[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Way Community Church Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Darahal and I am the pastor of the Way Community Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join us as a member or if you simply need prayer or if you want to worship through giving, you can find the links and the transcription of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had you ever hit a wall in life that you
[SPEAKER_00]: the faith, the strength, the wisdom, to push through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it made you wonder, deep inside my God would allow something like this to happen to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're going to look at Abraham and his wife Sarah and the walls they hit in their face journey with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jewel their individual points of use and appreciate how God will allow these experiences for us so that he can reveal himself to us and reveal us to ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to encourage you to
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's study how to work together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look of Genesis Genesis chapter 22 is where we're going to be today for our brief conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have some, some other elements, pulsarmen today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to have a unique experience what we will spend a few minutes here together in God's Word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis chapter 22 is where we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one verse I'm going to read in your hearing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Word of the Lord says in the New American Standard Bible, now it came about after these things that God did what church tested Abraham.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to ask your neighbor, neighbor, are you ready to heal?
[SPEAKER_01]: You may be seated in the presence of the living God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're continuing our series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you ready to heal?
[SPEAKER_01]: And today, I want to talk with this thought in my
[SPEAKER_01]: surrendering to a plan, you cannot understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surrendering to a plan that you cannot understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lyrics of the song that Syria and Serenity just dance to are so true about our life experiences and that is is that we can face walls in life
[SPEAKER_01]: can make us bitter in the moment, but the test of the Christian character and the development of the Christian soul is that what initially caused a bitter reaction can ultimately be used to develop us into a better version of self, which means there will be seasons where we will
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've hit a wall, a time or two, meaning I've faced some things that caught me off a guard, things that I thought were unfair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stuff I couldn't believe the Lord let happen, or stuff the Lord told me to do, I couldn't believe God was really asking me to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what the wall revealed to me was the ugly in my own soul that I did not know was there until the wall revealed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a major key from the outset, and that is this religion teaches us how to cover up everything that hitting a wall exposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can do the right things, we can have the right intentions, we can say we love the Lord and prove it and how we move and shape, but then something can happen to us that test us at a level that we were not ready to be tested.
[SPEAKER_01]: what it can reveal is what religion tries to cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the real stuff that's happening in the depths of our soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we ask each other that is introspective question, are you ready to heal?
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're really asking you is, are you ready for the sickness in your soul to be exposed so that you can be healed?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the readiness I wanna,
[SPEAKER_01]: nurture in you as your pastor and brother in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: The readiness to respond to the wall when I hit a dark patch, when I hit a tough time, when I'm in a season I wish would be over and when it's revealing more than I care to pay attention to would I be ready in that moment for the Holy Spirit to do a deep work in me to remove things I didn't even know was there so that I can't experience a healing
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here's what a wall does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every wall I hit, challenges my readiness to obey God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the natural reaction, at least for me, when I go through something, I feel like I don't deserve.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get mad at God first before I get glad about whatever the Lord is trying to do in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so while I'm working through my emotive reaction, I can't even get to the spiritual blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: but what the challenge does or what the wall does is challenge in me the readiness to obey.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're using this term wall or we're using this term to describe difficulty.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to read for you a quote.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rather lengthy, but I think you might find some usefulness in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the emotionally healthy spirituality by Peter Scazero, he says, for most of us, the wall appears through a wet church, a crisis.
[SPEAKER_01]: that turns our world upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: It comes perhaps through a divorce, a job loss, the death of a close friend or family member.
[SPEAKER_01]: A cancer diagnosis, a disillusioning church experience, a betrayal, a shattered dream, a waver child, a car accident.
[SPEAKER_01]: and inability to get pregnant, a deep desire to marry that remains on fulfill a spiritual dryness or a loss of joy in our relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We question ourselves, God and the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: We discover for the first time that our faith does not appear to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have more questions than answers as the very foundation of our faith feels like it's on the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know where God is.
[SPEAKER_01]: What he is doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where he is going?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or how he is getting us there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or when this will be over?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let the church say amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where God is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what God is doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where God is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how he's gonna get me from here to there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, when all this is gonna be, be over.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as long as something that's unavoidable, I wish it was something we could avoid, but the truth is we cannot, even our Savior Jesus Christ faced his own walls with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if he been without saying face walls, how much more you and I who are imperfect people, should we just anticipate that in our journey of evolution,
[SPEAKER_01]: On our way up to becoming who God is as honest to be, we will go through a cycle where we'll hit seasons that we cannot avoid, but it's necessary for who we're becoming.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so life for the believer can look like stages, it starts with stage one, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This life changing awareness of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: which then leads us to stage two, which is discipleship, when I start to learn more about God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then stage three, now I'm so passionate and on fire that I wanna start serving God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made the side of Jonah Tane.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made the side of Voluntil with the outreach for the back of the school in Rockdale.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made the side to start coming to church more regularly because I want active service to represent this inner learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then out of nowhere,
[SPEAKER_01]: When it seems like I'm in a good place with God, when it seems like I'm doing everything God told me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something happens that completely rocks me from center to circumference.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm blind, sighted by a life experience that I thought God would have loved me enough to help me avoid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm in it so long that I realized it was actually God who allowed it to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I got a Russell with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why have thou forsaken me?
[SPEAKER_01]: But the wall has a gift in it, and that is, it helps us to journey inward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, it starts this inward journey to go deeper, because the Lord, once we own far from Lord and serving the Lord, these actions got to be supported by a deep faith beneath the surface.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you say, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna do your will, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord's like, I hear it, I know it, I know it better than you do, I'll just wind on you to agree with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now let me let you go through something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can learn a thing or two about you, and then learn a thing or two about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can really become who you ask me to make you into.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what the wall does is it erupts some stuff inside of us that we probably did not even know was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stuff like pride, greed, luxury, or using God for my own pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rath, I'm so easily irritated.
