books you're going to be understood and because you know that i've suffered the way that you've suffered even if our circumstances are different but because you know i know the depth of human pain you trust what i have to say a little bit more and you don't excuse away the lessons by saying yeah but lisa doesn't understand what i've been through and so it's with that tenderness that jesus is our merciful and faithful high priest and it's with that understanding that then we can go and look at what he's teaching and i think this is one of the most profound teachings of jesus because it is at the very beginning of one of the most important sermons he ever preached and and when you're preaching a sermon that's going to be remembered and recorded for all time and jesus knew it would be you've got to know he put the good stuff right up front so now let me share with you a new thing that i've seen in these scriptures i don't think these are individual groups of people i think jesus is revealing to us the stages of brokenness we will go through and he's telling us we have a choice when hard things happen we have a choice that those hard things can make us better or they will make us bitter and how we walk it out will determine whether we look at our life and see it as blessed or cursed so this is how i love to read these scriptures blessed are you when you are poor in spirit in other words when you are brokenhearted and right after that it acknowledges you will mourn you will absolutely mourn when your heart is broken you will cry you will grieve we were having a discussion at lunch today and i was telling lisa and and tell me her name again annabelle annabelle i was telling lisa and annabelle today how the reason i think that i get so discouraged is because i keep expecting a perfection from this world that this world is not capable of i keep expecting a perfection in people that they will never be able to rise up and be perfect i keep expecting a perfection in the fact that maybe people are gonna finally agree with me or maybe somebody's gonna see that i have the spirit of discernment which basically makes me right and that is just so complicated you know what i'm saying you know women you know you've got that spirit of discernment right it's the special intuition that god gives women and don't you ever sort of feel like if everybody would just look at life like i look at life man the world would be amaze an amazing place and we keep expecting a perfection in people in things in churches in jobs in friendships in in marriages in in with our kids we keep expecting perfection that this world will never deliver on so of course you're going to mourn of course you're going to cry of course you're going to feel disappointed and disillusioned but hang on because if in that moment when you are crying if you will pray to god god i am going to give you this pain and i want this pain to have a purpose i want this pain to be used for eventual good i want my pain to help ease another person's pain if i've got to go through it god i want this to work for me not against me if i've got to go through it god develop my character to match a calling that you must see that i have in this life that i didn't ask for and i may not even want but god if you can use it for good don't let me slip into becoming a bitter cold-hearted revengeful person you see the enemy and we do have an enemy in ephesians chapter 6 it says for your struggle is not against flesh and blood it is against the enemy the evil one who reigns in the in who who like rules and tricks us and schemes in the spiritual realm and he is coming after what we love so much he wants to his very name means one who casts something between two to cause a separation and the enemy has a will just like god has a will now god is always supreme god is absolutely victorious but the enemy is a sore loser and he is thrashing and he is recruiting and he loves for us to get bitter because then he can recruit us to do his work for him and when we slip into being angry and bitter and wanting to take revenge look i get it i get it boy do i get it but in the end [Music] all that does is let the person who hurt me hurt me twice and start to turn me into someone i was never meant to be my heart and your heart is much too beautiful place for anger resentment bitterness revenge if we will turn and we will trust that god has a plan genesis 50 20 in the joseph story is one of my favorite verses to refer to where joseph says to his brothers who betrayed him and hurt him and and truly wanted to murder him and one day years later joseph is able to look at his brothers in genesis 50 20 and he says you intended to harm me but god i love that but god so much because first of all it tells me god likes really big butts and i cannot lie and that you know is speaking my love language right but when you see a butt that means but god that means this is true but what's on the other side of that but god is especially true you intended to harm me but god intended it for the saving of many lives god intended it to use it for good for the saving of many lives joseph's pain was not pointless he just couldn't see when he was walking through it how it could ever be used for good and we may not see immediately in front of us how any of this could ever be for good but here's what i know about my god god is good god is good to me and god is good at being god i don't have to understand everything that he allows but here's what i know nothing can touch me that doesn't first pass through god's hands and if it passes through god's hands god is in the business of working good with it all so if it is touching me there is a point to this pain so what the scriptures say and what jesus is teaching is you are blessed you're probably not going to feel blessed not right away at least but you are blessed when you are poor in spirit broken hearted broken down in your circumstances and yes you're gonna cry but then look at what the scriptures say next blessed are the meek isn't it so true that when we have been broken to the point where we are grieving mourning hurting crying that if we will allow it to work for us it can make us more humble and it makes us approach life with a different kind of perspective like we can look at life and we can see that not