Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Thank you.
[00:00:02] Good morning.
[00:00:04] Thank you so much.
[00:00:06] On behalf of my dad and my family, I want to say thank you so much to our beautiful church and all your support and encouragement. We had the funeral service remembering the lovely life of my grandma, and you guys showed up with your prayers and your encouragement and your support and the cards. And we just want to say thank you so much. We appreciate you. Let me say a prayer for us. Dear Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you that we can come to this moment right here with nothing much but a broken hallelujah. I know that you are a God who breathes life into us all. So I pray that your spirit would fill us today. I pray that you would be at work and that you would call to life that which is in us most broken and most hurting today. Help us, I pray. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:00:53] Have you ever been grouchy before?
[00:00:56] I know. All right. You probably never get grouchy or have a bad attitude. I'm a generally happy person. I'm optimistic. I wake up happy. I think the day is going to be amazing. I get to the end of it sometimes, and I'm real grouchy. Like, what happened there? I don't know. And if I'm being honest, sometimes I bring these grouchy bad attitudes with me into my time with God. And sometimes I'm reading the Bible and there's parts of it, and I'm like, man, I love this part. Just can't turn the pages fast enough. I'm excited. It's inspiring and fascinating. Got all this hope and joy, and then I get to other parts of the Bible.
[00:01:34] You've done the reading plans. You know, it's not so much a get to as a have to place. You know what I mean? Like, I have to read this part, but this is how fun God is. God's like, I'm going to meet you there. I'm going to meet you right in that spot and surprise me with something so incredible about his goodness and his faithfulness, something about the hope and the life that he can give. And I want to share. One of these moments that I've had with you today comes from the prophets. If you've ever read through the Prophets before, it's a little bit tricky. Some of the places you're like, what's going on here? What's all this judgment? I don't even know who these people are and these nations and these things that are happening, and some of them can be hard to read. And we're not sure what's going on. And it feels repetitive, like, didn't God tell you to do that already? Why haven't you done that yet?
[00:02:28] Didn't this happen already? Didn't you get this warning? And the prophets are there and God's people are refusing to listen and they just do more horrible things after horrible things. And God still sends men and women to show up and be like, guys, it's not too late to turn back to God. Hey, guys, it's not too late to start again. There's still hope. God's still going to do a good work. Remember those promises you made, right? Remember you were going to be God's people, he was going to be your God and you were going to follow him. And they not only don't listen, they're so terrible. The kings, the leaders, the priests, they have the prophets treated horribly. They're like, we don't like what you have to say, so we're just going to starve you, throw you in jail, beat you, come back when you have something more uplifting, then we'll maybe listen to you.
[00:03:14] And still the prophets would show up and speak these hard messages that God had given them to say. Even in moments that felt hard and impossible, they'd show up and speak these words for God. And one of these prophets was a man named Ezekiel.
[00:03:32] And at this point in the history of Jerusalem, Israel, they're in trouble. Like, if you've read through the Bible, do you ever read from the beginning? You get to the end and Genesis is like, wow, all of these stories and Exodus is like, yeah, Moses and the Red Sea and Egypt and all these cool things.
[00:03:49] And then you get to Leviticus and you're like, not sure what that means. There's like some blood and some animals, and then you get to Deuteronomy and Joshua. Like, the story picks back up and you're like, yeah, the promised land, God's going to do something. And then you get to judges and you're like, whoa, that took a sharp right turn, right.
[00:04:07] And then you get to this point where the people are like, they're in the promised land. God's fulfilled his promise and they're like, we want a king. And so God sends them kings and he's like, it's not going to go the way you think it's going to go. And turns out it doesn't go the way they thought it would go. And the nation gets separated, it's broken, and one part of it's already been just completely ruined. Now the only part left is Judah and Jerusalem, and they're in trouble. They're being attacked by the Babylonians. And three times they've come against Jerusalem, and they've just decimated the city. They came at it and battered it until nothing was left but a pile of rubble and a broken down City. God's beautiful Temple was destroyed. Everything of value that was gold and silver and bronze, they just stripped it and carried it back to Babylon. They killed the leaders, and then they took whoever from the royal families, the noble families, the lesser families, until finally they just left the poorest of the poor behind in Judah, in God's holy city that once seemed so vibrant and full of promise to be this nation set apart to see how good God is lays broken.
