God’s Inconvenient Promises – Finding Healing and Shalom in the Shunammite Woman’s Story

(upbeat music) Access more. (upbeat music) Hey y'all, it's Lisa Harper, and we have decided that it has been such a hot summer that we wanna give you a Christmas gift right here, and so this is a surprise, a gift of an episode, and it is a message that a lot of us got to hear this amazing saint, she's brilliant, she has her PhD, she's a new friend of Backpourch Theology, and she gave this message this year at Kyrgyzmat, the Kyrgyzmat summit, and it was, y'all I'll tell you, it was in probably my top 20 messages about Jesus. I've heard in my entire life her name is Dr. Nicole Massey Martin, and so this is our early Christmas gift to you. You're gonna enjoy it, so I would encourage you to just sit and savor this one. If you're on the elliptical finish your workout, and then get off, prop your feet up, and lean back because you are gonna wanna be able to engage your entire mind and heart into these life giving words. Again, this is Dr. Nicole Massey Martin, and this is a message that she shared with us, encouraged all of us, just a few months ago, the 25 Kyrgyzmat summit. (upbeat music) - I am so delighted to see each of you and to be here. When I first met Lisa, I've known her for a very long time. I have all of her books. I figured, A, I didn't wanna fan out by bringing all my books for her to sign and B, it would be another suitcase, and I kinda like to travel light, so I couldn't bring all of her books, but when we talked on the phone, I got off the phone, I told my husband, I feel like I've been invited to step into God's river with a woman who's traveled in his presence. I feel like I was standing in my own space, and God said, "No, come over here "because the water's fun." And I absolutely love Lisa. One of the other things I love about her is when I was growing up, my dad's a pastor, was a pastor, he passed in 2022, and my sister is very serious and very smart, so people thought, "Well, Shelley's gonna be "in the ministry because she's very serious and very smart, "and I was really funny." At least I thought I was. I mean, I like to have fun. I was like the jokes during the prankster, and so nobody ever thought anything about me like ever, ever. And then I went to college, and I was part of a campus crusade group called Soul to Soul. And in Soul to Soul, the mentors of that ministry said, "Nikol, how about you teach a Bible study?" And I was like, "No, 'cause I'm here in college, "I'm here to poke and have fun, I'm here to, "you know, have a good time." And they said, "No, we just really believe God is calling you "to start a Bible study. "This is at Vanderbilt." And I started that Bible study my junior year. I made cookies, like in the nasty dorm, the oven that looks like, you have to hold your breath almost to open the door. I made cookies in there, made cookies, and I lit a candle, I sat in the lobby, and I had my Bible open, and people would walk by. What'd you do? And I was like, "I'm having a Bible study. "Would you like to join?" No, I'm good, but they took the cookies. So for an entire year, my junior year, they would come by with my little candle. Every Tuesday night, they would take the cookies and walk on by and nobody came. So at the end of the year, I was like, "Thank you all for putting me out there. "No thanks." My senior year came, and they said, "Would you teach this Bible study?" I was like, "No, no, I've been there done that. "It was so embarrassing, I can't do it." Also, the oven is nasty. And they said, "Just give it one more try." I gave it one more try, and God blew my mind, not just because people came, but because I realized for an entire year, I sat there in the lobby and studied the word of God, and fell in love with the word of God. And by the time it was time for me to teach the word of God, I was able to teach what I knew. And one of the women who helped push me in that direction is here, Trish is here. Trish was my driver, and it wasn't until I got in a car with her that I was like, "Look at what the Lord has done." I thank God for you for sowing into me, for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself. And because of that, I get to say out loud, I love the word of God, and I'm so honored to be here. I was initially planning to give you a nice lecture on my book because I felt that was the right thing to do. And God, God changed my heart, my mind, and him to me up when I got here and said, "What are you doing?" You're going to minister on what I give you and what he gave me as second kings. So we're going to go to second kings chapter four. There's a lot happening in second kings chapter four. And often when I hear second kings chapter four, I hear the power of Elisha and the vulnerability of the people he meets. You start into second kings four, and you've got the widow who has nothing, and so she's told and directed by the prophet to go and get vessels so that she can fill them with oil. Elisha, the powerful, comes to help the quote, "helpless woman." And then you get to this portion that begins really at verse eight. And if you're not careful, you will assume here comes powerfully Elisha helping a weak and destitute woman, but that's not the case. So we're going to read the scripture together because I think