Listen - Justin Carver

God is good. All right, hey, I actually threw in a slide today. I didn't anticipate putting in. But talking about the goodness of God, that's what we're talking about right now. The goodness of God. And I've been blessed. Goodness of God. When I was a little kid, how many of you thought about marrying a prince or princess when you were little? Come on now. Don't be nervous. Hey, when I was a little kid, I dreamed of marrying. Let me show you here. Zina, the warrior princess. See you guys don't even know who that is. That's how sad that is. Hey, the goodness of God, my wife actually got to come today. She is a warrior princess. I'm thankful for her. It's their 100th day of school today, pajama day at school. So they get to where they're pajamas. And she's here. She actually told our daughter this morning, it's actually pajama day, not hobo day. So you still have to brush your hair and your teeth. She was not happy about that. But thank you for being here. Marie something for you. Pretty little devil, liar, deceiver, false profit, blood wicked, you ain't no preacher. I feel the devil all around you, purging. The devil's all around you. I feel him lurking. Pretty little devil, liar, cheater, a cold-hearted blood-sucking little leacher. Oh, I should move. You're no good for me. Monster, oh, you turn me into a monster. Lord, protect me from the wicked. Lord, oh, you turn me into a monster. Let me let them know your name. Let me let them know your pain. The sacrifices you made, they won't. We won't let them be in vain. Lord, it's your world. We're just spinning in it. We're just living in it. Don't you tell me how to feel? I'm going to feel my way. Because Yahweh died on the cross, and he rose on the third day. Bless those that curse you, bless those that hurt you, debt to your sin, gather the church. I'll take you back to 2013 here, 2013. 2013 was one of the best years professionally of my life. We had won conference championship in cross-country. We had just swept conference and track both men and women. I had been married in the last year, and I was turned in 30. As we were preparing for NAI Nationals, I used to work out with the team every day. Shout out to you, Coach Bell. Still grinding, baby. Working out with the team right before I went to Nationals. I did something to my back. I went to bed. I woke up the next day, and I had no feeling, no power, no strength in my right side, from here down. Not a thing. I was sitting in church the very next day, sitting in the pew thinking, why can I not get my toe off the ground? I can't get it off. I can't get my toe off the ground. I can't raise my heel off the ground. This is bananas. I went to the doctor. They told me I had herniated a disc, L4, L5, S1. Just cutting off the nerves. There was no nerves getting there of surgery. I'll cut you all those details, but I was lost. I was like, how can I have something so amazing going on in my life professionally? I'm newly married. About to turn 30, I feel fresh and froggy. And now I can't walk, and they're telling me, I may never be able to walk again. I got into some deep darkness in that moment. And then I started thinking, don't focus on what you can't do, focus on what you can, right? You know, that coach inside of you is telling you, don't focus on what you can't do, focus on what you can. So I started trying things. I went to Menards. I saw these huge bathtub kayaks, like 50, 60 pounds, just straight plastic and heaviness. I thought that's it. I'm gonna become a kayaker. I've got the perfect build for it. Light, nimble, lean. Yeah, right. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be a kayaker. So like anybody, I thought, you know what, I gotta go on an adventure. Where am I gonna go kayaking? Branch Stoke, you can only do so many loops before you get tired. So I called one of my friends. I have been blessed with good friends who are always down for an adventure. I said, hey, I got this plan. Let's go on a three, four day kayak adventure. He said, I got you, bro. There's a 70 mile place called the Loop River, just north of here. Let me show you what this looks like. Loop River, right above Grand Island. You go up to St. Paul all the way over to Columbus, 68 miles, the Loop River runs. We thought, we're gonna go, we're gonna put our kayak, we're gonna get our kayaks, we're gonna take a water, we're gonna take our camping stuff, our fire, we're gonna get our tent. We're gonna go kayaks 70 miles and three days. 24 miles a day on the Loop River. Three miles an hour, eight hours a day, 24 miles a day. We got this. So we start packing, I'm like, I got this, I got that, I got this. My wife's like, hey, how can I help? I was like, you know what I don't have? A sleeping pad. She'll wait, buying one of those things. It's like 200 bucks. I said, if you don't, it would work. If you go to the swimming or to Walmart and go to the swimming pool section and get one of those, you know those lounge things that you can lay on, that'll be perfect. She's like, I got you, honey, I got you. So she goes to Walmart, she picks that up. We go a couple, like two weeks later. You know, it's not a lot of planning. It's like, let's