everything has to be a fight we can see that meekness is not weakness it's actually a position of tremendous strength because when someone does something to us and we sink down to the level and like i'll cut you no i'll cut you worse you know what i'm saying right when that happens it doesn't reveal that we have the ability to hold on to the power of the holy spirit inside of us but when we can face something where someone is accusing us hurting us and we stand there in a humble posture and we don't dip down to that level of just joining them in all that hurt and all that pain and all that anger and all that resentment what we are communicating to the person who hurt us is you can lay down an offense but it's my choice if i choose to pick it up and carry it with me and let it ruin the rest of my day you do not have the ability you have the ability to try to hurt me yes you do but you do not have the ability to turn me into someone i was never meant to be you see god wants us on our face before him in absolute dependence keeping our eyes on the master and there's two pathways to get there it's the pathway of humiliation or the pathway of humility the only difference between those two is one chose to bow low while the other tripped and fell there but we're both gonna wind up on our face before the lord and i would rather when i go through hard stuff i would rather have the lord working in me yes yes i am hurting and i'm brokenhearted and yes i am mourning but if i keep my eyes on the lord he will make me more humble he will make me more meek he will give me that unusual strength and that is a blessing and then look at what happens next isn't it true okay we're brokenhearted and we're mourning and then we're becoming more humble and then we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness more than ever isn't it true when we go through these devastating times that we lean into god in a different way with more urgency and even if you're not a big prayer person isn't it true that you ask for prayer in those times and isn't it true that you're desperate to see god move in those times and you're hungering and thirsting for a different way to look at all of this so you are blessed you are blessed when you're brokenhearted and when you're a mourning and when you're becoming more humble and when you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness and then it says merciful happens next and isn't it true when we've actually been through some stuff and we have experienced god's grace that we are more in touch with actually giving god's grace to other people we become more compassionate and we stop looking at people through the lenses of the labels that we put on them and we start recognizing every person we run into every single day has sorrow that you don't know that they're carrying and so we are blessed when we are going through brokenhearted things and we are mourning that if we will give it to the lord and keep our eyes on him here's how it can work for us we will become more humble we will become more meek we will hunger and thirst for righteousness more we will become more merciful and compassionate and then it says we will be pure in heart now i cannot say i've perfected the pure in heart situation i have not you catch me at about 10 pm at night and this is not good theology but honest to goodness it feels true i wanted to hang a sign when i was raising my kids on my bedroom door after 9 30 p.m if you approach me at 10 p.m enter at your own wrist the holy spirit has left the building right and so i have not perfected this pure in heart thing not at all but here is what has happened to me i am living with such expectation of experiencing god every day because i'm desperate for him and i wake up each morning and i pray this prayer god i want to see you today god i want to hear you today god i want to follow hard after you today and before my feet even hit the floor i say yes to you i don't even know what i'm saying yes too but you better believe i'm gonna get up from praying and live in great expectation that i just invited the presence of the divine god almighty to do life with me and if i look for him i will see him and i will start making connections in my life oh that's what i said yes to and then i acknowledge god you're good you are good to me and you are good at being god no human should have to carry the weight of being their own god and trying to figure out life no god you are leading me and you are guiding me and then i end the prayer with this god show me today someone to forgive someone to bless and rich evidence all around me of your goodness and your faithfulness and then i get up from that prayer and i start looking and y'all every single day god answers that prayer every single day i mean it didn't take very long most days for me to have some fool bump into my happy and i'm like oh you're the person i'm supposed to forgive that's amazing so honored to meet you i actually already prayed about this same thing this morning you know what i mean and so yeah just because you laid down that offense does not mean i'm going to pick it up and carry it with me and have it mess up my day no you do you boo and i i am just going to pray blessings into your life because because the bible says pray for your enemies and i'm not calling you an enemy i'm just saying i think you need to be blessed because then i know i know if i pray blessings into someone's life god has to position their life to receive the blessing which means he's going to correct some stuff he is going to address some stuff up in there right and so it's so amazing i just think to myself i have already pre-forgiven i have i have already pre-forgiven and so i don't carry the hurt and the anger and the frustration and the temptation to let my italian blood boil over i can look like i actually spent a little time with jesus y'all this is big progress for me this is huge and so i always god always answers that prayer he always gives me someone to forgive and and then someone to bless and every single day i look for someone who needs a little bit of my time or a little bit of my money or a little bit of my encouragement and i stop i don't rush by i see it as the most divine appointment the biggest assignment that i'll have that day you know when we get to