God wants to deal with something that's going to be a necessary part of a cruciform life, a necessary part of a Jesus shaped life. And that is dealing with what feels like a disappointment from God. We're going to start actually with verse 13 just so that we can maximize our time together. But leading up to verse 13, this is Elisha in Shunim with, what does your verse say in verse eight? Does it say a destitute woman? Does it say a vulnerable woman? What does your Bible say in verse eight? A notable, a well-to-do exactly. All right, so this is a woman of means. In fact, she has so much means that she's got an extra space in her home. And she goes and tells her husband, "Look, this is a man of God." So she's not just notable, but she's discerning. She can tell this is a man of God, and she's hospitable. Let me make room for him, and she's generous. He can have his own space. We're gonna put a lamp in there and a table at a bit. Can you just imagine this woman? She's notable, she's well-to-do, she's got means. It seems like the woman before her needed everything, but this woman needs nothing. And so we start at verse 13. Elisha said to him, his servant, "Tell her, "You've gone to all this trouble for us. "Now what can be done for you? "Can we speak on your behalf to the king "or the commander of the army?" She replied, "I have a home among my own people. "I'm good." What can be done for her Elisha asked? Ghezi said, "She has no son. "And her husband is old." Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called her, and she stood in the doorway about this time next year Elisha said, "You will hold a son in your arms. "No, my Lord," she objected. "Please, man of God, don't mislead your servant." But the woman became pregnant. And the next year about that time, same time she gave birth to a son just as Elisha had told her. The child grew, and one day he went out to his father who was with three birds. He said to his father, "My head, my head," his father told a servant, carry him to his mother after the servant had lifted him and carried him to his mother. The boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. She went up, laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out. She called her husband and said, "Please send me one of the servants and a donkey "so I can go to the man of God quickly and return." "Why go to him today?" he asked. "It's not the new moon or the Sabbath." That's right, she said. And in other versions, it says, "It's all right." Verse 24, "She saddled the donkey and said to her, "Servant, lead on. "Don't slow down for me unless I tell you." So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to a servant, "Gahazee, look, there's the Shunamite. "Run to meet her and ask her, are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?" Everything's all right, she said. When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gahazee came over to push her away, but the man of God said, "Leave her alone. "She's in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me "and has not told me why." Did I ask you for a son, my Lord, she said, "Didn't I tell you, don't raise my hopes?" Lashah said to Gahazee, "Tuck your cloak "and your belt take my staff in your hand "and run, don't greet anyone you meet "and if anyone greets you, do not answer. "Lay my staff on the boy's face "and the child's mother said, "as surely as the Lord lives. "And as you live, I will not leave you." So he got up and followed her. Gahazee went on ahead, laid the staff on the boy's face and there was no. no sound or response. So Ghasi went back to meet Elisha and told him, the boy is not awakened. When Elisha reached the house there, was the boy lying dead on the couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and laid on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, as he stretched himself out on him, the boy's body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then he got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times, and opened his eyes. Elisha summoned Ghasi and said, call the Shenamite and he did. And when she came, he said, take your son. She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground, then she took her son and went out. And I talk about Ghas inconvenient promises. We all kind of know that we don't always keep our promises. I mean, it's sad but regular, unfortunate, fact of life, just because somebody tells you they're going to do something doesn't necessarily mean they will. I mean, just because I signed a contract doesn't mean I'm going to fulfill it all the way through. In our consumer-driven society, we believe in the right of the consumer to change their mind. So it's all right. If you say something and you go back. And there's so many reasons why we're okay with that. I mean, who wants to be bound to something only to find out later, it's not what you wanted. If I sign a contract with my phone service provider and find out I don't have service in certain parts of my life, I have the right to say this doesn't work for me. In fact, most of us, if we were honest, probably break promises every day. I mean, we break promises to our alarm clocks when we press news instead of turning it off. We break promises to friends with that famous, I'm going to call you right, Pat. Days later, totally