SUFFERING: UNPLEASANT BUT NECESSARY — VOUS CREW LIVE

[Music] welcome welcome welcome we are so excited to have you at crew live at a brand new time and this is really just an opportunity for us here at view church to open up and have conversation we call this crew live because this is a live experience of our small groups crews are the small groups of blue church we say this is a way to make our big church feel like a small church and like we're in the online world so it's the way to make our online church feel a little bit more connected i love voo cruz and really this is what a crew looks like it's different people coming together having conversation talking about the sermon talking about life building community and so this is what this is all about so maybe you're tuning in for the very first time welcome we are so glad you're here we're going to take a moment really to dive into the sermon that pastor rich preach this past sunday but i want to introduce myself and introduce my friends my name is manushka and i have an opportunity really the lead in the crew space here but we always start our crew lives with a a little bit of an icebreaker every crew starts off with an icebreaker some of them are awkward you know how icebreakers go like some of them are fun some of them are awkward you guys have no idea what question i'm going to throw out here so i think you guys should say your name and your deepest darkest sin i think youtube wants to know that wow i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding do not write it in the comments it's a joke why don't you guys do it's gonna be a lighter question here why don't you go your name and uh what's your preference coffee or tea and what is your coffee or tea order oh this is a good one well hi everyone uh my name is ife and i actually prefer coffee and tea uh when it comes to coffee i prefer a blonde roast with almond milk and two splenda now when it comes to tea i prefer green tea and ginger tea that's great here we go i love that well my name is francesca and i prefer coffee and my order is uh usually a um oat milk vanilla latte i had to think about that for a second i stir i like i like hot i like hot ice that's my favorite order too that's why we're best friends you said oats milk oat milk tanner oatmeal oh okay my name is brittany and i prefer black coffee straight no sugar no cream any of that i like it just as it tastes and that's why we're best friends [Laughter] so my name is tanner and i also prefer just black coffee no sugar no cream however i have been drinking this detox tea in the mornings and it's been great don't ask me what's in it i don't know i saw it when i was walking in publix i was like oh that's good for me so my name is gracel i like to drink cappuccinos with almond milk one spoon of brown sugar and that's why we're not best friends our orders are so specific they're so specific i love it tanner and grisel lead a fitness crew together and they're incredible and for you watching if any of these people are your crew leaders you now know what coffee or tea to get them um so there you go it's a little cheat code get your crew leader some coffee but uh i'll take it but we're going to take a moment really to talk through the message that we heard this past sunday which was incredible how to suffer well i think pastor rich really gave us some handles um that i think are so necessary in this time for us of different people because you might be watching this and maybe you're going through you're wondering okay why did i tune into this thing how did i get on this i think you're watching this for a reason and we really want you to stick with us lean in because i believe this conversation is going to be helpful for us but the message was incredible i think we got some really good handles out of it friend it was um i thought it was so relevant like you were saying especially during this time 2020 has been unfortunately seasons of suffering for a lot of people and so um pastor rich had said this we all suffer at different levels and it's true it's unavoidable and i think the key though is our foundation and what we're dependent on and i think it was just a great reminder that um that on the only sure foundation is jesus and i just loved it i don't know about anyone else but no it was not i can echo that the only sure foundation really is jesus and it is that foundation that strengthens us and gives us the grace to move day to day because honestly like you said the way this year has been going we still got a couple more months left and like it is really only our foundation that we stand on because we've all been knocked down at different spaces in different places so like it really is the foundation and i mean that that really resonated with me during the message this past sunday yeah and something else that pastor rich was saying is like yeah we have all gone through suffering different levels different stages but all that suffering it might be unpleasant but it's necessary yeah you know if everything is always going great in our lives and you know we're always on that mountaintop then there'd be no need for a savior but that's ultimately why jesus came and died for us you know to really give us that sure foundation in him yeah great yeah i think that's such a good reminder for us that like it may not be pleasant but it's necessary that it has it helps us to grow i think james says it's so beautiful consider it pure joy when you face testing and trials of any kind because it is to produce a maturity in us and so like for us like why would i consider trials and suffering joy but it's because