Leaning In When You're Stuck & Struggling | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Linn Winters

Stuck. Stuck is frustrating. Right? There's nothing about stuck that's fun. You look in front of yourself and you say, I I can't I can't see any movement. I don't see any options in front of me. I'm stuck and you look behind you go, it may it would make no sense to go back. So I guess I guess I just wait

and if that's not frustrating enough, what makes it even worse, if in the midst of being struck, you find yourself struggling. You're like, why are so many things happening? Why is this moment so hard? I'm just stuck in the midst of struggle. Is it possible?

Is it possible that the reason you and I get stuck in the midst of struggle is because we don't know how to navigate struggle. That we've actually been responding to struggle in the wrong way and therefore struggle seems to never end.

How many of you have ever tried to learn how to ski? Good. So you know that learning to ski is horrifying. It's horrifying because somebody's gonna get you up to the top of Bunny Hill, you're gonna step into the skis with your boots and instantly find yourself moving. It is the most unnatural

feeling in the world but worse than that, not only are you moving when you don't want to, you're gaining speed and in your absolute terror, thing that seems most intuitive is to lean back. See you're already going down the hill, you already feel out of balance and so you just naturally try to lean back

which is literally the worst thing you can possibly do on skis. Let me explain. The most important part of the ski is the edge. The edge is what allows you to turn and turning in skiing is everything. Turning allows you to go where you want to go. Turning allows you to control your speed because the more you turn,

the slower you'll go. But when you lean back, you put pressure on the tail and you actually begin to lift the front of the ski which means the edge cannot do its work and so literally there's nothing left to do except crash. We call it a yard sale. It's where every bit of white goes flying a yard sale.

What was so intuitive, what was so natural, what felt like the right thing to do in the moment was literally the wrong thing. When we're in struggle, when we're stuck, you and I have an intuitive response.

Most likely, the first thing that you and I do is we say, well, maybe I can fix it myself. And so if I'm struggling financially, I say, hey, maybe if I was more prudent, maybe if I was more careful with my money for a while, maybe if I didn't buy anything extravagant, made sure that, you know, I

eventually, maybe I could find my way out of my financial struggle. It's actually a great response. It it's you and me taking responsibility for what's going on and saying, hey, if I can fix it, I'll fix it. It's a good response. When that doesn't work, we go to response number two. Response number two is, hey God,

my life stinks. I've got this struggle, I've got this problem and I can't fix it on my own. So God, would you rescue me? Would you deliver me from my struggle, from my problem? Answer number two intuitively is okay also. Both of those are fine. They're both intuitively what we do. Here's the problem. They're not enough.

If you and I stop there, if we only do what we naturally want to do or think to do in the midst of struggle, most of the time you and I will remain in struggle. Let me see if I can help. God is sovereign which is simply a bible word for God is in control.

Everything that happens, God is able to control, which means this, already think about it, if struggle comes into your life, it came from God. He neither, he either initiated the struggle unless he said, hey,

this is something I need this, my child, my son, my daughter to go through because it's gonna be helpful for them and so God actually brought you the struggle or God saw the struggle coming and he said, you know what? I'm gonna allow it.

I'm gonna allow that struggle to happen because it's actually gonna be a good thing for them in the end. So here's what happens. There are times when God allows struggle to come into my life

so that I'll pray, so that I'll say, hey God, would you rescue me? Would you deliver me? And he did that so that we could give him praise, so you could have a testimony and say, look, I was sick, and the doctors didn't know and then God healed me and you and I have a testimony. The thing is, that's about 10% of the time.

Which means the other 90% of the time, we stopped with prayer, right? We stopped with God will you rescue me and 90% of the time we haven't actually dealt with the struggle. We haven't done what we were supposed to do with our struggle. Here's the interesting thing about skis. The answer is, don't lean back.

Lean back is disastrous. And what you eventually learn is, you need to lean in. You lean forward because when you lean forward, you begin to put your weight back on the front of your skis, the edge engages and now you can turn to go where you need to go. You can turn enough to actually control your speed.