forgot. We break promises to our pastors and our bosses when we say, I will be on time. But then other things happen. We just, we don't do it. We break promises to banks. When bills are laid, we break promises to communities. When we refuse to give back, we break promises to families when we don't care for all children. We break promises sometimes to our nation and those who've gone before us when we refuse to vote or get involved, we break promises all the time. Our society is just filled with broken promises. And for every promise that is made that is not kept, we know there are consequences. If I break my Verizon contract today, I have to pay something. If I break a marriage vow, I have to pay some cost, some cost of retribution or the cost of divorce. We are people who break promises because we are humans. But what happens when it feels like God takes on this human characteristic? Now, this is a theological conference. We know God doesn't break promises. He is the promise keeping God. He is the promise making and keeping God. And even when he doesn't show up when we think he should, we know that God never breaks his promises, right? Amen, somebody. We know we serve a promise keeping God. We know that God never breaks his promise, but there are times when a promise understood here doesn't always translate down here. They say there are about 19 inches between the brain and the heart, but when it comes to what feels like a broken promise from God, those inches can start to feel like miles. It can feel like God is turning his back on us. God, you promise to supply all my needs according to your riches and glory, but I'm still struggling to pay this bill. You promise God to give me peace. It passes all understanding, but I still can't quite sleep at night. You promise, Lord, that I would never be left alone. You'll never leave or forsake me, but that time, that time I felt utterly alone. You promised that I would never have to carry more than you said I would bear, even though that's not scripture, but really my entire life feels like more than I can bear. You said, God, you would keep my mind in perfect peace, but I still struggle with depression. You said, God, that my gifts would make room for you and I still don't have a chance to teach. Sometimes we know in our minds that God is a good God. He is a faithful God. He's a providing God. He's a present God, but in our hearts, we can go through experiences that make us feel like God made us a promise he didn't keep. God, you promised that if I prayed, you would answer, but I prayed that time if you still haven't come through. God, you promised that if two or three are gathered, you would be in our midst and I haven't felt your presence in three years. You promised God if I foresook everything that I had in my life, all of my dreams and all of my desires and all of my ambitions. You would make a way for me, but when is the way coming? I just want to talk to a people here who are honest with God. There are times in our lives when we know that God is faithful and we know that God is true and we know that God is good, but we can go through things that make us question whether or not God is going to keep his word. You promised God that if I went to the hospital room and prayed over my loved one, they would live to see another day and here I am at the funeral. You promised God if I went to school, if I got the degree, you would show me what to do next and it's been years since graduation. You promised God and here's the worst part about ministry promises. Most of them we never ask God for. I never asked you to put me out there. Who prays, God, please make me really vulnerable and put me out there. God, please give me such fear that I will trip up the stairs so that I will play out in my dreams, me making a face plan on the stage. Please, Jesus. No one prays that. We never ask God for the kinds of things He wants for us to have in ministry. We don't ask God for the kinds of things. In fact, we say, God, don't make me a promise you can't keep 'cause I don't want to get out there and find out that I'm wrong. The Shudamite woman never asked for what God said she would have. She was fine by all earthly estimations, but she teaches us something. She teaches us something that I believe is necessary for a cruciform life. She teaches us what we should do when we deal with what feels like a broken promise from God. This Shudamite woman teaches us how to live in the distance between the head and the heart until God, our promise keeping God, comes through for us. And the first thing she teaches us when it feels like God has broken his promise is very, very simple. She teaches us to return the promise to God. When it feels like God made you a promise, maybe one you never asked for. The Shudamite woman says, take that promise back to the promise maker. Look at the text, she learns of her son's death and it's really funny to me how the husband plays out of this. He's like, he's like completely in his own world. Like, what's wrong with the boy? He was, I mean, what's wrong? What's wrong with you? Why is everybody so sad? We need to be just, it's not, it's not unlike today. We joke in my house, we have two girls. My husband and I have been married for 15 years. We have a 10 and a 12 year old. We will sit at the dinner