[00:05:20] His people are living in a foreign land with a foreign king and foreign traditions. Their homes are gone. They've been wrecked by roar. And they feel hopeless and discouraged and alone. And into this space right here, God calls Ezekiel to speak to his people. And it's interesting, because if you read Ezekiel, it's one of those books where some weird things happen. And Ezekiel has two different ways that God gives him to kind of share his message. One is like object lessons. Remember when you were in school and they do an object lesson, and they'd show you an object and they'd teach you an idea from it? So it's kind of like that. But Ezekiel's object lessons were like, shave your hair and your beard, break it up into three parts, and then you're going to teach a lesson or just lay on your side for a while or cook some food over some really disgusting things, dig a hole in the wall and crawl through. And the point of it would be, people would be like, what is he doing? What is going on? And then Ezekiel be like, here's what God wants you to know. Ezekiel became this example assigned for the people. So you have these object lessons, but then you have these visions that God gives Ezekiel, and they're visions of what God is already doing and what he's going to do. And we see one of these visions in Ezekiel, chapter 37.
[00:06:36] God gives Ezekiel this vision of a valley filled with bones, dried out, scorched bones. Death has been here, and it's long gone. And all that remains are these cracked bones that have had nothing left of life in them for a very long time. And as Ezekiel's kind of walking among the bones, God says to him, son of man, can these bones live? Ezekiel's like, is this a trick question? I've never really seen anything more dead than these dead bones. But Ezekiel knows God, and his response is, sovereign Lord, you alone know. See, Ezekiel knows something about God, and he's saying, really? You're in control. You have power. You know things that I don't know. A lot of the commentators are, ah, that's kind of like a pad answer, but we'll get back to that in a second.
[00:07:27] This is what God says to him in verse four.
[00:07:30] Prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord. So Ezekiel says, I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. So God says to Ezekiel, out in the middle of this dried, parched out place, speak my name to these dry bones. And when you do, I'm going to breathe my life into them. They'll come to life, and you're going to know that I am the Lord. And Ezekiel is a man who just keeps doing what God tells him to do. And as he does, there's these rattlings of bones. I want to imagine that it doesn't feel creepy, because if I was there and bones were rattling, I'd be like, this is not my space, right? But these bones start rattling, and they come together, and tendons and flesh are woven through, and they're coming back to life. Then again in verse nine, God says to him, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, this is what the sovereign Lord says. Come, breath from the four winds and breathe into thee slain that they might live. So Ezekiel says, I prophesied as he commanded to me, and breath entered them. They came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army.
[00:09:19] Again. Ezekiel shows up. He does what God tells him to do, and breath enters these bones, and they come to life. And where once was a valley marked by death, now stands a living, breathing army. Where once was just a landscape of loss and death and ruin. Now Ezekiel sees a living, pulsing army. And then God says to Ezekiel, this is what this means. Look at verse eleven.
[00:09:49] He said to me, son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, our bones are dried up and our hope is gone. We are cut off. Therefore, prophesy, and say to them, this is what the sovereign Lord says. My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord. When I open up your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my spirit in you and you will live. I'll settle you in your own land. Then you'll know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it, declares the Lord.
[00:10:33] See, Ezekiel was called to speak God's word to his people who are far from home. They are as discouraged as is humanly possible. They don't have freedom, they don't have autonomy of their future in their lives. They feel like hope is gone, their hope for the present. Could anything really ever change?
[00:10:56] Could anything really, ever be good again? Their hope for the future, their whole life was this history and tradition of what God had done and what God was going to do, and this nation set apart. And now they feel cut off from all they'd known and these promises of what God could do.
[00:11:17] And in steps, God. And he uses this incredible vision so that Ezehiel can speak hope and life to the people of Israel. But, friends, please, so that he can speak hope and life into us today. Because God says, I will put my spirit in you and you will live.