[SPEAKER_01]: All I do is go off from pop off, spiritual gluttony, envy, sloth.
[SPEAKER_01]: These internal dormant yet very real sins that can keep me from becoming who God has called me to be and running into the wall exposes that to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So today we're going to look at the story of a man and a woman, both in the Bible, who hit various walls of a God, and what's interesting about this man and woman is they're also husband and wife, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The man is Abraham, his wife is Sarah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the thing is, when we tell the story of Abraham's life, I mean, we praise Abraham, he's the father of faith, he believed God and God accounted to him as righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the progenitor of three major world religions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We even sing a song about Abraham, father of Abraham.
[SPEAKER_01]: had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham, and I am one of them, and so are you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just praise the Lord right on Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now nowhere in the song, do we mention Mother Sarah?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the many sons God gave Abraham were also Sarah sons too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're going to look at Abraham's story and Sarah's story together, but how individually they face various walls in their own life, we got here's the first thought and that is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: My path is part of our journey towards surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come to the hear me.
[SPEAKER_01]: My path is a part of our journey to war surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you saying, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all on a journey together, but we each got our own path to take.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even when you're on a journey with people, you love, you cannot save them from their own path.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's talking about revenue, talking about a parent and an adult child.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot save your adult child from the lessons they need to learn to become an independent adult.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And adult child, you cannot save your parent from the effects of aging and the hard decisions they got to make to age well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Siblings.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can love your brother, love your sister, y'all could be like this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Two peas in a pot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Siblings you can't save your sibling from their own path.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all can both grow up in the same house.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have two totally different experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: And have to reconcile with those experiences decades into your adulthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give them the freedom to have their own path.
[SPEAKER_01]: Best friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, you can't choose your family, but you choose your friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might choose your best friend, and y'all know y'all gonna be down forever, but here's the reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be seasons, best friend, where your advice won't be enough to carry them through, and the Lord may design it such that you're not even available to be there to walk with them through some of the worst experiences of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We on a journey together, but my path is still mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And marriage is the most intimate of human relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it does not strip the individual of their unique perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham and Sarah are married and they're on a journey with God together, and God respects their covenant more than they do, but God deals with them for their individual issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, God had always seen them together.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, I'm gonna send a promise on Abraham through Sarah.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is about your covenant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna bless this covenant with a child that child is gonna be your promise on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I know you 75, I know she's 65, and so the clock is ticking, but just to show you how much God I am, I'm gonna make you wait 25 years before I do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in that 25-year waiting period, Abraham hit some walls, Sarah hit some walls, and both of them are forced to see themselves and see more of God as a result.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means, we're able to look at the walls that Abraham hit in his path towards becoming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He meets God in Genesis chapter 12 verse number three.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then God tells him to leave the land of his father to go to a land he's going to show you.
[SPEAKER_01]: two verses, I just imagine you were in verse one.
[SPEAKER_01]: How you gonna tell me in verse three?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just start walking and you're gonna be my GPS system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even really know you like that for real.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the nephew he takes with him, who probably never should have been on the journey, but yet he's there, it's taken in war and so now Abraham gotta go save his nephew.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then God had promised that he was going to have a son, but his wife is unable to bear children.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's another wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's now a few between a third woman or a second woman who's appointed his love triangle that Abraham didn't even bring into the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah Braho in Abraham was lying.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean... LAUGHTER
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he obliges and then creates this tension now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a child, the second woman, the child's name is Ishmael.
[SPEAKER_01]: He becomes the father of all era people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Abraham is so tired of waiting on the promise to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just say, God, can you just use my plan B?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just use Ishmael.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we ain't gotta do everything, yo, way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we just use the way I tried to help you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And God rejects his plan B.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll always run into a wall, but we try to help God be God and then realize I am God and besides me, there is none other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he hits another moral wall when he understands that God is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and he can't understand why a holy God would destroy the city if he got righteous people in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he says, Lord, if it's 50 people in it, would you destroy it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And God says, no, if it's 50 people in it, I won't destroy his L.K., okay, okay, what if it's 40?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, if it's 40 people I want to destroy, okay, okay, let me just, what if it's 30?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if it's 20?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if it's 10?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's having a moral issue with trying to understand why God would do this to these people and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah proves that it wasn't even 10 righteous people in the whole town.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a wall he hits.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's his family tension where he's got one wife, with a 13 year old son named Ishmael.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got another wife, with a two year old son named Iazik, and now they're few days, so he has to send away Ishmael.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after all that, we read in chapter 22, God made him wait 25 years for a son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that son is 13, and God says, remember the son I made you wait 25 years for, remember the son who's now 13, now comes sacrifice him back to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Abraham's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wall, stuff he faced, that he never thought he would face, but then look at Sarah, because they're on the journey together, but they have their own perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah's journey looks like something like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's told to leave home by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: She just met, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine being a Sarah?
[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham come home and say, hey man, guess what I meant today?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, he's name is Yawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told us we can call him Yawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said he's the make of heaven and earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told us we got a move tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is we?
[SPEAKER_01]: You sure you ain't hearing stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know you a little off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you what.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me how he is and come back and get me once you find this land we suppose to go to.
[SPEAKER_01]: No sooner than they leave home, they go to Egypt when they get to Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Sarah,
[SPEAKER_01]: is vulnerable because Abraham is insecure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham did the ease of him and realized that his girl is so bad that the Egyptian man going to take her from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, look, let's just lie and say, you my sister, because I can't fight all of them off of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He puts her in a vulnerable scenario because he's not man enough to defend her honor in front of the other men who can't have her because she looked good.