god is building something in us and so if you're suffering today god is building something in you you might not be able to see all of it right in the here and now but i believe that god is working something in us and through us i look at 2020 and yes this year is hard but i'm like well god built that in me and god showed me this and he taught me how to pray this way and i've been looking at it at what are some of the things that god has taught me even in one of the hardest years of our lives i think collectively uh we've all had years a year we're like what is is happening but this message really teaches us how to suffer well how can i suffer and actually come out better than i actually started and so we're going to jump right into the discussion you can follow along at vuechurch.com crew you can read along with the discussion but if why don't you jump into the scripture and and read our scripture for today sure i'd love to so the scripture today is 1st peter chapter 3 verse 8. finally all of you live in harmony with one another be sympathetic love as brothers be compassionate and humble i love it i think that's we can take that as a little bit of a verse that we can memorize right we can take that verse and we can memorize that one verse that we need to live in harmony with one another be sympathetic love as brothers and be compassionate and humble and our main idea says this suffering is an inevitable fact of life yet there is a tendency to avoid the topic right we can all agree that we don't want to talk about suffering if you ask me hey miliska do you want to suffer i'd be like now i'm good like miss me with the suffering but miss me with all of it we but we think that if we don't talk about unpleasant situations that maybe they won't happen but when it rains it burns when it rains it pours always seems to come true so perhaps our avoidance is actually a signal that we are unsure of what to do when the rain starts trickling in but the bible gives us the answers on how to deal with suffering as peter emphasizes unity in his letter we are reminded that we do not have to endure trials alone i think that's the beautiful thing about being a part of a crew and a part of a small group that we're reminded like if i'm going through something i don't have to go through it alone i don't have to deal with it by ourselves by myself as a church we are called to endure hardships by living in harmony with one another our feelings make us uniquely human and living in harmony means feeling together it means being sympathetic to one another and having brotherly love we act in these ways we are empowered to stay the course and keep our focus on the living hope of god though we suffer pressure from the outside it's imperative that we build our interior on the words god spoke when our fir when when our world feels like it's caving in together we can stand firm when the foundation is built on jesus our foundation is built on jesus like the shaking the rocking all of that can come and and jesus said this to peter on this rock i will build my church that we are building on a solid foundation and i love this quote it says when the church is in harmony the world is drawn to our melody when the church is in harmony the world is drawn to our melody i think that's so beautiful and really past rich talked about how to suffer well how do we respond to suffering and and the first point is the way that we can respond to suffering the way that we can uh suffer well is by being a blessing and by staying clean be a blessing and stay clean and the point says this when someone causes us to suffer our natural response is to make them suffer in return like if someone does something to us don't we feel that was like i want them to feel what i felt like i want to turn the emotion on like they they're like they need to know how they made me feel like i'm going to walk in the room and make everyone miserable because they need to know that you know we we want people to feel what we feel however it doesn't ever actually bring us true comfort of peace like it never brings us happiness when we we walk into a room and try to bring the energy down it doesn't ever solve anything but we can follow god's design by walking in forgiveness with pure hearts imagine if we had people who all thought that way if we all had people said you know what i may feel hurt i might be going through a season of suffering but what if i walked in there with joy what if i walked in there knowing that god was my peace first peter 3 verse 9 he says this don't repay evil with evil or insult with insult but with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing so i can't even get a blessing until i am a blessing right i can't get a blessing from god or i can't say god bless me but i won't bless anybody else i think that's a key principle that we need to learn is that if we want a blessing if we want god to bless us we need to be a blessing to other people even the people who hurt us which is difficult so these points say when someone hurts you bless them by responding with forgiveness i think i learned this lesson forgive quickly sometimes we have a plan to forgive but we're just like i'm gonna hold this out a little bit i'm gonna i'm gonna hold on to this grudge a little bit because i need them to feel it and then i'll forgive them but what if we forgive what if we forgave quickly what if we're people saying hey like if somebody offends me it's okay like i want to forgive you it says control your mouth or your mouth will control you i think that's so key and it also says we are called not just to keep peace but to make peace