[00:11:37] I was reminded this week about the growth of. It's a really cool bamboo plant. And you plant the seed, you do all the right things to keep something growing. I'm not a green thumb, so bear with me. You keep doing all the right things. Day after day, you take care of it, and nothing happens for a year. You keep watering the seed, feeding the seed, doing all of the right things that it needs, and you don't see any growth. Two years, nothing. Three years, nothing. Sometimes it takes up to seven years of doing every right thing that you're supposed to before anything happens.
[00:12:12] But when it does grow, it can grow up to 3ft in one day. Can you imagine how incredible that is? Nothing for years and then astonishing growth. Okay, my confession. I've killed more plants than I've kept alive, and I keep trying.
[00:12:28] I got two left, two lonely little plants left. I've killed plants and I've looked at these plants and like they're dead. There is nothing more dead than these brown, withered plants, and I've thrown them away.
[00:12:41] We do the same thing in our lives. We think I've done all of the right things every single day. I've done the right thing after the right thing, and nothing is happening. Nothing's changing. Nothing's growing. And we give up.
[00:12:56] We throw in the towel, we call it done. And there's a really hard truth that I want to please speak to us today. SO open your hearts, please. It isn't that God was finished. It's that we quit before he was done.
[00:13:10] It isn't that God wasn't working. It's we couldn't see what he was doing, right. I have a surface level. I can't see what's going on with that plant under the surface, the roots that are growing, the depth that's being built, the support systems that's creating life for what's going to happen next. I can't see that. And the same thing happens in life. I have this right now perspective of life. I have this right now perspective of history and how it circles around me, because as much as we want to be generous and selfless people, we are at the center of our universe. And all I can see is the things and how they affect me.
[00:13:51] And I can't see what God could really ever do with all of this.
[00:13:55] I can't see what this will really add up to. What could this really ever become that could be good?
[00:14:03] And we miss these very simple words of Ezekiel. I don't think they were a bad answer. I think Ezekiel knew something powerful about God, and it gives us the faith that we need today. There is a sovereign God, and he knows he is in control. He knows what's going on, all of time and history and eternity. He sees it, and he holds it in his hands. It's not a matter of is God working? It's do I trust that he's working?
[00:14:37] It's not a matter of is God in control?
[00:14:42] Do I trust God enough to let go of control?
[00:14:46] Right? Because I say God's in control until I want to be in control, right? I say God, is it God? Until I'm like, God, you're not doing this right. You should have consulted me here. Like, I have opinions, I have ideas, and God's like, right? I don't want to control God until I do, until things aren't lining up the way that I think they should do. I trust him. When life isn't living up to what I thought it should be, where I feel discouraged, where I feel confused, where I feel disappointed, where I feel a loss of an expectation.
[00:15:25] I thought life would be a certain way I thought life was going to work a certain way, right? Like, you do your part and the world is going to do its part back, but it's not working.
[00:15:37] What happens when your expectation of life and your experience of life don't match?
[00:15:44] Have you ever thought before, like, I don't want this, I didn't pick this.
[00:15:50] I don't want to be here. I don't like how here feels. It's not how I thought it would be. It's not what I would choose it to be.
[00:16:00] Do we trust God where we feel the loss of a dream? You've been holding out hope for so long. Hope for a job, hope for a spouse, hope for babies, hope for this dream of something you've waited for your whole life to happen and you thought for sure it was going to come together. You would get where you needed to be and you'd get what you'd most desired.
[00:16:24] It's not happening. Or even the dreams maybe you've had for somebody else, what their future would be like, what their life would be like.
[00:16:34] Do you trust God in the loss of a relationship where it feels fractured and broken, where it feels like there's just no hope of healing, no forgiveness, no hope of moving past everything that's already happened, that got you here? Can't get past what's been said, can't get past what's been done.
[00:16:58] What about the hardest one? The loss of a loved one. No matter how beautiful the time, no matter how beautiful the life, it came to an end and it hurts and there's a gap and everybody's like, oh, it's just natural. It's part of life. And there's something in you rebelling, saying, it is not supposed to be this way.
[00:17:19] It's not supposed to be like this. There's a space there and nobody else can fill it.
[00:17:27] We have this picture so many times of how our life is supposed to look. And if God really loved me, this would happen.