[SPEAKER_01]: After that Abraham has to now go save his nephew who she probably thought they never should have brought anyway, but now he got to go save his nephew.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then she got to deal with her own awareness, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord told him that he was going to have a son and it didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's this subtle fear of telling her that it's her.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to test it to see if it's her, she says, well, why don't you try hey God?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she offers Hagar and Egyptian slave and Hagar conceives immediately, and then she runs into a wall that reveals her envy.
[SPEAKER_01]: She jealous that Hagar could do on one trial where she couldn't do for 15 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this feud on the outside is really covering up her envy of Hagar on the inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: After that,
[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham lies again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same scenario, different country, hey, we're just gonna say you my sister again because you two beautiful, I know you 85, but you bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of these men are building the kill me and take you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just make you vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's put you in a vulnerable position to say me, cause I'm insecure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine being married to somebody who God said was a man of faith, but he keep folding every time it's time to defend you in public.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then God gives her a son, she got Isaac, but the promise don't remove the envy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now she's still invious of hey girl, still won't hurt her son and get out of her house because this me and my son are in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then in chapter 22, God tells Abraham, go kill y'all son.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she don't find out nothing about it today, get home and tell her the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I mean, Ralph, here's all I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can be on the journey together, but we got our own path.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a major key.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to say this with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: My path, point of view, pressures, and pain are unique.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means you're going to hit walls while people with you seem to be doing it fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be dealing with stuff as a wife that is going to be hard to articulate to a husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be struggling with stuff as a husband that you can't just quit putting the words to your wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can love your child, love your parent, and won't be able to help her.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can tell you they, okay, and it's not because they line to you because it's none, you can do to make them un-okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's none, you can do, you know what I mean, to fix it, to actually make them really okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so what we learned is my path is part of our journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, and I'll be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: My previous walls prepare me for my next wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse 22, chapter 22 verse one again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says now we came about what church after these things, what things, all the things I just told you, all the walls they've already hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: After all the stuff they've been through, God's gonna put them through some hills, lower hammers.
[SPEAKER_01]: All these things are previous walls.
[SPEAKER_01]: God tested Abraham is the biggest wall of all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what we learn that my previous walls prepare me for my next wall through the compound effect of revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now when I say compound and effect I'm using a financial term, I believe it was Albert Einstein who said that our compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: and come out entrances something that affects us financially, you the benefit from it, or you can be buried by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it doesn't just apply to money, it also applies to revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what God will do.
[SPEAKER_01]: God will draw you into a relationship to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be so happy loving the Lord, all your prayers can answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: You saying grace before every meal, I mean, you just waking up every day for the joy, and then you'll hit a wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be kind of like, hmm, that's interesting because, you know, I'm God favorite child.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know why that would happen, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: You hit the wall as something is revealed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something what about you, about something around you, about your next decision, about God, and then you'll learn that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then two years later, you'll hit another wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's happening is, with each wall you hit, there's another layer of revelation that's building up your knowledge of God, self, and reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then when you go through some major and you don't even flinch or break a sweat, people who are immature in the spirit of the literature be like, how in the world are you okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be like, this ain't my first rodeo.
[SPEAKER_01]: The compound effect of revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a major key.
[SPEAKER_01]: God puts walls in our way to reveal Himself to us and our selves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we'll even see us till we run into a wall and looking to mirror the figure out if it put a lump on our forehead and not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you realize you should have been looking in this mirror the whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every wall reveals that God is gooder than I thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not as good as I thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ever hit a wall and then mad at God and then madness turned the grandness when you was like, I can't believe you all thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: How could you keep on blessing me like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually gooder than I thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I first hit the wall, I was mad at you that you let me hit it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now after I've come through it, I see you better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not just you, I see better is me, I see.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know you see yourself better when you're you welcomes turning to thank yous.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I gave him my offering this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God, I've been doing my devotional already.
[SPEAKER_01]: Read about Abraham and Sarah rev.
[SPEAKER_01]: He laid to the point I've been to this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you hit a wall and see that I'm not as good as I thought I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're your welcomes turned into.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I met church this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I got some money so I can give.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I know a little bit about this story, before Rea, I've got to preach me happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anybody who's ever been through something who can testify?
[SPEAKER_01]: God, thank you for your grace in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your grace in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the compound effect of revelation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, my previous walls were pat me for my next walls through the power only patients can provide.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says, in James chapter 1 verse 4, let endurance or patience have his perfect result, so that you may be what church.
[SPEAKER_01]: That turn perfect, complete, lacking nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect don't mean flawless.
[SPEAKER_01]: It means fully formed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It don't mean that you'll make mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It means you are fully developed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what the wall does is the wall gives you power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only patients can provide.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see that in Abraham, his worst test, he actually passed it the best way.
[SPEAKER_01]: God says, get up, sacrifice your son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He immediately gets up the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: He takes everything he needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has two servants, a donkey, his son, everything for the sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're walking to a land God is gonna show him the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: He not worried about the Lord, showing him the mountain, because the first time he met God, God said, leave and I'm gonna show you where you're going.
[SPEAKER_01]: The compound effective revelation, I trust the God, I know a God, who's a GPS system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where I'm going, but when I get the hill tell me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They get there, and he says to the two servants, y'all stand over here, me and the boy going to worship, hear me church, then he says, and then we come and back.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has every intent to kill this boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what he thinks is going to happen is because of his obedience, he's going to see something he's never seen a resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: He considered God so faithful, Hebrew says that even if he killed this son, he knew God were a resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, man, the boy going to worship, man, the boy coming back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's why I applaud Abraham for his obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just that he got a quick, without making it a big fuss, but when he got there to the sacrifice, he had two servants and a donkey and his son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you two servants and you donkey stay right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The old Abraham would have said, you two servants stay right here, meet in the donkey and the boy going up the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I get up there and God trying to make me kill this boy, I'm gonna kill the donkey and stay.