table and have five conversations at one time and my husband will be eating his food and then we have pause and be like, what do you think? He goes, huh? And this is a smart guy. My husband has his B.A.G. is smart. We're like, where were you? We were all at the table together. What have you been? The Shudamite woman's husband is like, what's up? Everything all right? You guys all right? They back to work. So the Shudamite woman says, you know, it's fine, it's fine. We'll get to that in just a moment. But before she even speaks to her husband, the child dies on her lap and notice. She does not go into the kitchen and try and make a potion so that she can bring him back to life. She doesn't go in the garden and try and find some herbs that might heal a headache or migraine or an aneurysm. She doesn't go and call the healer or the other prophets in the city. No, she takes this child back upstairs to the room that she made for the prophet and lays the child on the prophet's bed. Why? Because the prophet was the one who made her the promise. And therefore, she had to bring that promise back to the one who made it. Sometimes we, when we are dealing with this distance in our minds, with a promise that feels like it's been broken by God, sometimes we just try to take matters in our own hands. Well, God, you didn't open a door for me. So I guess I better find another path and vocation. Well, God, you didn't bring healing to me like I thought. So I guess I better. find another subscription so I can get my medical help that way. Well, God, you didn't come through. So I guess I better figure it out why because I'm a strappy woman in ministry and I can figure things out. The door didn't open. That's fine. We'll get a prop. The door won't stay closed. It's fine. We'll get some duct tape. You need somebody and nobody showed up. It's fine. We can work it out. We are experts at working out our own issues. But God says, if I made you the promise, you need to bring that promise back to me because if I told you you would have something you never dreamed of, it is not your dream in the first place. If I promised you something that I have in store for your life, it is not about your life. It's about me. This is quintessential faith in repair systems. We had an abroken AC. So we tried to call a handyman. handyman came and was like, I've never seen anything like this before. What model is this? It's like, oh, go back to the little, you know, the Angie's listed all those things. We called five people. Everyone of them look at the air condition. They're like, we've never seen anything like that before. Finally, the last guy says, you know, you got to call. You got to call the manufacturer. I don't know what we're dealing with here. We call the manufacturer, describe the problem. They're like, that's no problem. We have this all the time. Let me sit in to another part and we'll take care of it. Literally three seconds. We spend so much time with the earthly handyman in our lives and handy women. Wasting time on people who have no idea what the promise was in the first place, who will look at our lives and say, I've never seen anything like that before. I don't know how. I don't know why you decided to do that. I don't know where you got that from. When all the while, God is like, oh, is there a promise I made you that's not working? Bring it back to me. God says, bring it back to me. And I pray that we get in a space in our lives where when things start to fall apart, we stop getting in the fix it mode and start getting into the bring it mode. God, your ministry's fallen apart. What do you want to do? God, your door won't close. God, your child is out here acting crazy. What are you going to do? God, your marriage is on fire. Because God is waiting for us to bring back to him what he alone can give to us. We are wasting time trying to be many gods ourselves. We take God's promise and we say, thank you, Jesus. I'll take it from here. But God says, no, I gave it to you so you can bring it to me. Bring me your broken heart. Bring me your issues. Bring me the things that aren't working. Bring me the challenges because when we bring it back to God, then God delights in our coming to him and he delights in fixing it. The woman brings the child back to God. Secondly, the Shunamaite woman teaches us if we really want to live a cruise-form life and deal with what feels like a broken promise, we have to start internalizing God's Shalom. We have to internalize God's Shalom. I absolutely love this portion in the text where she's talking to her husband and her son is dead, literally dead, laying upstairs dead. This is when her husband's like, what's that? You all right? Go get something later. She's like, it's fine. It's all right. And actually, the Hebrew does say Shalom. And I'm not going to go too deep into this because I am not an Old Testament professor and expert. We've got plenty of those here. But I do know that this word Shalom doesn't just mean it's all right. Shalom indicates the divine peace and wholeness of God. So the husband says, what is wrong? She says Shalom. It's not all right. It's not fine. The boy is dead upstairs. He literally just died, but she says Shalom to him. The servant meets her in the road. He says, what's wrong? She says Shalom. And it wasn't all right. But