heaven i think we're going to be so shocked by the upside down nature that what what were streets of dirt on earth or streets of gold in heaven what was the crown of thorns on earth as a crown of gold in heaven what is big on earth would be so small in heaven and what was small on earth will be so much bigger than we even realize in heaven and when i stand before the lord one day i don't think i don't that the big huge calling of my life was to write a bunch of books and stand on stages and hold a microphone i think all of that will be small in heaven what i think will be big in heaven is remember that wednesday night at that speaking engagement they served wine what remember that and you just stopped and you noticed her and you made her feel seen well done good and faithful servant well done and i will be so blessed why because i've been through some stuff and if i wouldn't have been through some stuff i'd have missed it i wouldn't know what it feels like to be so brokenhearted i wouldn't know what it feels like to be in mourning i wouldn't be nearly as humble i i i wouldn't be hungry and thirsting for god like i am i certainly would not be as merciful as i am and all of that makes us more pure in heart all of that makes us more blessed than what we know and then look what happens next we become a peacemaker now here's the challenging thing about being a peacemaker is that the world is not naturally going to line up and go tada what a great day to be a peacemaker because all the people's opinions have just settled down all the circumstances have tied up in a neat nice bow and here's your big moment step into all the peace the world has to offer y'all that is not the way it is ever going to work jesus said in this world you will have trouble but take heart i have overcome the world and as his representative we are called to represent him everywhere we go and because jesus is peace that means to be a peacemaker is that we step into every atmosphere that we dare to walk in and we bring the peace with us in a world where fists are slamming fists and hearts are hating hearts and people are so epically divided on everything when a jesus girl rises up and stands in the middle of all of that and says you are loved and you are loved and you are seen and you are seen and you matter and you matter and stands in the gap of the great divide with all these human realities and dares to just be a glimpse of the mercy and compassion and purity of heart of jesus it arrests the world it stops all and people see god but we won't know how to do that unless we've been through some stuff people will never relate to our successes but they will relate to our heartbreak every single time success intimidates overcoming heartbreak inspires so you are blessed even if you don't feel very blessed when your heart is broken and you're crying at 2 am you are blessed even when you're mourning and if you will keep your eyes on jesus do what he says get into his word and let his word get into you and when he says pray for your enemies you don't have to understand it but do it and when he says vengeance is mine don't retaliate trust that god will address those who need to be addressed and he will do it in equal measures of just justice and mercy we have to remember those people that hurt us if they have sinned against us sin comes as a package deal of consequences we're told that at the very beginning and it may look like the people that hurt us and wound us and sin against us it may look like they are just out there having a party and that they're not suffering that make no mistake if they have unleashed sin they have unleashed consequences in their own life our job then is not to take retaliation because it will turn us into someone we're not meant to be now does this mean we don't draw healthy boundaries oh no sister we draw some healthy boundaries now as a matter of fact the next book i'm writing is called good boundaries and goodbyes and it is i am i am serious about it y'all it is diving into the bible and i have discovered boundaries are not just a good thing they are a god thing and it is good but remember blessed are you when you keep your eyes on jesus and this is what jesus gave us and it says right below blessed are the peacemakers don't you at this point just want to go tada okay i've been through all the stages of brokenness i've been brokenhearted all the way down to a peacemaker and let's just wrap this thing up but then look what happens then it says blessed are you when you're persecuted people say all kinds of stuff about you and they'll be hurting your feelings they'd be posting stuff and and you're going to be misunderstood and then you're going to be right back up to the top brokenhearted all over again right it's the cycle of brokenness but this time this time you will understand yeah this hurts and yeah this stinks but i'm going to rejoice and be glad not because this is happening to me but because god is going to take it and let it work for me blessed are you when you are brokenhearted all over again and you are crying and you are turning to the lord because then you will be made more humble you will be made more hungering and thirsting for god you will be made more merciful you will be made more pure in heart and you will be an even greater facilitator of peace in this world that has no peace blessed are you when you are brokenhearted is it easy no it's not do i still cry a hundred percent do i have all of this figured out no sure don't do i ask god to help me every day sure do ask him to help me every every day but am i living with a different kind of peace even in the midst of absolutely awful realities i sure am and actually i feel stronger today than i have ever felt in my entire life and truly what the enemy meant for such evil god is using for good not just for my good but for the saving of many lives and my greatest goal besides hearing jesus say well done good and faithful servant honestly one of my greatest goals is to make the enemy regret he ever messed with a girl like me amen amen and amen [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Changing Seasons

Views: 20,727

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Id: V7nrGSDvPmU

Length: 53min 9sec (3189 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 01 2022