[SPEAKER_01]: He left the donkey, hear me, because he remembered from Ishmael, God on the except plan B.
[SPEAKER_01]: God will not take you back up offering in place of what he commanded you to do in obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Lead a donkey.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he gets to the top of the mountain, God gives him a ram instead of a donkey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Question.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us cannot see the ram God wants to reveal because you demand He accepts your donkey?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us can't see the miraculous provision of God because we're trying to offer Him some He didn't answer for.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's walking up the mountain with His son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He 113, His son is 13.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means if one of them started running the other one couldn't catch them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll be dumb right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The son says, all right, then now we don't worship God before.
[SPEAKER_01]: And last time we had a sacrifice with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see everything we need is that the sacrifice that where is the sacrifice?
[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham said, son, is you or not, is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: He could have, he said, son, the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment, Abraham surrender made it possible for Isaac to surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time the Lord was done on that mountain, this was not just a blessing for Abraham's faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was also a blessing for Isaac's faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: High school, elementary school, middle school, high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Raise your hand, hi, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to ask y'all to stand up with talk in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, put your hand down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want all the Abraham's in the room to see all the Isaac's in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: How we handle our wall, level sets their theology.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we don't believe God is going to provide, they will never see the ram in the thicket.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we don't exemplify surrender, why would that?
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time I left this mountain, it wasn't just about Abraham anymore, it was about Isaac too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my question, and that is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the ask, follow us in the wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you withholding that you feel like God does not have the right to ask you for?
[SPEAKER_01]: even though he gave it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you withholding that you don't feel like God has the right to ask you for?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he's the one who gave it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna be blessed now about testimony from our very own deacon to recent waters about what it means to flourish as we surrender to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you focus your attention to the scurries?
[SPEAKER_02]: I weigh community church.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Deacon Theresa Waters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a part of the Deacon's ministry here at the weigh community church and I'm also a member of the Intercessory Ministry team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And God does wonderful amazing things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the first female Deacon at the weighed community church.
[SPEAKER_02]: So God is awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: What life looked like for me before flourishing was chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stress, anxiety, worry, and fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I operated outside as if externally seeing me was like everything was fine and put together.
[SPEAKER_02]: But internally, there was an internal struggle that was going on that are doing taking the emotional spiritual healthy series last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I found out that I was an emotional mess.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the chapter of going back in order to go for it was my breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to go back and revisit the path of my past and growing up and seeing how I operated out of fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything was about fear, fear of not having, fear of not providing, fear of not being there, fear of being thought of less than.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's no more fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would it be honest with you and share with you what my fears came from?
[SPEAKER_02]: The first fear was having my daughter at 18 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the fear of not being enough or even knowing what motherhood meant.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fear of when I left the hospital after three days because back then you stayed, you didn't kick you out, they even kicked you out right away, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: But three days, when I was taken down to the car, you had to go down in the wheelchair, I had the nerve say to me, see you next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: because I was considered a young black female.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the reviving door.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna be back here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna have a lot of baby mama drama.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you're gonna be on this system and she had beg me at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: not even knowing when my dad opened the car, I got out of the wheelchair and I said to her, let the Redeemer say so.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I got in the car, my mom asked me, why did you say that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I told her, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now this side, I see God was even working back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: He would take your mistakes, your missteps, and he would steal, fulfill the plan that he has for your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one other thing that I would like to leave you with is that surrender.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can tell you that I would not be here today doing this, but when our corporate prayer and fasting took place, February 18th of 2026, when I entered my prayer closet that morning, that was my only thought was God, what do you want me to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you calling for this in my life at this period?
[SPEAKER_02]: And all I received was surrender.
[SPEAKER_02]: Surrender to him meant for me falling out of my ways, my wheel and my way, and literally saying, Lord, your wheel and your way, that I surrender all.
[SPEAKER_02]: All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all, and in that surrendering, God will allow things to start operating in your life, and you begin to floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Amen to God for sharing your testimony and I'm thankful for the women of God who joined me this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: just for a discussion, a dialogue.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is mental health awareness, mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we want to be a church that offers real resources to equip us for whatever we face that could challenge us on every level, not just physical, but also spiritual, emotional.
[SPEAKER_01]: and mental.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm joined by two ladies today that God has truly blessed and is already using in this church to to be a blessed entire entire congregation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think many of us know Alicia Walker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we thank God for Alicia?
[SPEAKER_01]: Alicia is a licensed professional counselor.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has her own practice and her own clientele.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is a Ben's wife and they are parents of five children, mostly adult children.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have one son for daughters.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she is the lead counselor here at the Wake Community Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she also leaves our care and counseling team, the team which not just responds to the emotional and mental
[SPEAKER_01]: but which also curates an annual experience called rhythm and respiration, which is coming up June 6, her team has designed for us, a space or an opportunity for this space to be a place of wellness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank God for Alicia.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also want to thank God for Stallion Pots.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you give God praise for Stallion?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I know once a month, she gets up and she'll pray for two minutes, and I won't you to understand that that is just a small expression of how the Holy Spirit of God is using her.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is married to Douglas Pots, who's here this morning, wave a hand, if you will, please start thank your man, God bless you.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is a doctoral candidate right now, she's working on her doctorate degree, she is a preacher,
[SPEAKER_01]: She is the chief intercessor here at the way community church who succeeded decant waters leading the ministry Tain that praise for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's more than just once a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's up for two minutes She leaves the team that stands in the gap for this congregation weekend and week out and just a few weeks ago We were facing a crisis in our in a small part of our congregation and I called her
[SPEAKER_01]: at the drop-over-hat on a random Tuesday, and I just asked her to start praying with minimal details, because sometimes pasturing is like that, you can discover something that you can't share.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, everything is so called her, she's start praying.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I got off the phone, I started crying out the God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fooled throat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now whisper, and I'm crying out to the Lord, and I know she was too.