there is something about Shalom that suggests that the superseding wholeness and goodness and peace of God can invade every situation so that at every time in all situations, you can still have Shalom when it's not all right. Perhaps this woman was trying to just get these people off of her so she could go to the prophet, perhaps, or perhaps she understood that Shalom is appropriate in life and death. Shalom is appropriate when we're doing great and when we're not. I went to an Alpha conference in London and I heard gentlemen speaking about Shalom, he had gone through cancer, went into remission and he had cancer again. He said, people always say to me, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you have cancer. I'm so sorry. This is happening to your body is broken. And he said to them, no, I have Shalom. I have the peace of God. I have the wholeness of God that supersedes how I feel. And it hit me in that moment. Why God do we make Shalom about an external being all right? What will it take for us as a people of God, as women of God, to internalize the Shalom of God even when it doesn't feel all right? Because every once in a while there isn't a cure for what we're going through. There isn't a quick fix for what we're dealing with every once in a while. The only and the most important thing we need to hear from God is Shalom. And Shalom suggests not only is there peace and wholeness and security and health, but Shalom suggests the presence of God. And I want to get to a place in my life where no matter what's happening on the outside, I can still have a peace on the inside that says everything is going to be all right. I want to be the type of leader that walks into situations with such a non-anxious presence, not because the money needs to be fixed, not because ministry is perfect, not because everybody on my team is great and nobody's trying to stab me in the back. I want to walk into a team meeting with the Shalom of God because I know deep down with the Lord everything will be all right. And not just some things, not just the things I can't fix, not some God of the gap scenario, the things I can't fix, God will handle. No, Shalom suggests every single thing in your life is going to be all right. What would it look like for us to have a ministry of Shalom to one another? Hey, things are falling apart, but Shalom, everything's going to be all right. Hey, I don't even know how it's going to work. And I'm not talking about being too blessed to be stressed and all of this silly little colloquial saying we say to ignore pain. This woman was in the midst of pain. And still she said out of her mouth twice, Shalom, because with the presence of God, everything is going to be all right. My grandma still sings this song. I've got a feeling. Everything will be all right. And when you look at the origins of that song, it was sung during the times of the hardest, deepest oppressions when people had no place else to turn when they could not get jobs, when they could not move forward, when they could not get educations, they still sing the song. I've got a feeling. And then they kept with the refrain. Be all right. Be all right. Be all right every once in a while. We need a Shalom song in our hearts that says, God, it doesn't look right, but it will be all right. God, it doesn't feel right, but I embrace your Shalom. God, I don't have peace, but I know that peace is coming because in your presence, I can have every single thing I need. I dare somebody to tell you, tell you, your neighbor near you, Shalom, just speak Shalom. Shalom. Shalom. Doesn't look right, but it will be all right. It doesn't feel right, but it will be all right. Shalom, my woman teaches us, you can have a cruciform life. You can deal with this distance between what you know about God and how you feel by first of all bringing the promise back to God, by second of all internalizing God's Shalom, but by thirdly, being able to embrace what feels like the contradiction. And I'm talking intimately embracing what feels like the opposite of what God said. One of the best parts of this text for me isn't just this well-to-do, discerning, amazing woman who, quote unquote, didn't need anything, being made a promise that she didn't really need. And then having that promise broken, the most important part of this text to me is the way that God chooses to heal the boy. Elisha says, go here, take my staff, take my staff to the boy because he knows he's got evidence. He has seen God heal through inanimate objects. He didn't even have to touch the vessels that the woman before brought for the oil to be overflowing. He didn't have to touch that. He didn't have to touch the waters of poison later in the text. He just, you know, he was able to heal with a branch. There was, there's God is able to heal. He had seen. Elisha had seen Elisha, his, his master, he'd seen Elisha heal with a staff. It was not unreasonable for him to think the staff will carry the presence and the power of God and it will be enough. But here's the stubborn woman clinging to his feet saying, I'm not going anywhere. You're going to do what you said you will do. I'm not going anywhere. And let me pause and say, I think God honors that. I think God honors us clinging to his feet and saying, God, I am not leaving you. I am