[00:17:36] If God really was for me, he would never let this happen. And when we run into these things and they happen anyways, and we think, God, where are you?
[00:17:47] God, why is this happening to me?
[00:17:51] God, why didn't you stop this?
[00:17:55] Or here's one God, I've been doing all the right things for years.
[00:18:00] Day after day, I'm doing the right things and I don't see anything I love. I've been reading Lisa Turkhurst lately and I love her words.
[00:18:12] She said, we live in a broken world where broken things happen. But what happens when things don't just feel broken but shattered.
[00:18:22] You can't fix dust. You can't glue dust back together. But listen to how she asks this. What if God desires to make something entirely new? What if the shattering is the only way to get dust back to its original form so something new can be made?
[00:18:42] What if God hasn't denied us his best, but he offers us the best by offering himself?
[00:18:50] See, we don't think about fixing things until we realize they're broken, right? You don't call in the experts. Until we surrender to the realization we can't fix things on our own. We're just going to patch it one more time. We're just going to do a little Jimmy rig one more time, right? And then when it's really, really bad broken, we're like, yeah, no, I don't have the skill set for this, to fix this here.
[00:19:12] But she says of our souls never ached with disappointment and disillusionment. We'd never fully admit and submit to our need for God if we weren't ever shattered. She says we'd never know the glorious touch of the potter making something glorious out of dust out of us.
[00:19:33] Here's the tricky thing. Never seems like a good time, does it? Like God. Can we schedule that shattering, like, maybe a year from now? Like, my calendar is a little full here. Family's busy. Life is busy. Work. It never feels like the right time. It never feels like this. Is it okay, God, I'm ready. Break me, right? Nobody says that. Nobody thinks that. Nobody wishes for that.
[00:20:02] But what if those broken places. Please. Where you feel most shattered, most disappointed and most hurting. It's not proof God doesn't love you. It's not proof that God isn't working. But maybe if I just shift my focus a little bit, it's the exact place where God wants to meet us and make something new.
[00:20:29] Maybe where you're most ready to quit is where God wants to breathe life back into you today.
[00:20:38] Maybe it's not somebody else. God, please change them. That needs to change.
[00:20:45] MaybE it's you and I.
[00:20:47] Maybe it's not God that isn't getting it right. It's just I haven't seen things from the right perspective.
[00:20:57] Maybe where you feel most dried out and broken is the place God wants to show up and surprise you by breathing into your heart life and hope.
[00:21:12] What if this spot that feels impossible, overwhelming, exhausting? Do you ever have something bad happen and your first thought is, this is my fault?
[00:21:23] Like, oh, if I'd only done this. If I'd only done that right our guilt, our shame, starts stirring up in ugly ways and calls us all kind of mean names. What if, in those places, God isn't drawing a line to our weakness, but he's drawing a line to our strength? I put you here for this time.
[00:21:44] What if these moments that stir up that feeling in us, God wants to give us the strength to do something incredible that nobody else could do in that spot. Nobody else could pray the way you're going to pray in that spot. Nobody else is going to care the way that you care in that spot. Nobody else is going to say, God, I can't, but you can. Please, show up in that spot.
[00:22:10] Maybe what our dry bones need the most this morning is to hear the word of the Lord saying, live.
[00:22:19] Because this vision that Ezekiel has of these dried out bones being restored and coming to life, that seems impossible, right? It seems like it could never happen. But, friends, it came true in Jesus Christ because there was a moment. His broken body was laid down in a tomb. The gates were sealed, and everything seemed impossible. It seemed like hope was gone. It seemed like everybody who'd followed him was wrong. It seemed like the promises for the future were never going to happen. And all hope seemed lost.
[00:22:56] But our Christ didn't stay dead.
[00:22:59] That stone didn't stay in front of the tomb. It was rolled away. He came to life. And, please, his spirit is alive in us today.
[00:23:13] We have hope for today, this day, this moment, this time because of Jesus Christ. When you look at the life that Christ lived and the death that he died, he wins through losing. We have this Definition of what it looks like to win in glory and trophies. And up on the pedestal, right, Christ won through losing by giving up his life for you and I. His road to glory, it wasn't paved with cheers and flowers and adoration. It was marked by pain and suffering.