[SPEAKER_01]: and God has answered in that regard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thank God for used to land for your intercession, for your leadership, and for you, Alicia just for coaching me in private, so I can be a good pastor and public.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to this mental health space over the last couple of years, we've been able to collaborate just to design the ecosystem here at the Wake Community Church to be one that offers real healing and real help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you just talk a little bit about your heart even for this panel or as we close our mental health awareness month, the importance of a relationship with Jesus to our wellness on every level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it make sense?
[SPEAKER_04]: First of all, I just want to thank our pastor for allowing us to even have this space.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think deacon waters for share her testimony, and I'm excited for it's the land to be up here with us.
[SPEAKER_04]: But allowing or the purpose of God in our space in terms of mental health is extremely important.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think people try to box him in or ourselves
[SPEAKER_04]: This is work, this is family, this is my mental health, this is family life, but he is a part of it all and allowing him to enter in and to have a relationship in it is extremely important.
[SPEAKER_04]: And even just some of the tools or rhythms or attributes of Jesus that we can take on are important for us in our mental health.
[SPEAKER_04]: So prayer,
[SPEAKER_04]: being me, which is one of the things we'll talk about next week in the rhythm of rest, taking on a countenance of all the all these things are swirling around me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can still withstand without lashing out of other people.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can still handle it because my nervous system is at rest.
[SPEAKER_04]: Matthew 11, 28 through 30 talks about resting in him.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's really what it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Your nervous system is at rest.
[SPEAKER_04]: not just outwardly going to sleep or getting away from people, but allowing your mind will and emotions, which is your soul to be at rest in him.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I could keep going and going, but I really am excited to have the land hit be here and share with us as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna just ask for a quick question because she's here as the chief intercessor.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we really only had the opportunity to kind of speak, you know, Sierra in passing.
[SPEAKER_04]: She sees me, but we hadn't really talked.
[SPEAKER_04]: But God laid it on my heart that a part of this whole mental health awareness month is sharing with people how you can bring in prayer, and who better to ask than that you've been a sister.
[SPEAKER_04]: So trying to figure out when and where it fits and all the things, I called her and asked her she would be a part of it and she agreed.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in terms of sharing with us how prayer fits,
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the three of us had a call, and she shared with us how at work something came up.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when she started explaining it to us, I was like, that's exactly what my vision was for what you could share with us.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you don't mind just a little bit sharing with us what you told us about how you minister to somebody and what you talked them through in terms of prayer.
[SPEAKER_03]: out of my experiences, I've been weary, I've had situations where I didn't know what my prayer life was supposed to look like and I thought that because we got to that conversation she was saying, my faith is not there, God is not pleased with the way that I am walking out this journey.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just reminded her of dad's promises and in doing so, telling her one, remember his promises that they do not return to him void, and to know that you can cash your cares upon him.
[SPEAKER_03]: And your prayer life is unique to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like how you challenge her to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there is a real trusting guy, why are you still carrying it?
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, can you talk a little bit about the exchange of weight and prayer?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like prayer takes some weight off of us, but then walking with the Lord puts another kind of weight upon us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk about this, the exchange that happens when we have an open dialogue with God?
[SPEAKER_03]: absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: So prayer is that open dialogue.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not five o'clock in the morning and you're prayer closet.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is when you are cooking dinner, driving to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have the opportunity to be in constant communication with God.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if we know that intellectually,
[SPEAKER_03]: Then how we walk that out is we know that the Holy Spirit and I are praying all day.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I had a situation where I was able to pray Monday morning, Monday was my day because I was on school and so I didn't have anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I spent Monday's in prayer in study.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then life happened, I needed health benefits.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I had to get a full-time job and that changed my schedule.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that also was an opportunity for the enemy to say,
[SPEAKER_03]: So God must not be pleased and so going through this mental like how do I get back in this closet?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, God's your gaming you gave me my dream job and so what am I supposed to do?
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm not in my prayer closet and the Holy Spirit told me in my kitchen, what are we doing right now?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're praying, and Holy Spirit is always inner-seeding for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have to trust that even in our silent thrones, even while we're sleeping, because Jesus never sleeps in our slumber.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we know that He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, making constant intercession.
[SPEAKER_03]: So while we are sleeping, we are still in prayer.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that is the exchange.
[SPEAKER_03]: We exchange what we think we know.
[SPEAKER_03]: about what our walk in journey looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to highlight for y'all.
[SPEAKER_04]: She keeps saying, we are in prayer.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are in prayer.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can't explain what you mean, but we as the Holy Spirit, who is groaning and making intercession on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_03]: Praise the Lord.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not, when we pray, we're not talking in English.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I always like to make this distinction that when we're praying, we're thinking that the spiritual place that God is hearing us in English.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what about the people that speak French?
[SPEAKER_03]: right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when we come into an awareness of, we are giving the Lord our burdens.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are hurling those burdens to Him.
[SPEAKER_03]: The exchanges that we receive a peace, we receive joy, we receive whatever direction that we need in that moment, and that answer is and has always been Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: and so in talking to this person, she asks, well, how does this look practically?
[SPEAKER_03]: What does this look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you pray if you don't know what to pray or if you're in the midst of a actual bonify situation?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you say?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I told her I said, Jesus, there's been times in my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't have answers.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have literally said to the Lord, I don't have anything, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes we don't have the words to express what we're dealing with, or it can be that storm that we're going through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Jesus translates in every situation, every language, because we know that at the name of Jesus, everything must bow.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's the answer.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the beginning of your sentence, the middle of your sentence.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the period.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't want us to make them a stake of thinking that this is just a religious talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we are people who love to love our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just with all our hearts, but also all our minds.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got educated people here.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I told you, Selena is a doctor or candidate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all know, I've been in school all my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alicia is credible and credentialed as an LPC, and so when we sit here, it's not just offering religious platitudes to try to cover up real stuff, so Alicia, can you talk a little bit about how and you mentioned this, right, but the neuro
[SPEAKER_01]: affects the neurological effects of practicing meditation, following Christ's quiet time with God, meaning it's not just we say the name Jesus, it's not a magic temptation, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's spiritual power, but it has neurological emotional.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you want to talk about neurological pathways on the Vegas break or something to that effect of the the benefit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have I actually just
[SPEAKER_04]: That's like the nerd out and I do too.