not going to go anywhere until you fix what you said. And so God sends a Gahazi, the servant to bring the staff and lay the staff on the boy and nothing happens. Gahazi goes back and in my spiritual imagination, I imagine. imagine him whispering, "It didn't work." (laughing) You know, just trying to save the profits, save yourself, just engaged. You gotta walk away. Gahazee's probably a very good servant thinking, what else can we do? What else can we do? Can we maybe slaughter a cab? Maybe we'll have a good meal. Maybe I don't know. Maybe he'll do the oil thing for her. And maybe that'll be enough. And the oil thing will be good. I'm sure he's going through all of his plan, BCD, and then starting back ABC. But that is not how God chose to heal the boy. God chose one of the most intimate ways to heal this boy. Going back to Lisa's example, God chose to get some snot in this boy's hair. Literally. In my Western-ness, it is an awkward text because the Bible says that this grown man laid on this little boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. In my Western understanding, I feel embarrassed. I feel like is this a traumatic situation? Is the boy going to be traumatized? Is he going to wake up and have dreams in the middle of the night? Lord, have mercy because those things are real. But the Bible is not afraid. In fact, we all know that if this alive, purified prophet had laid on a dead body, he would make himself impure. He risked making himself incapable to be used by God. But the Bible says he laid on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, death being literally laid upon by life. Cold body, encountering warm body, no breath in the mouth, being encountered by warm breath in the nose, in the mouth, his belly going in and out on top of what felt like the board of the boy's body. We don't know how long it took for the woman to find them. But we know that by now the body was a little rigid. The man's body, a lyshah's warm, palpitating hands laid upon the cold hands of the boy. Elyshah's arms full of life flowing with blood, laying upon the boy's body that had no flowing blood, his feet laying upon the feet of this cold boy. And he didn't just do it one time. The Bible says he got up, walked around in my spiritual imagination. Maybe he was a little afraid. God, I don't know what you're going to do. Is this going to work? God, the woman has been so kind and she never asked for this promise. And I don't know what to do. But Elyshah and faithfulness to God lays back on the cold body, eyes to eyes, mouth to mouth, hands to hands. And the Bible says the boy began to breathe and I'm telling you, my sisters, God is not afraid of laying on some cold dead situations. He's not afraid of meeting us in the point of our contradiction. He is not embarrassed by who we are. He is not ashamed of what happened. In fact, God says when the contradictions happen and you bring it to me, bring it up close, don't leave it far away because the God we serve is not satisfied with healing us by some prayer cloth. He's not satisfied with sending an emissary. God says I want to heal you in every part of your brokenness. I want to heal you from what happened to you and you were a little girl. I want to heal you from the ways that person broke your heart. I want to heal you from all of the pain that you've been stuffing aside just so you could be about your father's business. But God says I'm not going to heal you in a distant way. I'm not going to touch you in a far away way. God says I want to be close to you. So close that I would send my very son. Jesus Christ to be where you are and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And when Jesus stretched himself on the cross, he put his eyes on my eyes so I could see right. He put his mouth on my mouth so I could speak right. He put his hands on my hands so I could do the right thing. He put his heart on my heart so I could feel what God felt. He put his loins on my loins so that I could be healed. He put his legs on my legs so I could walk in his direction. He put his feet on my feet so I would feel the feet of God when Jesus stood on the cross. He gave his crucified life so that we might live in a crucifer way. He says I'm not afraid of what feels like disappointment because I will lay my life on what feels like it's broken in you. God is a promise keeping God. He is an intimate loving God. He's a snot in your hair, kind of God. And just what our tendency is to push away the pain, the pain of God not answering, the pain of God not coming through, the pain of God taking too long. God says, stop pushing away what only belongs to me. And so in this moment, I know this is a teaching conference, but I just feel like God is saying, bring it here. I need you to bring it here. I don't know who you are. I don't care. You can come to the altar. You can just lift your hands. You can stand to your feet. But whatever you need to bring to God, somebody's been wrestling. You feel like God put you in this position and left you. You feel like God knew what happened to you and did nothing about it. You feel like God opened the door and just let the wind behind you keep you in a space you never wanted to be. God did I ask you for this. I didn't ask you for this. But God's has. Stop acting like it doesn't exist. Stop