Trust in God because its going to be okay

Opening

As we transition I would just like to take the next 8-10 mins to share what God has given us for this night. In these next 8-10 minutes I ask that you would just open your hearts to truly receive these words.

Pray

God, we thank you for this time that we get to worship you, Lord we just want to give you all that we have. Father in theses next few moments please continue to be here with us as these words are spoken. I ask that you would just use me as a messenger. Father let us see you and not anything else. If there are any things in our heart that are separating us form you please remove them so we can we receive from you!

Recap

Last month we talked about Desperation and I asked two questions:

What are you filling yourself with?

-and-

Is what your filling yourself with a distraction keeping you from being desperate with God?

Tonight, I would like talk about how we can trust God with the things that keep us from being desperate for him.

Beginning the Process

Trust is something we don’t take lightly I know that personally I don’t just give my trust away. As we know that with any process it takes time to trust. When I asked myself do I really Trust God in everything? Are there things that I believe that I can handle myself instead of trusting God? Reflecting on those moments really helped me realize that I wasn’t always trusting God with everything. Tonight, I want to share a time where I had to go through a process in order to trust God.

Two and a half years ago my wife and I had recently got married, shortly after we had decided to move, when we were making this decision we also had an opportunity to stay here and plant this church. After a few months we decided to move, when we moved it was a very quick process and we were overjoyed but you know soon after we realized that something was missing we felt that we were disconnected. When we felt this disconnection, we thought that it might have been because of so many changes in our lives. Recently getting married, I started a Job that had really demanding hours, and not having a local community.

After a few months past we started realizing that this was not getting any better and my job was facing some challenges shortly after. When this all was happening, we were like what are we going to do, and we decided to wait and see what happens. Now more time passes and now we were in a different situation because of changes at my job I was let go because of a restructure. So, we had another decision to make weather we were going to stay or move again. which is a little over a year from when we had originally moved.

So again, we decided to move, however this move was different there where some issues that we had come across with upon moving. The fist was moving our items, the second was a phone call I received on the day we started to drive to our next location which was New Orleans. When I received this phone call it was really unsettling which really made me question was this the right choice.

We arrived at our location there were complications with living arrangements, where it seemed like we weren’t supposed to be there but we continued to make it work. It seemed to be a better situation however it was still hard, I had started the new job and was okay with it I enjoyed it more than the last but things were just not working the way it felt that it should. Again, we decided to make it work but this time we decided to really, really pray and seek God. Fast forwarding when we started praying things started changing when we realized that we weren’t were God had us we had the idea of coming home. However, I didn’t not want to do that because when we left I said I would never come back other than to visit because I didn’t want it to seem like I had failed. So, we got to a point where I stopped and I prayed, “Remove us from the places we don’t need to be and place us where we need to be safely with the resources needed.” Literally the next day I get randomly called into a conference room and was let go.

So, there are some parallels from my story a one that is in the bible about a man named Jonah.

Jonah’s story is similar, God gave him a word to go to a place called Nineveh, but he decided to go in the opposite direction. Jonah was afraid of what the people might do to him because it was an unfamiliar place so he decided to run away in the opposite direction. In the process of him going in the opposite direction he was thrown out to the sea and was swallowed by a great fish “which in our terms today would be a whale”.

After three days and three nights this is what he did.

The New International Version

Chapter 2

“In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. 3 You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. 4 I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit. 7 “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. 8 “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. 9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.’” 10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

The Turnaround

This is very important because it shows the following things

I. God Preserved Jonah even though what he was doing was wrong

ii. Jonah cried for help because he couldn’t do it on his own

iii. When Jonah trusted God, he was able to be saved.

Ending

We all have problems that we are experiencing we hall have been afraid, we all have ran to or from something but lest reflect on these questions.

What is it that your running to instead of God?

Do you believe that God can rescue you from whatever situation or thing that you’re in?

If you need prayer for these things we invite you to go to the rear of the room for prayer during this next son