[SPEAKER_04]: So sometimes when we get to get this just the nerd conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: But what I will say in research shows that prayer, gratitude, meditation, all impact our nervous system and allows us to come out of that fire to fight, that survival that a lot of us might be comfortable in, that a lot of us know how to live in.
[SPEAKER_04]: But,
[SPEAKER_04]: prayer, communication with God, meditation, being in community with one another allows us to create what I like to call happy hormones.
[SPEAKER_04]: But what they do is they fight against the hormones that keep us in stress, that make us sick.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I didn't say this before, but one of the passions that I have about this and one of the reasons why I think it's so important for us to marry all of this together is because
[SPEAKER_04]: Most people that hear people of color carry a lot of weight from my family history, from our communal history, from our personal history, and that weight turns out in stress, and then literal weight from the stress.
[SPEAKER_04]: And everything connected to that stress causes illness.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I thank God that the tools that Jesus used are the same tools today that can literally save our lives.
[SPEAKER_04]: prayer, gratitude, community with other people, being grateful for who he is, allowing those things to shift your focus.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's something called the reticular activating system in our brains.
[SPEAKER_04]: And basically that part of our brain, whatever you focus on, grows.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if I only see the negative, if I only know that, if it ain't one thing, it's another, you know, I'm fair to Midland or, you know, all the things
[SPEAKER_04]: If you stuff we say, you know, I said it too, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you say it, and that's what you focus on, you don't see like what Pastor was saying in the beginning, you're like saying to God, you're welcome, and then after it, you're like, oh, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you realize it's shaping you into literally the image of Christ, and if you do allow that to happen,
[SPEAKER_04]: There's less trauma, there's less stress, and you can literally improve your health and your health outcomes.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's important that we don't separate and put ourselves in boxes because we're one human.
[SPEAKER_04]: My body's so spirit, it all goes together.
[SPEAKER_04]: So don't make one thing over here and then leave Christ outside the door.
[SPEAKER_04]: He belongs and all of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he wants to take control over all of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the last thing we'll say faster because then I'm gonna get up and run around.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you were talking up here before, and you were talking about hitting the wall, the wall does make you come into awareness of those things that you don't have control over.
[SPEAKER_04]: And some of us are still fighting for control over what was never meant for us to control.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then doing so, we are staying at that wall longer than we want to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then we were supposed to be like the children of Israel, circling that mountain 40 times.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then 40 years wide, because they were trying to control, trying to give an offering that God never asked for, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: We do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: But every time you hit the wall, you surrender as Deacon Waters said, and you will allow God to change, prune, shake those things that don't look like him.
[SPEAKER_04]: They go further down into the ground so that when that next storm comes, you're unshaken, yes?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we might have a death in our family.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I might be going through a divorce.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I might be caring for aging parents.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I might have lost my job.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, we might be having family issues all of the things, but because my roots are deeply down in there, I'm not shaking because I have faith in God.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just like Abraham did, he already knew God was gonna provide.
[SPEAKER_04]: don't stay at the wall longer than you have to because you're trying to control it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Pastor has it every been a time where you were at the wall and you stayed there longer, where you finally realized you had this surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been at the wall of the law a handful of times that I can remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: And each time deeply shaping me, I think the one I can share in this space
[SPEAKER_01]: But before we planted this church, I was trying to control my career path.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I honestly felt like, because I had started to lower all my adult life and now the lower can let me tell the lower, what I need him to do for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm being honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't even know that there was pride in my heart till I hit the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was walking in humility, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: having, you know, at the time Ebony and I was in the Harris 16 years kids and finished my doctor at 33, you know, I thought God was proud of me, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought I had leverage with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the lower made me stay could before the pandemic hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: then the pandemic hit and covered up the fact that I was at a wall spiritually and what I had to excel during the pandemic is, if I'd never pass a church, if I'd never fulfill my dream, then I set out on it, 17 years old, a guy's dream, then I set out on 18 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be okay with higher of the lower chooses to use me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really had to be okay with the fact that I prepared my whole life to do something, that if I never get to do it, I won't be mad at God about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was your eyes that you sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I legitimately let go of all my aspirations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as I did, here we are four years later, sitting in the way community church.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm glad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen to me, y'all, I never thought I would start a church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually didn't want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me just, I'm gonna go and be all the way on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what I thought was gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was gonna serve my pastor, do my best to help him, and then an old pastor from somewhere else in the United States and some was gonna hear about me and bring me there and I was gonna take over for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I thought was gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never wanted to start a church, right when I graduated, I wanted to put a resume together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go in and I told Dr. Oliver's like, hey man, in the next 18 months, I want to lead Georgia.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't want to be in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm not affiliated with ABC, you've been too good to me, Blossom Block.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was still manipulating my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the next 18 months, I'm telling you, I'm leaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: I walk out like, man, I'm real clever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm for real, I go in my office, I'm making my resume, I get to the bottom of the references and the Holy Spirit was like, stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you, like, I don't hear God, but then you hear God and you're like, oh God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord was like, stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, you must hear me when I just told the all of it that I'm leaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm trying to look at this resume.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're welcome, but whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: To this day, I don't have a complete resume.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the Lord told me to stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started fasting for lunch.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was February, 2019, 2020.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started fasting for lunch during lunch, the pandemic hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Lord showed me my ego and that I wanted control over my future.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I lost sight of the fact that I should have been grateful he called me at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not thinking I had earned some kind of leverage because I had been a good son to God.