The answer is the thing that didn't feel right is actually the thing I need to do, lean in. I'm gonna suggest to you

that when we're in the midst of struggle, when we've said, hey, I'm gonna try to navigate this by doing the responsible thing and it's not enough. When we prayed and said, God, would you rescue me? And it's become obvious that God is saying, no, no, no.

I didn't bring this moment to you to rescue you. I brought you this moment for you to go through the struggle. And the answer is, lean in. Lean into whatever God is doing, lean into whatever he's trying to produce in your life, lean in to the struggle.

So here's what I've done, I've come up with four questions that whenever you and I finish prayer and we say God would you take, and God says no I'm not taking it away, I'm asking you to go through struggle. Four questions are gonna help you and I navigate struggle.

Question number one. You and I are in the midst of struggle. We're not sure why struggle's there. Here's the question they ask you, pray and you say, hey God, is it possible that the struggle I'm going through is because I've done something stupid?

The reality is, right, we've all done stupid things. Right? We've all done things and then suddenly we find ourselves living with the outcomes, with the consequences of having made a really, really, really dumb decision. And what you need to know is simply that that's not God.

That's you. The struggle that you're experiencing in that moment isn't because God said, hey, I'm gonna bring. You brought that upon yourself by making unwise decisions. Matter of fact, there's some verses in the bible that talk about this very thing. Proverbs chapter 22, here's what it says. It says, the prudent,

in other words, the wise see danger and they take refuge. In other words, they look in and go, wow, there's a whole bunch of downside with that decision. Chances are the consequences of doing, man, they're just, wouldn't

want it and so instead, they say, no, I'm I'm gonna do the smart thing, I'm gonna do the wise thing, I'm gonna take refuge but the simple, the foolish person says, it'll never happen to me. I I I'm gonna outsmart the world and I'm gonna be okay even though it's a foolish decision.

It says, the simple keep going and they pay a penalty for being foolish. Here's another verse. The per a person's own folly, their own silliness leads to their ruin and yet their heart rages against the Lord. He's saying, look here's the deal,

there's times when you and I are simply living with the consequences of very poor choices in our life and then how often do we as Christians get mad at God because the consequence happened and it's not him. He didn't bring the struggle. We brought the struggle upon ourselves.

I'm in high school. I've got a friend, his name is John Booth. I used to call him Wilkes. One day, we're sitting in youth group and someone announces and says, did you know that John's in the hospital?

And we're like, no, we had no idea. So when church gets over, when youth group is done, we hop in a car, we head to the hospital. There's John in a hospital bed and it looked like something like out of a cartoon. He was literally in a full body cast.

There were there were like ropes holding his arms up, there were ropes like holding his feet up and we said, John, what happened? And John said, well, I've got a neighbor and my neighbor had this small motorcycle And so I asked him, hey, can I ride the motorcycle?

Now here's what you need to know. I don't know that John had ever ridden a motorcycle before. Here's what I know for sure, he didn't have a license for a motorcycle.

So now he's cruising through the neighborhoods, he's feeling like he's getting the hang of it and he decides what would really be fun is if I could go a little bit faster. So he decides I'm gonna pull out on the main road. So now he's picking up speed. He's probably going 35, 40 miles an hour and as he's cruising along,

there's a good looking girl walking down the sidewalk not wearing quite as much as she probably should have been wearing and so John locks in.

As John turns back around, it turns out the light had turned red, the car in front of him had stopped and he was literally just inches away. The car that had stopped in front of him was a station wagon. Anybody know a station wagon? Okay. You're old. You're old.

There's some young'uns in the room who have no idea what a station wagon is so I brought a picture. Ugliest car ever but we we used to buy them. So here's the deal, the back window of the station wagon luckily was open. So John now, the bike hits, he goes launching and now he is flying through the station wagon.