some people like to keep the peace but what if we were actually the people who actually made peace in the situation it says don't let the ugly and others kill the beauty in you and i think that's what the church needs to look like it's like just because someone else acts a certain way that does not mean that i need to respond in that way and so i want to open up with this question and as we're going through the question i want you to be thinking about these questions too why don't you guys describe a time where you allowed your inner peace to shine even while suffering wow no well actually i love that i love it and what comes to mind for me specifically was when i was going through my professional school training uh in the beginning i had a lot of difficulty in the beginning and i didn't know why i honestly think it was an attack of the enemy but you know that's a message for another day but um uh it was actually a situation where i had started with my original class and because of the difficulties that i was dealing with i actually was held back which was extremely painful it cost money it cost time it costs energy and it came to a point where my original classmates were graduating and by that time everybody had known about the difficulties that i was going through and there were whispers there were rumors all of which really hurt really deeply but when the time came for my friends to graduate so many people were telling me you shouldn't go you've been through a lot these people have talked about you other people have talked about you you shouldn't go and to be quite honest i agreed with them i shouldn't go but at the same time a voice inside me told me no if you were not in your situation how would you have responded how would you have let me use you and i said to myself you know what lord i would have gone so i went i put on a good suit i put on a smile on my face and i want to go support my friends because i said to myself if in my suffering i cannot be a blessing to somebody else who am i to even ask for a blessing because i know what god will do for them he's no respecter of persons he is god he respects his word what he's done for them he can do for me so i went and i supported and to god be the glory i mean i made it so on doctor you may have made it a long way anybody else yeah um you know two and a half years ago um manu was we were in mexico and manu was actually in a really tragic car accident and i happened to be there and i was actually there the the entire process um from that first hour in the hospital from anu i was there by our bedside and um obviously we knew there was something terribly wrong and we didn't know what and a lot of life is that way right like the unknown and so um all we could do was pray and and believe and hope and um and the situation just kept worsening you know manu you were under you were in an induced coma for 10 days i think and it was it was the i've never been an experience like that and um man i mean there were days where we like we didn't know if she would make it we didn't know and uh you know i yeah but but all that to say there was this inner peace um and also this kind of knowing and that only comes from god you know and so we just prayed we believed i mean your mom is a prayer warrior we were over your bedside almost every every second of every day praying we got the whole world praying i mean and i think in those moments of suffering like that's oftentimes you the only thing you can do is cry out to god and um i think that's what brought us that peace and here she is and we're i mean we're so grateful it's life is so fragile you know and it's it's crazy yeah i think about just even in that situation of just knowing the people who were there with me at my bedside i remember when you think about inner how to inner peace how do you keep inner peace during your suffering i remember a song that i would play because i felt when i had woken up from this coma um i had so much fear and so much anxiety and frank could probably tell you and she probably recounts the story a little bit better than me because there was just so much going on that my memory sometimes kind of loses me but i like i think i woke up really agitated and confused and upset and all these things that were happening in my life i was just not sure what was going on but i remember playing that song by lauren peace and i was just talking about peace be still and and god being the peace in the storm and i would just pray that play that over and over again every time i felt like the anxiety rising up in the fear i'm rising up i would just play that song so even in that season of suffering i just found peace through worship and i found peace through because someone had asked me it's like hey like what do you do to feel better and i was like and i couldn't figure what it was and then i was like you know what it's worship whenever people would come to my house and play music and sing and worship like i felt like that was the only time that i ever felt peace and that was something that really helped me in that season just being able to play worship music even when i i didn't feel like i could pray i didn't have the strength to pray or the strength to believe but i could just play a song and just allow the presence of god to just fill that space i think every season god gives you these tools these resources that are sometimes they're often different i mean in that season it was worship you know something that you did really well when you were going through all that right i was just coming into boost church so i was seeing how the whole community was really praying