[SPEAKER_03]: in my listening to that, I think I just told you about this recently.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I was 16 at church about the church.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had a youth explosion.
[SPEAKER_03]: And my pastor, the youth pastor, at that point in time, it was a, you know, they call it mega church was big.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so,
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that Sunday, and you know, I'm enjoying church.
[SPEAKER_03]: And my youth pastor calls me to the poor pit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was not expecting it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's talking, you know, and then doing the greetings.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then he says, our youth member, Styline, is going to come and pray for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that my church at that time was like 1,500 people on the first level and then like another extra 2 on the top level and it's packed, okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: Not expecting it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in doing that, I prayed.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, just thinking like, I'm just doing my duty next time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so I'm 16.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bob and through life have always been in church.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, silently struggling with suicide.
[SPEAKER_03]: getting through, you know, going through life and, you know, even making, like, I'm not caught, I'm not caught to preach or pastor.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not my thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: My dream job is to work full time at the college level.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm on that track.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, and fast forward, you know, still once again, kind, still struggling, still dealing with suicide, fast forward to 2019.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm at home, I'm in school full-time, you know, PhD at this time, and I'm at home in ministry and a prayer ministry still, and I am having one of these depressive episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: To the point where I'm like now prepared
[SPEAKER_03]: like having the pills in my hands and these these pills can just ending.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I grew up in the church and I remember this is how I know and how I was able to walk my the person that I managed through and say all you need is Jesus because at that time at like three in the morning I said Jesus you have to help me because I'm not waking up.
[SPEAKER_03]: and talk to my best friend after that, maybe a couple of weeks after that, and in the conversation we're talking, she says, you know, a couple of weeks ago, at like three o'clock in the morning, I was struggling, the Lord would let me sleep.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're talking, and I was like, wait, when was this?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so in this conversation, we figured out that while I was ready to give up my life,
[SPEAKER_03]: that the Lord had an inner sesame place.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this was 2019, so right before the pandemic, and then I've been able to see from 16, like I made the connection and email pastor like, okay, clearly I've been called to intercession, not realizing, but then at every point, every wall that I had, where there was depression, where there was suicide, there was an intercessor that was praying.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, for the young people in the room specifically,
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the greenhouse is closed when I saw that, I said, this message is for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to be very clear and let you know that God is very intentional.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the devil is always lying.
[SPEAKER_04]: A liar.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: If, because as a young person being in church, we know how to play church.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we learn, unfortunately, how to suffer in silence.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so for everyone, if you don't get anything else is that the devil is always lying.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if what you hear does not tell you about the goodness of God, if the response that you get either in your ear or on your phone does not lead or equal to Jesus, it's a lie.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I want to ask this question, too, we have this stigma in charge, because I didn't share this information with anyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't feel like I could, mainly because, you know, like if you are in charge, then you know that you know you supposed to pray.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then if you're still struggling, then that means you're doing something wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I didn't grow up in a church that valued mental health resources.
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have that awareness.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so my question is, how do we deal with the stigma that there is a something wrong with us if we are having real life issues and challenges or walls?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then how do we continue to combat that within these four walls?
[SPEAKER_04]: I just want to thank you still in for being so transparent because I said in the first service that somebody either was struggling with that now they can relate to it from the past or they know someone who is and it's just heavy in here.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want you all to know that even if this is what's going on and the enemy is saying whatever he is saying, even if you don't have another word to counter that, just Jesus, just Jesus.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know you're saying what that can't be enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is, because all he is doing is trying to tell you, one nobody miss you.
[SPEAKER_04]: It don't matter if you leave here.
[SPEAKER_04]: All these things are going on in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't like you no way.
[SPEAKER_04]: You see what they're saying about you online, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if you can't find the scripture in the Bible, there is somebody in this room in your home at your school that is willing to stand in the gap.
[SPEAKER_04]: Last week, Pastor was talking about gap standards.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you, even in the middle of a half to be willing to say, I don't have it, please, intercede for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I want to say is, if y'all don't see a through line, I want to point it out.
[SPEAKER_04]: Deakin Theresa Waters talked about it in her video when she was 18 and somebody was trying to speak death over her.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she spoke life.
[SPEAKER_04]: Speak life over yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: Life and death is in the power of the tongue.
[SPEAKER_04]: Speak life over yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: don't allow death that you see on social media meaning the backbiting, the arguing, the fighting, the negativity to be what speaks into you, you speak over yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: Recognize that sometimes some of us are battling more because the enemy knows if you don't get taken out, you have so much more to offer.
[SPEAKER_04]: 16, struggling with suicide, depression, started inner-seated for other people.
[SPEAKER_04]: In the middle of her own suicide of thoughts and depression and inner-session, for her to be on this stage as the chief inner-sessor,
[SPEAKER_04]: Her story is not the only one, and Deacon Waters' story is not the only one.
[SPEAKER_04]: We have three other stories that we're going to share, and one of them is our lead person over the dance ministry.
[SPEAKER_04]: For her to be able to stand here and dance here with the smile on her face, with the story she shared in that video.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not up here because we didn't fall, didn't hit a wall, we hit all the walls.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why we're here.
[SPEAKER_04]: in the definition that we have a flourishing that was up there, really is all that you are rooted in who God is, so that when the next storm comes because we live life, it don't knock you down because the roots are so deep in there, and you have a relationship, we're just asking you, young people, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, just get to know Him.