Thankfully, the third seat, the back seat had been laid down, so no problem. He continues to fly through the station wagon, he clears the middle seat, the second seat and then he face plants into the back of the passenger seat. The doctors told him he had over a 100 fractures. We said to John, how did it happen?

And here was his answer, I was being stupid and he was right. That wasn't God, that was him making really foolish decisions. He brought that upon himself because he decided to be foolish. Sometimes, sometimes the struggle you and I are in is self imposed. For example,

you've been struggling with money for months and months and months. And in your frustration, you say, you know what? My family deserves a vacation. So you decide to take your family to Disneyland for three days. Now I don't know if you realize this or not, but the prices at Disneyland have increased.

Right now they require your first born child, Friedman's. It's just, it's incorrect right? So you go to Disneyland and you put it on a charge card at 26% interest.

You had a great time but now you come home and it cost more than you could have ever imagined and you you you aren't just behind on your bills, you are sinking on your bills And guys, that's not God. That's you. That's you making unwise and foolish decisions. It's why you pray and say, God is is struggling,

is it because I've done something, I've made a decision that's brought this into my life? Another example, this is a single young lady and she's lonely And a guy asked her out and she knows, this is not the guy I am ever gonna marry. He doesn't know my Jesus.

He's got all sorts of habits and things that he does. I would never want to be part of his life. His brain isn't fully formed. He's not gonna be my husband, okay? But I'll simply date him until the right guy comes in the room and then I'll stop dating him and I'll start dating the right guy.

The problem is the right guy comes in the room. He sees you dating the turkey, which causes him to decide, you must be a turkey too. And so he moves on. Eventually, you break up with the turkey but guess who the next guy in line is? Another turkey because he says, hey, I saw you dating the turkey so maybe I have a chance.

Single gals in the room. The best thing you can do for yourself is be available when the right guy walks into the room. You don't win by dating the most guys. You win by dating the best guys. And it would be absolutely foolish for you to be involved when the right guy appears.

Don't blame God that you haven't found the right guy yet. You made yourself unavailable.

So what do you do? What do you do if you've prayed and you said, God, know, am I simply living in the consequences of my poor decisions, my foolish decisions? And God says, yeah, that's that's that's exactly what it is. So here's the answer. If your struggle is the result of your poor decisions. You ready?

Apparently, this is really hard to grasp. I need you to think for a minute. If your struggle is the result of your really, really poor decisions, the answer is stop it. Just stop it. Stop making that dumb decision. You go, well, Lynn, but you don't it. But I I've got three good stop it.

Because when you make poor decisions you will live with poor consequences. You literally place yourself in the struggle. So that's not God, that's you. That's self inflicted pain on your life. But we've said very very clearly, there are moments that God brings struggle to us.

There's a God who does not waste pain and so if he brought struggle to your life, there is purpose in it, there is meaning in it and when we prayed and said God would you rescue me and he says no, I'm not gonna rescue you, I need you to go through the struggle and that's the moment that you and I have not lived, it's the moment that we lean in

to the struggle. Question number two, question number one was, hey, have I done something stupid? Question number two is this, ask God, is it possible that what I'm dealing with, the struggle I have right now is a direct result of discipline?

In other words, I heard something from the Bible, I knew you asked me and I just said no, no. I know you're God, I don't care, I'm gonna do this my own way and so I'm living in disobedience. And is it possible that the struggle I'm feeling right now is actually a spiritual spanking?

That God, you're trying to get my attention, you're trying to turn the direction of my life away from disobedience and back to obedience because you know if I keep living this way, I'm only gonna bring disappointment and destruction. And so you're trying to get my attention

with a spanking. Here's some verses about that. Hebrews chapter 12 simply says this, and have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement? So think about this, he's about to tell us that getting a spanking is actually an encouraging thing. Have you forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you

as a father addresses a son or a daughter? It says, my son do not make light the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart, don't get discouraged, don't get mad when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines the ones he loves. He goes look, look, look, if God is spanking you, it's because he cares.