over you and i think it was right from from the outside like what like looking in i think that like even though like right the exterior circumstances were like coming down on you i think that you like you didn't let like your inner your spirituality like come in with it you know and i think you did so well with that and i feel like um right like i totally lost it you keep going you're good it doesn't matter what you go through like right we all go through suffering at different levels and i feel that like god sees you like it doesn't matter what you're going through but you like what you're you the energies you put back like if they're positive or they're negative god's going to see you and he will turn it around for you just like he did with you so i appreciate it yeah that's great yeah no i think what you were saying is just like how we had the whole world praying like literally i think there's people from every country like praying for you and i think that's just like the power of community and like why we need other people in our lives like you never know who you're going to come in contact with that may help you through those seasons of your suffering or when you can help someone else that they're going through that season of suffering as well so um you know i think here something we often say is like freedom is found in the context of community and that's where the power of cruise and that's why we do this is so we can build that community around people i think about when resources that god sends and people are definitely one of those things and i love that pastor rich tucked on it like you can't get through um suffering without people that people are part of your purpose and i think about the times when god had sent me resources when i first moved to miami i moved to miami about a year and a half ago it was a four new job i was going through a whole bunch of situations but god knew and he saw and he heard me and he sent me the people that would actually resurrect some things that i haven't dealt with when i was moving from place to place um and helped me get to the the restoration and freedom that i'm walking in today yeah i think that's incredible like we all think that that that's a great segue to this question to describe a situation where god sent the right resources to help you to endure i think that's so key like people are a resource for us to get better and for us to get stronger and for us to make it out i wouldn't have never been able to get out of that situation if it was not for people like i would have never been able to recover as quickly as i did or to just feel whole and to feel healthy and to to get back to who i was if it wasn't for people so maybe if you guys can share what are some other resources that help you to endure in difficult situations i feel like a lot of us suffer in silence so right i i've been working at this like giddy it's okay to feel the way you're feeling like just speak up like there's so many people going through the things that you guys are going through and i've seen it a lot with crews like hey like speak up like i encourage you like whatever you're going through i there's 100 like the person that's in your circle like they're gonna resonate yeah so i feel like every time i crew someone speaks up like someone's gonna piggyback off of what what you're saying so i love that you said that because this past sunday pastor rich spoke about emotions making connections and i think that that resonates with crew while we get healing from hearing others and sharing our own stories and that's what makes us human is the ability to not be led by our emotions but be aware of them and be able to be comfortable enough around the people that we surround ourselves with to share those things and that's how we receive healing so i love that you said that and it's great just like to continue off of that to be emotions are valid pastor rich touched on that last sunday emotions are valid but we're not to be led by them and i think that is the importance of staying clean keeping clean keeping your words clean because in suffering we're so tempted we're so tempted to not only speak death to the situation but we speak negativity on ourselves and it's a knee-jerk reaction where humans were like oh this will never get better you have to be really really careful my mother used to say growing up for me she used to say watch what you say you never know when the angel of the lord is passing by and will just pick the words that you say so it's almost even better to stay silent in times of suffering and speak to the lord in your own peace rather than speak out condemnation or judgment over your situation we have to be very very careful and i think that's important also with staying clean and it also is important based on what people see if you're going through a hard time and people see you speaking nothing but negativity what is to say what will they think about the god that you serve what are they going to think about when it's their turn to go through suffering what are they going to think when they're suffering and then you're speaking over them they're going to think well when you were going through a situation you weren't so positive so how can i even believe what you're saying now so it's really really important and i love how pastor rich touched on that what do you guys think of that yeah i think that that idea of controlling your mouth or your so control your mouth or your mouth will control you so this concept of it's not about uh playing pretend like yes you're going through something but then having the awareness to say hey i could