pushing it away because here in the presence of God, there is healing in the presence of God. There is hope in the presence of God. There is shalom in the presence of God. Whoever you are just come. God says, bring it now. Bring it to me and hold on to me. And don't let me go. Whatever the pain is, whatever the disappointment is. God says, this is why I came. I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly, but I cannot give you what you're not willing to release. I cannot give you something in your hands when your hand comes to me like this and some of us come to God like this because we are afraid. I'm afraid of what you might give me. I'm afraid that if I open my hand, I might be vulnerable. I'm afraid if I open my hand, if I ask you for what I've not prayed about, I might be disappointed. God says there's some things you haven't even prayed about in years because you are afraid to pray about it. You are afraid that if you ask me for it, I will say no. But if an earthly, if an earthly king who doesn't love his people at all continues to give to the woman who begged and was persistent, how much more will God give you what you need? How much more? And what is it that we need? It is not the job. It is not the platform. It is not the millions of followers. It is not writing the book. It is not seeing thousands come to our Bible study. It is not getting promoted by the boss. It is not being honored by our children or husband. It is not getting married. Those are not the things we need. Jesus says, "If you open your hand, I'll give you me. I will lay myself upon you. And I don't know about you, but I want to feel the weight of his glory upon me. I want to feel the weight of his hand touching my hands. That's all I want. God right now we come to you. And we confess our disappointments before you. We confess God that we don't trust you all the time. We don't trust you all the time. And we confess God as petty as it sounds you heard our feelings. You didn't come through like we thought you would. You didn't answer the way we thought you would. We didn't do what we thought you would do. We confess God that we're struggling with this call. We didn't ask to be called. We didn't ask to follow you into these places of leadership and yet the team still betrayed us. The boss still doesn't trust us. The space has yet to be made. You said if we went to seminary, if we got trained, you would make a way and it doesn't look like a way is being made. God we confess to you right now. Who are we to even doubt the Lord? But we pray Holy Spirit that more than answering our prayers, more than fixing all of our problems, we pray that you would make us cruciform in the way that we live. Re-shape our hearts now in the name of Jesus. Let our hearts be like yours, God. Let our thoughts be thoughts that are the thoughts of you. Help us to keep our minds stayed on you. Help our hands to be put to the work that you want us to do. Help our feet to follow the path that you want us to And in the name of Jesus, we confess to you, we cannot do it by ourselves. Holy Spirit, we need you. We need you to fill us from the top of our head to the souls of our feet. We need you to guide us because if you don't lead us, we won't know where to go. We need you to speak through us because if you don't speak, we won't have the words. We need you to touch our hands because if you don't touch our hands, we won't know what to do. God fill us. Fill us with you. We want you. Lay your weight upon us, oh God. Let us feel the connection with the Savior so that as we feel the weight upon the life Jesus on our dead lives, we would recognize at the same power that rose Jesus from the dead lives in us. And so we walk in a cruciform way open so that God might touch us open to be broken vessels so that the all surpassing power would be of God and out of us. Thank you for healing. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your power. Thank you for mending right now. Holy Spirit, you're mending right now. You're reorienting us right now. Thank you for reorienting us. I see God right now almost like the powder on the wheel. He's taking up the clay. He's getting a little bit more water and he's recentering it on the wheel. Recentering means it's a slamming down on the table. Sometimes God says you've been off a little bit. I'm just going to take you. I'm going to reshape you. I'm going to remote you. I'm going to put a little water on you and I'm going to recenter you. And if you feel like your life is being slammed, God says I'm recentering you. I'm reshaping you. I'm reforming you because what is ahead for you, you're going to need his power. What he has in store is going to require not that you hide what is broken, but that you bring it to him because he's got power to make everything all right. All in our so glad, so grateful you chose to hang out on the porch with us today. And we hope you learned something, but knowledge about God pales next to intimacy with Jesus y'all. So we hope you spend a lot more time lingering in his presence, leaning into his embrace and listening to the lyrics of delight. He promises to sing over us in Zeffanila, then you do listening to podcast. That being said, will be both honored and tickled if you choose to join us again next week for Back Porch Theology.