It's because he looks ahead and sees that the result of your disobedience will end up in heartache for you. You will be absolutely disappointed with your life if you continue to live in disobedience and guys, here's what need to know, when God spanks, it's not about punishment, it's about redirection.

It's about God saying, hey, where you're going, you actually don't wanna go. And so I'm literally gonna discipline you to get you going back where you belong.

There was a gentleman, he was actually a friend of mine, and if you would have met him, one of your first impressions would have been, man, what a godly man. Matter of fact, if you would have asked his family, you would have asked his wife, or asked his children, they would have said, man, dad's a godly man.

He had everybody fooled. What nobody realized is he had a second life, a double life, and he had multiple, multiple mistresses. When it finally got exposed, he lost his family. A little while later, he ended up sick, he ended up with Guillain Barre, ended up in the hospital literally for months,

had to learn how to talk again, how to learn how to walk again. His mistress took off on him, she wasn't there for the hard times, she was there for the good times. And so he lays in that hospital bed by himself And finally one of his friends went to him and said, hey, what are you thinking?

And he said, I'm thinking God is cruel and I don't understand why God would be so mean to me. And his friend with big eyes and are you kidding me? Isn't it obvious that God is giving you a spiritual spanking right now? That everything you were doing was destructive, it was harmful to you, to your family.

Isn't it obvious that in absolute love, God is spanking you right now? And his answer was no. And guys, I'm just telling you, sometimes the reason that you and I are stuck in struggle is because we're living in disobedience and defiance, and when God says, hey, we've gotta turn the course of your life, our answer is no.

Stop being mean to me.

Two things for you to know about disobedience and God's spanking in your life. Number one is simply this, when you and I are disobedient, it does not change how God feels about you. God still loves you just as much even in the midst of your rebellion and disobedience. But it will change how God treats you.

So you just took yourself from blessing to spanking. Didn't change his heart, but it changes how he responds. Second thing, discipline very often is different than the place in which I offended. Do you remember in the story about my friend, he offended, right? He was disobedient in his sexual life and yet God

spoke to him in his health. Here's why. Because God is a really smart parent. Men, your thirteen year old daughter speaks disrespectfully to her mother. Your first inclination is I'm gonna find some gray duct tape and just wrap it till I, she can't talk anymore.

And then you go woah, woah, wait a minute. If I really wanna get my 13 year old daughter's attention, I'll take away her phone. Has nothing to do with her behavior, has to do with how do I get to her heart. And guys, I'm just telling you, if you're in a struggle and god says, hey, this is disobedience, don't be surprised

if he spanks you over here because of disobedience over there. He's trying to get to your heart.

So what do you do? What do you do if in that moment you said, hey god, why is this struggle here? Would you and he goes, no, it's your disobedience.

Lean in. Lean in. Just go God I get it, I'm I'm gonna stop fighting you, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna stop being insolent and I'm gonna repent. I'm just going to acknowledge that what I've been doing is absolutely wrong

and I'm gonna turn the other way. You realize repentance, repentance says, hey, I was going in my direction of disobedience and now I am turning all the way around to live in obedience. It's a 180 degree turn in my life. Repent and leave your disobedience behind you and here's the thing, you will be absolutely surprised

how quickly the struggle ends. You know why? Because once I start obeying, there's no more reason to spank. And so all of a sudden the struggle goes away because my heart has turned.

Question number three. Ask God, you go, hey God look, it's not because I made a bad or foolish decision. I asked you was this disobedient? You said no, it's not about you being disobedient. This isn't a spanking. Question number three, ask God, are you using my struggle to grow me?

Are you using my struggle to make me more mature in my faith? Couple weeks ago we talked a little bit about this and one of the passages we used was Romans chapter eight.

So here's what it says, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and our inclination is God that means you're gonna give me a bigger bank account because you're working for my good.