actually control what's coming out of my mouth like the situation is not going to be sweet but i'm going to control my response i'm going to control how i react so that i can learn in that season just so that i can allow god to download within me that i'm not just thinking negative because i think it's we there's such a difference of a situation when you have the a negative perspective versus a positive perspective the situation doesn't have to be positive but you can still have a positive outlook that's the that's faith some people think it's like well i can't you know be positive in a hard situation like you can because of faith and that's the only reason why it's not this wishful thinking but it's more of i have faith in jesus and i have faith in his word and if he said it i can believe it if he said it i'm like okay i can trust in god's word and i can have faith not because my situation looks good because i serve a good god and that's such a great segue into our next two points so it's just do not fear and be prepared like because we have that faith like we don't have to fear anymore and we don't have to fear suffering instead we can prepare our hearts for the blessings that god has for us we don't have to fear what the world fears because we're not of this world we're of the kingdom of god and i think that's just like you know once you get that resonate in your soul and that's what you're telling yourself and that's the story you're telling yourself like that almost takes away all fear it's like okay yeah it's not in my control like god's got me like whenever you know that like you just walk differently like you just like talk differently and whenever you are walking and talking differently that's when other people are going to notice you back wow what is it about that person and that's what draws other people to you and like you know that's just whenever we can spread the gospel like i think that's like really powerful um and so one of the uh the verse like to kind of go a little bit more into it was who is to harm you if you're eager to do good but even if you should suffer uh for what is right you are still blessed like i think we just stop right there and i call it good but it's powerful it is it's powerful because i feel like one of the keys to enduring one of the keys to suffering well is and releasing yourself of the fear which is primarily it i think as believers when we're suffering we need to get to a point where even if it doesn't turn out the way i want it to turn out god is still god and he's still good and i think that releases you from the fear and once you've been released from that fear that's how you can go day by day that's how you can move that's how you can still walk with your head up held up high even though everyone's like dude you just lost your house yeah well you know god is still good i mean if i never get my house back i pray that you do but if i never get my house back god is still going to be god and he's still going to make a way and once you release yourself of that fear it makes all the difference yeah yeah and i just want to put a question for you so you know continue this conversation and i think we all know that suffering is inevitable but what are some daily habits that you can adopt to prepare for suffering or what are some habits that you can put in your life now so whenever you get to those seasons of suffering you can endure i feel like for me at least it's really important to have a strong foundation so how am i starting my day am i starting my day with a my time with god am i praying am i doing my devotionals so at least for me that's that's what i how i'm getting ready i love that i think that mornings are critical to how you start your day so when i wake up the first thing that i do is just have a heart of gratitude like thank you god for putting breath in my lungs today um that today means that i'm one day closer to the calling that you have on my life and so when i wake up with that heart of gratitude i think it goes back to the earlier collection the day by day what we do daily is because who we become permanently so i i start by listening thanking god then i listen to worship music to get my heart prepared for whatever word god has for me and then um i use my my mornings to spend time in the word and then i pray and then actually um thanks to pastor rich i meditate now and then that's the time where god speaks to me and then i'll note it down and then before i even touch my phone that's my routine but i want to hear what you guys have to do too there's always ways that we can be improving so drop it in the comment section what are you doing with your mornings that's awesome no mornings are mornings are key warnings are key and pastor rich touched on it this past sunday when he talks about preparation how he talked about on sunday we prepare we don't even know what we're preparing ourselves for but it doesn't have to be on sunday alone you can prepare with the morning routine every morning even if you're waking up in the morning early in the morning and you're not particularly just praying or you're just you're just sitting there with your cup of coffee or your tea and you're just letting your thoughts catch up to you because i mean if you're anything like me and you're not a morning person you wake up and you're like half dead to the world for like a good like two hours no like sit let the thoughts come into your mind and that's when believe it or not that's when god can speak to you too when you take account when you take notice of your thoughts you can be like oh lord why am i thinking that and you can