[SPEAKER_04]: And even if you're 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and you feel like you're playing church,
[SPEAKER_04]: it will, but get connected, stay connected, and have at least one adult that sees you, that you pursue and let them know, you need them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna call for response.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're preparing now to close and before we do, we're going to have to land just energy for the wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to say though to the question about the stigma and the emphasis on Satan's character, which is to lie in only lie, that faith is not magic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Part of this thing I'm going to come from the expectation that because I did this, Africa-Dabbert, this should happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I came to church, I should struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm a Christian, I should suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I prayed, this should have stopped immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: What faith is is a journey of discovery, a repeated experience of hitting the wall, learning more about God, learning more about self.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's becoming over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not magic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the moment you do something the moment something's gonna happen for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what's second does is he stands in the pocket where we have to be patient and he lies to us to try to get us to act before God acts for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't succumb to that lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't succumb to the stigma that because I'm struggling, I'm un-Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: To struggle is to be human.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you became a Christian, you didn't stop becoming human.
[SPEAKER_01]: You hear what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say, hit me what I say.
[SPEAKER_01]: The stigma is coming from a lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get in order to know it for yourself,
[SPEAKER_01]: You start to fill in the truth and you hold on to that truth for dear life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you're going to discover is that truth was enough to hold on to and I only will see you through, it'll make you something you never thought you could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you will be sitting on a pool of pit 10 years from now on on a panel, telling her room for the people, just keep on keeping on.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's something on your heart that you want to lay before the Lord, I want you to get it on your mind now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Salinas is going to pray for us as we prepare to close.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lord God, we thank you because you are already in the room.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that you met us here, God, before the lights came on, before the first car.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is for the driveway?
[SPEAKER_03]: You were here.
[SPEAKER_03]: But not only that Lord God, your son was here, our Savior.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we thank you Jesus, because you brought the Holy Spirit, our
[SPEAKER_03]: So, God now, I come to you on behalf of every heart in the room that may be watching one line that will hear from someone in this place.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thank you, Father God, that you have forgiven us for our sins.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are bloodbought and redeemed.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thank you, Lord God, that you fashioned and you imagined before this world was created that we would be in this place, Lord God.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, that means that healing is our portion.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Lord God, that even though the walls may be put up, brick by brick, Lord God, at the name of Jesus, it can all fall down.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, for the message today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Lord God, that you have given us understanding, and that we will have revelation, Lord God, and faith is not magic.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, in the name of Jesus, for lifting our burdens.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, God, we present our burdens to you, God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our generational trauma, we present to you, God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our disappointments, our fears, our doubt, and uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we lift them to you, Lord God, because you're worse than to cast your cares upon you for you care for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, we are hurling them to you at this moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we are exchanging Father God, the wall with your peace.
[SPEAKER_03]: with your joy, with your presence.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that your word says that you never sleep nor slumber.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as we sleep tonight, Lord God, we can be in an expectation that this wall, Lord God, will be removed.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, that even as we climb the mountain, that we know that there is a ram in the thicket for us already.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so God, be surrender unto you today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We surrender Father God control, we surrender Lord God, the thoughts of who we are supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: We surrender Lord God, our pride, our envy.
[SPEAKER_03]: We surrender our need to understand what is next.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so God help us to embrace and embody a place of joy and peace.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, that your world tells us that when we have a spirit of heaviness to put on a garment of praise and so God, right now, we praise you today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that a spirit of releases in the room.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that a spirit of breaking is in the room.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you that a spirit of joy and salvation is in the room.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you for the spirit of expectation, Lord God.
[SPEAKER_03]: We glorify you, God, and we honor you.
[SPEAKER_03]: We come out of our driver's seat, God, we come out of needing to know Lord God, and we come comfortably in the passenger seat.
[SPEAKER_03]: We leave space for you, Lord God, in our hearts, in our minds, we leave space for you, in our cars, and on our jobs, we leave space for you, Father God, in our future, in the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: God, we pray for every young heart and mind that's in the room today, and we plead the blood of Jesus over them, guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: We plead the blood of Jesus over their eyes and their ears and their feet.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Lord God, that you are in this kitchen of about them.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Lord God, that you have promised us that we can walk in triumphant victory.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Lord God, in the name of Jesus for every Isaac that's in the room for every young person, Lord God, that will get up and have a testimony to share with others.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, for the season of flourishing and expectation.
[SPEAKER_03]: God, we thank you for your promises, for they are yesterday, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, for the truth that they should not return unto you, Lord, and Lord God, we know that you will do it for your name,
[SPEAKER_03]: Not for our actions, not for our deeds, Lord God, but we will do it, you will do it for us because of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: and so God, we hold on to the promise that if we ask for anything in your son's name that you will do it so that the Father can be glorified in the Son and so God, we lay claim to the promises in our future.
[SPEAKER_03]: We lay claim to the promises, Lord God, that you have over us, over our families, Lord God.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the name of Jesus, we thank you for salvation that will come through this opportunity.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you, Father God, for the lives that would be saved in our communities, for the lives that we saved on our jobs and our families, Lord God and in our friendships, God, we thank you in the mighty name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so God, we ask for a spirit of restoration, we ask for a spirit of rest in this season for us, God help us to rest in our bodies and our minds, help us to rest in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_03]: And God, we take ownership, we take authority, Lord God, to trample over serpents and scorpions, and we know Father God in the name of Jesus that He is the Father of all lives, and there is no truth in Him.
[SPEAKER_03]: So help us, Lord God, to come out of every agreement, every compromise, Lord God, that does not reflect your son.
[SPEAKER_03]: Help us, Lord God, to lay it at your feet at this altar right now in the mighty name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_03]: And God, we give you glory and honor for what you are doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you in advance for the testimonies.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you in advance for the peace.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you in the Vance Lord God.
[SPEAKER_03]: For what will come out of this time in this season, Lord God, a flourishing.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you for the surrender.
[SPEAKER_03]: We thank you for helping us to surrender.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's in the mighty name of Jesus, Lord God, we say thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you,
[UNKNOWN]: You