[00:23:53] And yet he walked every step of that road, and he did not quit.
[00:24:00] He gave his life that we might live. And Christ is the only one who will fill the deepest chambers of our hearts and the only one who can satisfy our aching souls. Christ is the one. Please. He can heal us, restore us, redeem us, and he loves us through every step of it all. What is defeating to me has never been too much for Jesus Christ.
[00:24:28] Where we feel our most lonely, our most overwhelmed, Christ doesn't turn away from us. He turns towards us.
[00:24:39] Where we feel defeated, Christ shows up to give us freedom and victory.
[00:24:47] When it's the middle of the night and you have never been more alone in your life, and you're gasping for breath because the stress is just too much. Lost in your worry and your fear, your pain and your burdens. Christ is there.
[00:25:04] He sits beside you. He's holding your hand, guiding you through till morning.
[00:25:13] We don't have to be undone by the messiness of life. We live in a broken world, and it's messy. But we don't have to be ruined or defined by the pain of what we experience. Every one of us can claim our hope and our name in the loving arms of Jesus Christ. Because when God looks at you, he's satisfied. Because he sees Christ in you. He doesn't see the guilt. He doesn't see the shame. He doesn't see the weakness. He doesn't see the burden. He sees his kid. And he's loving us and treating us like we're his loved, valued, redeemed. It's not this list that God says, okay, first hold. First do this, get this figured out, get this problem solved, get this all put back together, and then we're going to sit down and talk. You earn your way, you do the work, you put in the hours, you do all the right things for this amount of time, and then we're going to show up. That's not how God works. And some of us have missed the heart of Christ because we've been punching this time card and going, God, it's not working. Why aren't you doing anything yet? And God's saying, put it down.
[00:26:31] I'm here.
[00:26:33] Know me. Spend some time with me. In that satisfaction that you've been looking for in everything else, just spend some time for Christ and know it's yours.
[00:26:48] That longing of your soul that feels unfulfilled. And you've tried everything that you could cram in there to make it feel better. It's already been met in Jesus Christ.
[00:27:02] I love these words from Dane Orland says, whatever is crumbling all around you in your life, wherever you feel stuck, this remains undeflectible. Christ's heart, for you, the real you, it is gentle and lowly. So go to him, the place in your life where you feel most defeated. He lives there. He's there, right there. And his heart is for you. Not on the other side of it, but in the darkness. His heart is gentle and lowly.
[00:27:33] Right where you are. Christ wants to meet you right in the middle of the darkness. Christ wants to shine this light of hope.
[00:27:43] You aren't a burden to Christ.
[00:27:46] I don't know who needs to hear that this morning, but you are not a burden to Christ. He's not annoyed that you need him. He's most qualified where you are most broken. He is delighted when we turn to him.
[00:28:02] In Christ, we have hope for today. It gets us through the dark nights, the hard moments, and the messiness of life. But can I tell you, please, we also have hope for the future. I love this idea about miracles. I came across it in a commentary and says, whenever you see a miracle in the Bible, it's never just blatant displays of power. Like, think about if you had all of the power, I'd be like, whoa, bam. Right? Like, making ridiculously things happen. Like, look at me. Okay? That's not how miracles, shocking, I know. That's not how God actually is. But usually when we see miracles in the Bible, it's teaching us something about God and his coming salvation. Says they aren't really primarily a suspension of the natural order. Right. The natural order is somebody gets sick, they die. A miracle is the sickness is healed, they don't die. Right. The natural order is somebody's hungry, there's no food. The miracle is God shows up and gives them food. We think this natural suspension of the natural order. But what they said is they are restorations of the natural order, what the world is supposed to be like, what God wants it to be like. These miracles are reminders that the day is coming when God is going to bring this restoration. The suffering, the danger, the death, the disease that we face, they will not last forever. Someday it will be restored.
[00:29:29] Because God isn't done yet.
[00:29:32] It's not done in my life, and he's not done in yours. It's not done in our community. He's not done in our church, he's not done in your family, and he's not done in the world.
[00:29:44] What feels most dead and finished to us, God can bring back to life. What feels impossible is not too hard for God.