God you're gonna give me a bigger house or a longer vacation because you're working all things for my good and guys can I just God is not that worried about Jamaica? God is not that worried about an extra bedroom. And don't be wrong, he may give you those things, you just need to know that isn't

the priority of God's heart. That's not what he thinks about when he thinks good. So go on. We've all been called according to his purpose. Keep going. There we go. For those God foreknew, he predestined. Predestined means he chose where your life was gonna end up. He predestined

an ending place and the predestination is to be conformed to the image of his son. In other words, every one of us in this room, the destination that God's trying to take you to is that when he's done with you, you're gonna look like Jesus. That's the heart of God.

That's why sometimes he brings struggle to say, hey, here's the deal, I'm gonna teach you patience and it's gonna be a struggle. I'm gonna teach you perseverance and it's gonna be a struggle. I'm gonna teach you trust and it's gonna come on the other end of struggle in your life. Here's another verse.

Jesus said, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. But watch what he says next, while every branch that does bear fruit, in other words, this is a Christian who's actually

heading in the right direction. They're bearing fruit in their life. Look what he says God does, he prunes so that it will become even more fruitful. And guys, said, look, you could be living for God, God would actually bring struggle, he'd begin to prune him so that you would become even more fruitful,

that you would look even more like Jesus because you lived through the pruning, the struggle in your life. I told you a few weeks ago

about a season in my life where God was just putting me through like a master's class of growing up in my faith and I had finished bible college and I had applied for a church and they turned me down and I spent two years pushing a lawn mower.

And while I'm pushing that lawn mower, was going, god, why? I've I've finished school. I've been faithful to you. I've been serving it's not like I'm in dis why? Why would you make me wait? And god was teaching me trust.

And for those two years when I pushed that lawn mower in the Arizona heat, he was saying, do you believe, even when you don't understand what I'm doing, even when you don't see what I'm doing, do you believe I have your best in mind? Do you trust me, even when I put you behind a lawn mower?

I eventually ended up getting to a church and I told you about the fact that the leadership of that church actually was frustrated with me, not because of anything I did, but because of how I was hired. And that literally they were just unbelievably unfair to me for my entire tenure there.

And I went, God, why? Because I didn't do this to me. And God was teaching me to live under authority, To live under people who were in authority over me but were unfair to me, hurtful to me because here's what God was trying to produce in me.

Hey, will you live under my authority because Lynn, there's gonna be moments that I'm gonna tell you things you don't like.

There's gonna be moments I'm gonna make a decision in your life and you're gonna think, God that's completely wrong, I don't like your decision and in that moment will you accept my authority in your life? Will you say, hey God, you're God

and I'm not and so even though I feel like I disagree and even though I don't like what you said, I will live under your authority in my life. I told you about a young man that I had to discipline on a youth trip and that he got so angry at me and his mother got equally angry and I

went to my supervisor and I said, hey, these people are angry at me and it's their fault. And he said, yeah, but I want you to love them the way Jesus would love them. And how I would sneak up behind them and hug them and tell them how much I love them. And eventually I watched their hearts turn.

Why would God do that to me? Because he was teaching me how to love somebody like Jesus when I didn't like the somebody very much, and the somebody didn't like me. And guys, I'm telling you that when I finished that season of maturing and growing, God moved me on to a new assignment. And in that new assignment,

we literally turned an entire town upside down for Jesus with young people. That never would have happened if God hadn't prepared me, if He hadn't matured me.

And guys, I'm just telling you there's times in your life when what God is doing in the struggle is He's saying, hey, you would never learn this any other way and so I'm gonna place you in the heat, I'm gonna place you in the toughness of the struggle so that you will learn. You'll learn the patience, you'll learn the trust.

You'll look more like my son. So what do you do when you find yourself in that moment? You pray and you say hey God is this you growing me? And God says yes. You lean in. You say God would you tell me what you're teaching me? Is it patience, is it fortitude,

is it loving my enemy? What are you teaching me? Because if you'll let me know what you're doing in my life I'll cooperate, I'll learn that lesson as best as I possibly can. Here's the cool thing, you ready? Once you learn the lesson, the teacher can stop teaching.

