Say What?

I didn’t know what to say at first. The truth is he was absolutely right!

I received an invitation to supper when I was in my third year of ministry. This particular gentlemen had been absent a lot and on his previous visit to the church I had mentioned maybe we should get together.

So I was excited to go to supper and discuss different things. The meal was fine and the small talk just that small, but as we finished our plates it became clear that the time for small talk was over it was time for big talk.

“Pastor I don’t know how to say this, but things at the church are not good!”

I didn’t know what to say at first. The truth is he was absolutely right! The church hadn’t been doing well all year. One of our Older spiritual giants if you will had passed away. It had a difficult impact on us all, myself included. For a long time it seemed the church went through a season of grief and mourning. Some people had left, so attendance was down, offering was down, things were stressful.

So as I heard the words, I knew to be true, spoke out loud my first instinct was to make excuses, too somehow try and justify the atmosphere we had been enduring for many months at that point.

I managed to fight off that instinct by responding I think you are right and asked why he thought this was the case.

He couldn’t come up with a reason, he would offer a solution, that I did not take him up on, because how can you offer a solution if you can not identify the problem, but as I sat there almost in shock and my wits came back to me I remember looking over at this gentleman and saying,

“You know things can’t be good all the time right?”

I share this story with you not to criticize the man, nor to discourage people from getting together with me to talk, although since then before I agree to such meetings I do require a heads up of what we will be talking about so I can prepare myself.

I actually commend this gentlemen for getting together with me to talk about something that was clearly bothering him. It is always better to communicate openly honestly and in a respectful manner.

No I share this story for one reason. This was one of those aha moments for me. Some people call them Eureke moments.

Whatever you call it for me it was a moment of clarity leading to revelation which helped me to lead out of the difficult time into a more celebrated atmosphere in the church. It was the moment I said,

“You know things can’t be good all the time right?”

The truth is sometimes life can punch you right in the gut, double you over and leave you in a crumpled heap gasping for breath. In these moments that can last for days, weeks, months and sometimes even years it can be difficult to see much good going on around us.

When you lose a loved one, or a family member refuses to talk to you, or sickness rears its little head. Maybe you’ve lost a job or decrease in hours or pay. Sometimes it has nothing to do with your situation, sometimes your brain just decides to send you into a funk for an undetermined amount of time.

When this happens the only way to describe it is by saying life stinks right now. Life sucks, and when it sucks, it seems to suck the life right out of you.

In moments like this it can be hard to read your bible and even pray. A lot of the time we don’t even know what to pray for because like the gentleman in my story all we know is things are not good, but often we don’t even know why or certainly not what needs to change to make it better.

The truth is things can not be good all the time because

Good

is a relative term. We only know what Good feels like because we compare it to when things feel bad. In fact when thing are consistently good we often tend to take it for granted.

Example I want you to hold your breath as long as you can When you can’t hold it any longer breath and raise your hand so I know when everyone is done. On my mark ready and Go.

Air is good, but we only appreciate the ability to breath when someone or something threatens to take that ability away. As long as things are “Good” we don’t even thing about it.

Life is often that way. We tend to appreciate the good more when we have vivid memories of experiencing the bad.

Jesus said it this way in

John 16:33 NLT

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

We will read the rest of that in a bit, but the promise of bad days is a real thing. Leading me to tonights question.

When things are bad, and we don’t know what to pray, what do we do?

You may or may not remember we are in a mini series looking at so where do you think our passage is going to come from tonight?

Romans 8:26–30 NLT

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

Romans 8:26-

When things are bad, and we don’t know what to pray, what do we do?

Find comfort in the Holy Spirit

Me: Ever loss something? Ever notice it is always in the last place you look? Want to know why? Because what kind of moron keeps looking after they have found what they are looking for. I have always hated that expression. It is ludicrous, but I do get the intent behind it.

Every time I los something it seems I look and look and it is never in the places I think it should be so I ask my wife who rechecks every place I just looked because let’s face it I am a man and we tend to overlook things a lot, at least I do. Then if she doesn’t find it she goes and seems to find it in the most obscure places.

Honestly I still thinks she intentionally hides things on me just so she can find them later. Anyway I guess that is the intent of the expression.

I never seem to find it in the places I think I should. Once I found the cordless phone it the freezer, apparently my sister had finisher her conversation just as she went to get ice cream. It’s a good thing I wanted ice cream too or we never would have found it.

Sorry my point is when I loss something it seems like I always look for it in the wrong places.

We: That is how many people even believers are when it comes to comfort and peace. Truth is when life gets hard and we want to give up and we know we should pray but we don’t even really know what to pray for, most of us tend to look for comfort and peace in a lot of wrong places.

For some they turn to isolation. They cut themselves off from people because, people make it worse. At least that is the theory. They convince themselves that isolation can bring them comfort to their hurting soul. But usually what ends up happening is depression sinks in and it gets worse.

Others turn to substance abuse. They try to self medicate using different recreational drugs and even misusing some prescription drugs. Some turn to alcohol, cigarets, vaping which is proving to be doing more damage than people thought, who knew.

But these aren’t the only substances we turn to for comfort. We also turn to television, facebook, pornography, chocolate cake, all food really, well except that healthy stuff. I mean we all know there is no joy in Kale, but a tub of ice cream really hits the spot.

We will look for comfort in all the wrong places

God: That’s why I love this passage unlike all those other sources that do not last and do more harm than good, this passage not only gives us the source of comfort but also hope.

The source comes from the Holy Spirit living inside us. This passage tells us even when we do not know what to pray The Holy Spirit inside us knows what we need and pleads on our behalf.

Know one knows us and our struggle better than God so we can find comfort in knowing even when we are weak, no especially when we are weak God Himself is crying out for us even when we can not.

The hope comes from

Romans 8:28 NLT

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

This is the hope God gives us that no substance on earth can provide. That is for those who are His, who love Him and are called by Him, He will take the bad things in our lives and somehow make good come out of them.

Not that the bad won’t still be bad, but that out of that bad some good will grow.

Like a flower out of a manure pile.

You: Life may be repeatedly sucker punching you to the gut right now, but you can find Comfort from the Holy Spirit inside you, and a hope that will endure as only God can bring good from bad.

We: We don’t have to be strong all the time, and things will never be good all the time but God is both Strong and Good all the time and what we need to do is stop going to Him last for comfort but stat looking to Him first.

Next Step

remember lets look at the whole thing now.

John 16:33 NLT

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Your next step is to remember even when things are bad we can count on God.