pray on it so the mornings mornings even if you're not a morning person adopt your mornings yeah you know i think it's something like really all of us should commit to you know i kind of like that word commitment so i hear in the comments section right if you're going to commit to spending even 10 minutes like i think if we can all spend 10 minutes to start our day not on our phones like that's the best way to start so um if you're committed to that just drop right there in the comments i commit to starting your day first 10 minutes you can do 10 minutes yeah yeah i think that the morning just as you guys are talking about that like for me my mornings are like sacred it's like the time that i'm going out on my balcony and i'm i'm trying to quiet the noise because if i allow it to i can think of a million different things and my mind can go in a million different ways and i really had to start getting the habit because i would wake up in the morning and think about all the things that i needed to do and i would start texting people and i'm just like wait wait like let me stop first let me honor their morning like let me not bombard them in the morning um and so i'm pretty sure there's some people like thank god manuka doesn't text me at 8 am anymore um but now i go out on the balcony and i take time and i play worship music and i listen to a podcast or i pray or i meditate these different things where i'm just taking hold of all right i'm going to put my phone away because i spend so much time on my phone i'm like i can take the first beginning of my day where i'm spending it with god and i think that just starts off the day right and our habits are so important i think uh when we actually have habits that we're building into our lives no matter what we face no matter what comes up no matter what goes we're just like i can always revert back to my habits i already have a habit of prayer so when a storm hits i don't have to be like oh i got to figure out how to pray i got to figure out how to fast no i'm in the habit of praying and fasting i'm in the habit of seeking the face of god and so if something does happen i'm like okay i know what to do i'm just going to keep doing my habits like we talked about in the day by day collections like i already know what to do in this situation i'm going to keep doing what i've been doing seeking the face of god and i think that when we build habits of prayer when we build habits of seeking god um it is not something foreign to us when we deal with suffering so it doesn't become a surprise to us we're not just trying to figure it out and listen to the right podcast to figure out how to get out of our suffering but because we have prepared because this is the reason why we need to prepare like i know this might be a shock to everybody but everyone's going to suffer like listen let me just drop the bomb right there like we are going to suffer and the suffering does not end with 2020. everyone thinks that like once it hits 20 21. all of a sudden it's like his life's gonna reverse like it's not like things aren't going to just change because a new day changes so it's like i'm not just waiting on the next thing for things to get better now i'm preparing that when this happens i'm ready when jo when when i'm celebr i'm i'm preparing for all i'm preparing for celebrations i'm preparing for times of suffering i want to be prepared to how i'm going to respond and not let life take me by surprise because i already know that they're going to be certain things that i have to deal with and go through but i want to at least have some mode of preparation i get it we won't be able to prepare all the way for certain things that we'll face in life but if we can get into habits i think it would really help us yeah you said it things life is not going to change but you can change yeah you can form those habits you can be prepared by forming those habits and part of that means you have to know who you are you have to take the time to know who you are you have to take the time to know what works for you you have to take the time because what works for me is not going to work for you and it's not going to work for you like for me worship i mean you talked about worship for me worship is the same thing but for me what really calms me down is worship and i'm i'm an enneagram type one so for me straightening things up like cleaning i put worship music on i'll clean i'll rearrange like my closet like i'll do all this stuff and that what works that's what works for me and it clears my head and allows god to speak to me so know what works for you find it and stick to it and that's how you'll be prepared that's great i love that and uh one of my good friends dakota duran gave me was it uh an iteration where you have like a bunch of the same words alliteration yeah but prior preparation prevents poor performance say it one more time for the people in the back people in the back prior preparation prevents poor performance and if you prepare when things are going good or you know things aren't going bad you know you know how you're going to act you know how you're going to respond you're not going to react you know respond versus reacting because you know who you are because you've taken that time to prepare you've taken those moments with god in the beginning of your day um yeah but also i think that you know those moments of suffering can really give you a stage to um really give your testimony like what is a testimony without a test right so just describe a time in your life where um you know your suffering has built a stage for god's glory yeah i can