[00:29:56] I don't know who you know, and I don't know where you've been, but I do know this. There's no life God can't save. There's no burden too heavy for him to lift. There's no problem God can't fix. And there's no struggle he can't bear. Where we are most hopeless. He offers us life where we are weak. He offers us strength. God is at work restoring all things. Where you think it's over may be the place God wants to surprise you the most.
[00:30:27] He never gave up on you.
[00:30:30] He's calling us to life today.
[00:30:34] Question is, will we hear the word of the Lord saying, into our hearts and our souls live.
[00:30:43] Don't give up.
[00:30:46] Don't give up on yourself.
[00:30:48] You don't know what's around the corner if you quit too soon. You don't get to see what God is going to do next.
[00:30:55] And it may just be the best thing you've ever experienced on your life.
[00:31:00] Don't give up on your spouse. You made a commitment to them one time and you were delighted and so happy to make that commitment.
[00:31:10] All of these years later, that commitment holds true. Don't give up on them yet.
[00:31:17] Don't give up on your kids.
[00:31:20] God could have given them to anybody and he gave them to you.
[00:31:25] He trusted them to you.
[00:31:28] And it doesn't matter what the spot is or the phases or the ages or the problem is they're yours and God wants you to love them through this moment. Don't give up on the work that you've been called to do. It's your work it needs done. This world needs what you can offer it today.
[00:31:52] Don't give up on the person you've been trying to become. You've been working for years and you haven't seen any growth yet. Just wait.
[00:32:00] You don't see what God's doing under the surface. You don't see what God's building in you to support you for this next phase of life. You don't know the eternal weight of glory that God is preparing you for. And friends, some of us might not ever see it the side of heaven. But don't give up.
[00:32:22] When life is at its hardest, it can be hard to remember God's truth. Can it? When something bad's happening or scary's happening or frustrating's happening or disappointing is happening or discourage is happening, it's hard to remember who I want to be in the grouchy moments, right? In the bad attitude moments. Like I'm reading my Bible for a reason, because God's going to teach me something good. Even when I have a bad attitude, it can be hard to focus on the goodness of God. And so I have words that I repeat to myself over and over and over to remind me that there's more going on than just what I can see. I'm going to share some of them with you.
[00:32:59] This is a moment in my life. This moment is not my entire life.
[00:33:05] I am in charge of my emotions. My emotions are not in charge of me. Sometimes I have to say that several times.
[00:33:12] I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
[00:33:16] Do not be afraid, for I've ransomed you. I've called you by name. You are mine.
[00:33:27] There is a sovereign God and he knows and he is in control.
[00:33:33] I will put my spirit in you and you will live.
[00:33:39] Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.
[00:33:45] Christ has gone before me. He can help me through.
[00:33:50] Even though I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. There is A God who comforts me.
[00:34:02] There is a God of hope. And he fills us with all joy and peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit we can abound in hope.
[00:34:14] Maybe the greatest breath of life you need this week will just be found hearing the words of the Lord.
[00:34:23] Maybe where you feel dried out, you've just gotten too far away from God and you need to come back home.
[00:34:30] Maybe where you feel most discouraged. It isn't that there isn't hope. You've just cut yourself off from the hope that you need most in Jesus Christ.
[00:34:39] Can I encourage you? Today, God is at work.
[00:34:45] God is good.
[00:34:47] God has a plan from beginning to end. He will see you through the hope that you need for today, the hope that you need for the future. They will always be found in Jesus Christ. Spend some time with him this week. Let him remind you who he is. Let him remind you what he can do. Even if you're at a part in the Bible and you're like, I have to read this, you might be surprised. And God might say to you, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord and live. Dear Father, I pray that you would encourage our hearts today. I pray that we just lay it all at your feet.
[00:35:28] I pray that you would meet us where we are. I pray that the loving arms of Jesus Christ would encourage us and strengthen us and restore us for the work that is ahead of us. I pray that your light would shine. I pray that you would guide us in the way that we should go. And we would hear your voice saying, this is the way. Walk in it. I pray, Father, that your word would restore us to hope and life. And we would be the men and women in this time, in this generation that you've called us to be. I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.
