Keep God With You - Jordan Olivierre

Since my very first conversation with Sean, he's been talking about getting me to talk in Chappell. I'm for the longest time I was like he has to be kidding. What would I even talk about? I thought I thought about talking about my culture or talking about love and why we should choose it But one day I was sitting with my best friend Ronan and we were talking to somebody for you And I asked her how she knew what to talk about in Chappell and she told me that God told her I sat for literally one minute 60 seconds thinking about how I wish God would tell me what to talk about Which is crazy because if you know me, you know, I like to talk and me and God are always in our conversation This is what I go to and me what to talk about. Let me start from the top Hi, my name is Jordan Oliver. I'm a fresh man from the beautiful Twin Island Republic of Trinidad I'm Tepego and I'll be so honest although I have everything I need to say written out here. I'm still really nervous And I don't know if you all have realized this, but Sean tends to hug me speaker when they don't talk and so that's all I'm thinking about to get me through this Even though I knew I was going to talk about this topic. I had nothing planned just a Bible verse on a dream But one day I was simply laying in bed scrolling through a tech talk and I saw a video that moved me with all my realizing I Scroll past that video like every other one on the platform and kept it pushing but I could not get the message of this video out of my head for the life of me Before I could process what I was doing. I was standing on the edge of my bed my iPad in hand and my gospel playlist was on I got exactly two sentences into the briefing the tech did message the stick talk brought to me before I was in tears Never would have made it by Marvin sap was playing and at that moment. I gave it to God I was literally struggling to hold myself up and I knew God was with me That entire week, I felt like I was on a deep dark valley. I was sick. I was injured But this moment is what pulled me out of the valley and brought me back to light by the end of all this my entire chapel Speed was in order and I hadn't even realized how much he's pretty moved through me Anyway back home. There's this influencer family called the Malonees They all have a bit of a social media platform and honestly, it's because of the sister Samara Samara is probably one of the top influencers on the island and had a master calm 32,000 followers on Instagram only I'm only sharing this information with the old to show how much she genuinely moved the people of our island On November 4th, 2023, Samara suffered a brain on your thumb at just 26 years old Which all the doctors said was very rare for someone of her age and lifestyle She was in a coma for our day and on November 5th, 2023, Samara had passed away The first person I thought about was her mother because two years prior on May 19th, 2021 her husband and the father of her five beautiful children had died suddenly I don't know about y'all, but two years flies like nothing to me. So in my head, I'm saying oh no, her husband passed away just the other day I found myself interacting with all the Malone children on social media and one common thing among all of them was asking God why Specifically Samara's older brother I posted a tweet not only question in God, but question in his entire faith in general Tweets start red. What is left of your faith when God doesn't respond to your collective prayers and cries and how to not question God's plan boy God thought it was impossible that his God would put him through an ounce of pain So the pain of losing two family members in such a short time frame was unfathomable Honestly, those tweets caught me off guard, but I had never felt a pain like that in my life So I felt like I had no place thinking about why he would say that or worse yet actually telling him that he shouldn't say that I remember thinking why would he not lean on God more in such a time of weakness and why would they continue to question God's plans? Honestly, I found myself on all asking God why he would take away what they described as the blue of their family away from them Especially when they were still in a state of grief from their father knowing that this would put them in a state of grief be on return We ask Christians often think that once we believe in God everything will go perfectly First this concept was one I fell victim too deeply until Dr. Best opened my eyes on a story of the church class once He said we literally serve a suffering Messiah Jesus was crucified on the cross for our sins Despite throwing himself down to the ground and praying my father if it is possible take this cup of suffering away from me Dr. Best said Messiah's uncle survived. However, Jesus did it for us anyway Last semester Jamie spoke about being in a new valley of the six day chapel credit I had acquired that semester that one resonated with me the most The Malonees were in their valley. They were in the deepest and darkest valley of shadow of death You could think of they asked God why on a daily basis and not trusting him and his plans and while their pain is very unfortunate I learned some of my most important life lessons from it and it's one to trust God always and never doubt his plans to you are not going to be in your valley forever and three life is not meant to be perfect these imperfections help us grow In my attempt to bring the idea of the topic to life and forward to you all the first place I turned to was the Bible Here are some Bible verses that have changed my perspective on the anxieties behind asking God why Psalms chapter 23 verse 4 even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will banal evil for you are with me your rod on your staff. They comfort me Proverbs chapter 3 verses 5 to 7 Shost in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways submit to him and he will direct your path straight Romans chapter 8 verse 31 if God is for us who can be against us and Psalms chapter 46 verse 10 be still and know that I am God I Started this this talk where I mentioned in these talk videos that moved me to even be up here talking in the first place And I want to leave you all with the message that that ticked off left with me Just because God is in your boat does not mean you're not going to go through a storm It means the storm no matter how big it is is not to go into sink your boat I also want to turn back to what coach Carver said last Friday your boat was never meant to send the harbor Even in the waves and hurricanes of life whether you're storm because God is with you take that chance Know that life is not going to be perfect, but don't give up keep God in your boat. Thank you