speak to this five years ago when i was in college i i had a series of events that lead me led me to wanting to take my life and though it's a really difficult season and even thinking about it just where i was at and the darkness that i was in god had his hand on me he didn't waste me he knew that five years later that i was gonna re-find him again recommit my life to jesus and then have a platform a stage to share my story and share how he's restored me how he's healed me through the people that he's brought into my life through his ministry through sermons through a whole bunch of different ways that he was just speaking to my heart and that really just built the stage for me to share it with others and i had so many people when i had shared my story originally it was a few weeks ago during our prey first time back in august a few people reached out to me like i was going through the same thing i'm so thankful that you were had the courage to share your story um because i never knew that you were going through something like that so that was just a stage that that god provided and all i could say in return is like thank you god like it was none of me it was all of him and so it keeps my hands raised that yes it's the stage he built for me but it's on his glory that he gets glory out of my story and my testimony thank you for sharing that um that's not easy to share but um yeah you're not a waste god's using your story already and he'll continue to use it and i think um it's funny this past sunday um actually the message that we're talking about i had a um what do we call these things i'm trying to think of the right term yeah this past sunday we had a watch party at my house and um afterwards a few of us lingered and we were just chatting and uh one of the girls there was sharing with me just the struggle of dating right now and this and being single and how hard it is for her and i i i used our story um you know i'm i've been married nine years i have two kids and um but let me tell you like our dating our dating life and our dating story was not perfect it um you know we we actually made a decision to um while dating to um walk in purity and i think from that decision god really just blessed our relationship and we began to as we began to walk in purity we just saw like our this depth to the relationship and just like a turnaround in our relationship and i don't know that we would be married today if we hadn't made that decision and obeyed what god was asking us to do and so i think it's just it's funny because it's one decision that leads to the next right decision that leads to the next right decision and god leads you and um down this path and he'll use your he'll use your story every god uses any moment so i think that's important to to remember i love that i i feel like it's so important to find a purpose in your pain right turn your pain your pain into purpose so i feel like for me again with relationships and i went through a heartbreak a couple of years ago and i think this was when i hit rock bottom tanner we'll get back to it we'll get back to that and but yeah like i went through depression i went through anxiety and i just really didn't know what i was doing like i i didn't know what i was doing with my life and it took me to that to to really find the purpose god had for me like now thank god right i looking in retrospect i can see like i had to go through that and now i like out of this that came like um a non-profit so right now i'm i'm helping women deal with their insecurities or with a oh what's my purpose like like i can see how god is using my pain into purpose and i feel like that heartbreak and everything i went through that it literally created a stage for me to help women and here in miami so yeah that's great and i love how you say like you hit rock bottom and we were having this conversation earlier but that really um kind of wraps this whole thing up because a lot of times suffering will make us feel like we hit rock bottom but when we find that you know the rock is actually the foundation and jesus is the rock um that our whole life is just you know we can live in that freedom even where we're suffering we can hold our head up high we say hey you know i don't know what the future holds but i know who holds my future and i i think that's just like a great confidence that we can go into the rest of this week um you know and just throughout the rest of our lives knowing hey i may feel like i'm at rock bottom right now but i know jesus really is the rock at the bottom we don't have to concentrate on our present troubles but we can concentrate on our present savior um he sees the pain that we're going through he sees our suffering but he also sees our commitment and moving forward and um really just advancing the kingdom of heaven can i just i think this is something that we really need to that i think everyone needs to hear sometimes suffering can be so deep it can be so painful that we can't even see the purpose in the moment the pain is so great it's so crippling that we don't even know why we're going through it and i think like you said jesus is the foundation he's the rock and i think sometimes we need to understand that although we may not be able to see the purpose of our pain your suffering is not only for you and sometimes your suffering may be for somebody else and i know it doesn't sound fair it doesn't sound like why i didn't ask for it but he's god he's god and your pain you you have a responsibility to make it through this pain to help somebody else someone that you don't even know yet somebody who's coming down the road