So once you have learned what God is teaching you in the struggle, the struggle is unnecessary now, and you can be out of the struggle because you've become like Jesus. Fourth and final question. I asked God, I said, hey, is this because I did something foolish? I'm gonna just limit the consequences.

I asked, hey, are you spanking me because I've lived in disobedience? He says, no, that's not why I'm doing it. I say, God, hey, are you teaching me something I don't know yet about Jesus? He goes, no, I'm not teaching you anything. Fourth question, God are you using my struggle to put my life on display

so that someone else will see Jesus in the way that I live the struggle? Are you showing me off, God?

They did a survey. They asked people who had noticed, they said, I'll never be a Christian. And they said, why is that? Why is it that you will never, never, never be a follower of Jesus? You know what their number one answer was? Because I've met a Christian.

And they were so fake and they were so phony and they say this thing and then they live totally different. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite. I refuse to be a Christian because I've met a fake one.

What if God would put you on display? What if God would say, hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna show you a real Christian. I'm gonna show you someone when life is going wrong and when they're living in struggle, that they absolutely

live by faith and confidence in me and that Jesus is real and that What if God would put you on display so that somebody would see Jesus in you? Matter of fact, here's a passage, it's Matthew chapter five

and here's what it says.

In the same way let your light shine before others. In other words, man let them see you and when they see, let them see the light of Jesus in you. Shine before others that they may see your good deeds and then glorify God in heaven. They see you and they go man, God must be real.

Jesus mad at me because that's a real Christian. Man, look look how they navigate the hardest moments of life. You've heard me talk about my mom and dad and the fact that they got divorced when I was nine. I watched my job, my job, my mom for most of my childhood have two jobs, just to keep a roof over our head.

I watched her raise four teenagers. I watched her navigate having a special needs daughter. And can I tell you that in all that time, guess what I never heard her say? Boy, God's being mean to me. God, why are you so unfair? God, why don't you do this to someone else?

Can I tell you that all through that struggle, all I saw was her be absolutely, genuinely faithful? That she trusted God even though God wasn't making sense.

I'm convinced the struggle wasn't for her. I think the struggle was for me. God knew what he was gonna do in my life. He knew what he was gonna, and he allowed me a front row seat. And although that divorce surely affected me, she was the one that had to carry the burden of it, the heaviest load, and see her faithfulness,

to see her be absolutely confident in God when God was being confused. And just to say, I trust you. I trust you with a struggle that I have no idea why it's here. And can I just tell you that my faith was literally transformed by watching my mother's faith?

What if, what if the struggle you're in right now isn't about you? What if it's about your kids? What if it's that your kids would watch a mom, would watch a dad, who in the midst of struggle is faithful to God? Who had absolute confidence

that even though it didn't make sense that God knew what he was doing and was in control, And they could witness the genuineness of your faith. And because of that, their faith would be emboldened. If it was for your kids, wouldn't you sign up for that struggle? Wouldn't you go, God, a 100 times?

If this means my kids fall more in love with you, if this means my kids are gonna follow you more, bring on the struggle. Wouldn't you say that? Because sometimes God puts our lives on display for others to see Jesus in us. What if it was a relative?

What if it was a relative who had walked away from Jesus years ago and God knew if he if he intervened in their life, they'd only get angrier? And so he put you on stage, he turned the spotlight on, he said, I'm I'm gonna have you navigate a really, really rough time and your relative's gonna watch

and they're gonna see a real Jesus in you and their heart's gonna get soft and they're gonna come back to God. If you knew that's why the struggle, wouldn't you say, God, I'm in, I'm in. What if it was a neighbor? What if it was the child down the street? What if it was a coworker who needed to see Jesus in you,

and so God, in absolute honor to you, said, Hey, you want to see a real Christian? Watch this. Wouldn't you sign up for that?