and i think that that's that's part of getting to that realization that god is the foundation because it may not even be about you he chose you with the responsibility to then carry it out because he knew that you would use it for his glory so if you're going through anything at all just know that even if you don't see it like you said it's it's for a purpose and it might be for somebody else but he trusted you to handle that pain and he knows that you are going to carry it well that you are going to be a good steward of it amazing right yeah god really does use all things for his glory and i just love that just love knowing that um but earlier we were talking about toolkits and things that we can use to endure um these hard times and the suffering and uh that's really call to action every crew we leave with a call to action something to do it's not homework it's soul work there it is yeah so this week's call to action is just to create your own tool kit uh something that you can do just real practical get a cookie jar uh create a note on your phone and just start writing notes notes of encouragement words scriptures um something you can always just go back to and read and reflect on uh so when you are going through those moments of suffering uh you have god's word right there that you can always go back to so that's really our call to action um for me i'm probably gonna get a cookie jar so i stopped eating cookies out of it and uh lead our fitness crew do you actually put cookies in your cookie jar yes okay yeah i've i need to get i've never had a cookie jar why do you people it's just like putting temptation in your house like if the cookies are there they're going to be destroyed you're going to remove the cookie jar and put encouragement exactly remove the cookies put god's word so i get it it's all the health people just like don't eat cookies you got anything from today you can't eat cookies i'm kidding i'm kidding but uh we're so thankful that you have tuned in and joined us and we never end any of our cruise without taking time to pray and maybe you're watching this because you're going through something difficult and you're hearing how we're speaking in faith and i think all of us have different stories that have led us to a place of having faith in the middle of the storm having faith in the middle of our suffering and so maybe that's you maybe you're suffering we want to pray with you we've got team in the chat in the comment section that's praying for you so you can drop your prayer requests in the comments right now we're all going to pray together we're believing that god can help you get through whatever you're facing and like everyone said here whatever you're facing it's not just for you that god's gonna use it that there's gonna be a stage that god is building that there's a story that you can tell to your circle of influence that know that what you're going through right now is not a waste god's not gonna waste any time he's not gonna waste the season that god's going to use every bit of it so why don't we just all join together we're going to pray our team's going to be praying for you and just believing god so god we thank you so much for allowing us to gather here lord god thank you for having the opportunity for us to really just to take this message and to dissect it and to dive deep into it and lord we just pray god for people who are just dealing with suffering right now people who are hurting people who might be grieving maybe the loss of a loved one or maybe they're grieving a relationship or grieving a lost opportunity or maybe they're suffering through some things that they've dealt with in life father we just pray that you would just step in god that you would be peace lord that you would be comfort that god that they would feel your peace god that they would look i just encounter your holy spirit and encounter your presence and so look god we just pray that you would just move god that you would use their story that they would not give up hope even when it's difficult so god we're trusting you every step of the way in jesus name amen amen and amen well we are so thankful that you've tuned in for crew live we're thankful that we get to have this conversation that you get to be in on this conversation and we don't want it to stop here we want you to be part of a crew you can get into a crew crew week is next week i can't wait i've got a crew on a thursday night they've got people got crews every every single person here there you go it's like everybody's plugging in their crews you probably got people in the chat that's plugging in their cruise but you can get into a crew we all believe that we don't want to just talk about crews changing our life no we actually want to be a part of it so we all actually get to be a part of a crew and maybe you're watching this for the very first time and you've been on the fence or maybe you're thinking i need community i want to have conversations like these with people that can help me build and grow join a crew you can go to vootchurch.com cruise and you can see an online cruise so no matter where you are in the world there's a crew for you there's a crew time that you could be a part of but we are so grateful for you tuning in and we will see you back next time we love you hey rich wilkerson here 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 and 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: 2,641

Rating: 4.9682541 out of 5

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Id: GrzYgJ4tYL0

Length: 44min 26sec (2666 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020