And so if you prayed and you say, and God says, no, it's not about foolishness. It's not about discipline. It's not about I'm putting you on display. Lean in. The next words out of your mouth ought to be, God, help me live this well. Help anybody who's watching me on display see Jesus all over me.

Wouldn't the worst thing that could happen in that moment is that you would live a really dim moment? That you would whine and complain and talk about how frustrating God was? God help me that people would see Jesus all over me while I'm on display.

Let's be honest. Two people like that. I'm glad. I thank you for doing that. Yeah.

Wouldn't it be helpful if God would tell you what he was doing? If it was a spanking, you'd just say, hey. It's a spanking. Straighten up.

Or if it was God growing Jesus in you, he was maturing you and God just say, hey. There's some lessons. I'm teaching you lessons. Matter of fact, right now, I'm teaching you patience. That's what wouldn't it be helpful if God told you what he was doing?

Wouldn't it be great if God said, hey, it has nothing to do with you. It's just you're the most vibrant Christian in this person's life, and so I'm gonna put you on display. So they wouldn't it be great if God would tell you and me why the struggle was there? So why doesn't he?

Because just as important to God that we navigate the struggle the right way is that in the struggle we chase him.

That we have to get on our knees and say, God would you help me understand and God would you give me direction? Would you help me live the God would you be with me in the midst of the struggle and that in the midst of the struggle, we chase him. Because we have a God that loves you ready? That loves to be chased.

We just did Valentine's Day. I am convinced that Valentine's Day was created by women. No. No. Let me tell you why. Men, if you haven't figured this out, your wife, your girlfriend loves to be chased. So I hope when Valentine's Day came you didn't go crud, I gotta buy a card and get some flowers, some chocolates.

I hope instead you saw the opportunity and in that moment you said, hey, here's a day that I can let this gal that I love know that I love her enough to chase her and that you bought the biggest box of chocolates you could find. Because I'm telling you, it would fill her heart. It fills the heart of God when you and I chase.

When in the midst of the confusion, in the midst of the struggle, and we get down on our knees and we say God I don't understand, but would you help me understand? Would you come near to me? Would you guide me through this moment of struggle that's so confusing and help me to see. Help me to see what you're doing.

Matter of fact, there's a verse that talks about this very thing. It's in the book of Jeremiah. Here's what it says.

This is God speaking. He says, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. You chasing God with all your heart is just as important as how you live the struggle. Here's what's interesting.

The prophet Samuel, when he goes to Saul and says to Saul, hey, God is taking the kingdom from you. And this is what he says next, because God has found a man called David who seeks for God with his whole heart. God loves the chase. Lean in. Lean in. Because a God who has never wasted my pain is always doing something

in my struggle. Let's pray.

If after we get done here today, if you need prayer, if you need someone to talk to, you come to the front, people will meet with you. Let's pray. Hey, dear lord Jesus. God, we've done this so poorly. We we got into a struggle. We tried to fix it ourselves. It didn't work.

We prayed. We said, God, would you rescue me? And you didn't answer. And we got frustrated and mad. And the problem was the struggle was something else. The struggle was something more. For some of us, the struggle was discipline.

We were living in moments of rebellion and you were getting our attention. You were saying, hey, you keep going that way. You're gonna regret it. It's gonna destroy your life. And in absolute love, you brought the struggle.

For some of us, the struggle was you were growing us up. You said you'll never learn this lesson from a sofa. You'll you'll learn this lesson in the struggle to trust me, to listen to me, to follow me, and to be more like my son.

For some of us, the struggle wasn't about us. It was about somebody around us who needed to see a real Christian. And in absolute honor to us, you said, here's a real Christian. Watch. Watch what they do in the midst. Watch their faithfulness. Watch their confidence in me. You'll see Jesus all over.

And God, the struggle that frustrated us so much was actually a high, high calling to be on display for Jesus. So God help us. Help us in the midst of the struggle to lean in, to have confidence that there's a God who does not waste my pain. There's a God who does his very best work in my struggle. This we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.