do this thing. We go, we get our kayak, we get all of our stuff. We put it inside these big boats of kayaks. We go to the, go to St. Paul area, we pull off, we load our kayaks, we put everything in there. I still can barely walk. I'm dragging my leg, I'm like, I can do this. We getting the water, we start kayaking. We gotta go 24 miles on this day to get to our checkpoint. We go probably, I mean, I can turn around. I remember turning around and still being able to see the overpass where we dropped the car off. And I started dragging my kayak. Okay, hey, we're going on a kayak trip. We're not going on a drag your kayak trip. I remember dragging it. We're in like two inches of water. I'm dragging this 50 pound kayak with everything else. I'm limping through the water. I look back. Let me tell you something, if you don't know. Sand bars are a beach. Shout out Mark Miller. I had only gone about a hundred yards and I started pulling my kayak. We keep going, I'll make a long story short. We keep, we pull, we pull, we pull. We finally, we pulled, we walked. We tried to kayak all day long. 10 hours later, we camp out on a sand bar. I'm sitting there, I'm thinking. This is absolutely the worst day ever. I'm hot, my back hurts, I'm angry. I'm sitting there and I'm like, you know what? The only blessing I have today is that I told my wife to pack me a pad to sleep on. I pull open my pack and it is a pool pillow. You guys don't get it, I'm not a small man and the pool pillow is like four inches by four inches. By this time I'm raging. I ripped that thing to shreds, I threw it in the water, I'm sorry I shouldn't have polluted. But my mind was polluted, I was angry. I sat down, I'm punching the water, I'm looking for my slingshot 'cause I thought, you know, I can crack some groundhogs with a slingshot while I'm here. I pull it out, I'm looking for anything that breathes to shoot with that thing. I'm sitting there, I'm just human, so angry. My buddy, Levi Rath, who is the one who went with me, stud of a guy, Camsey sits next to me. He was like, dude, it's all right, I'm like, leave me alone. I'm angry. You see what my wife packed to me? Are you kidding me? She's like, listen, I can just listen. I'm like, all I can hear is the lava inside my head in my heart, bubbling. I'm like, oh, listen, I don't hear a thing, he was like, that's the point. Listen, I've been blessed to have good friends in my life. He could have very easily sat down, your misery likes company. Like, yeah, you know, this sucks. We looked at our GPS, I didn't tell you this, we'd only gotten 10 miles. I was frustrated, I said, listen. I sat there for a second, I started listening. I heard crickets chirping, I heard the water running. I heard frogs that I didn't want to shoot with a slingshot. He was like, man, God's all around us. Shhh. All right, I'm so angry, I'm so caught up in my own anger and misery of thinking, if I just do this, I'll feel back to normal. If I just do this, I'll be back to normal. Rest of the night, we sat there the next morning. I took this picture, you can see what I'm talking about. Look at the sand bar, where's the water? That's supposed to be a river. You can see a little bit in the back. Amazing sunrise, amazing moment. What I've been talking about, where is the goodness of God? I think it's all around us. How many of you spent, I don't have TikTok, I don't have TikTok, I do got an Instagram and I don't know, it's just my algorithm, but every day when I look, there's these certain songs, you know what I'm talking about, they just keep coming up. They just keep coming up, they're keep coming up. Well, this one kept coming up. And I was like, all it is is mumble to me. I don't even know what it's saying, just mumble, but I like the beat, I like the way it sounds. I got to know what it's saying, but I'm just in the moment, I'm just looking at an ex-insurant grand reel, usually motivation. Where is the goodness of God? It's all around us. Then I looked up this song, where I play just a minute of it. You see, when I say God's all around us, he's all around us, he's going into our hearts, he's going into our minds without us even knowing it. You want to know where the goodness of God is? It's all around us, earlier we talked about, where is God? On the mountain, I mean to yell, I'm sorry, that was shout out to Dr. Pack, pillar of smoke, pillar of fire, where is God? To the cross, to the heavens, to our God. You see, we were never intended to go through life like this. We were intended to look to the mountain, to the pillar of smoke, to the fire, to the cross, to the heaven, to our God. Because you want to know where the goodness of God is? It's all around us, and we take a second to look. Here's my prayer, and I'll be done today for us, as a body, come straight from those lyrics. Let them, let me let them know your name, let me let them know your pain, sacrifices you made. Lord, it won't be in vain. Lord, it's your world, we're just spinning in it. Lord, it's your world, we're just living in it. I'm gonna feel my way, because Yahweh, my Yahweh died on the cross and he rose on the third day. Bless those you've cursed, bless those you've hurt, death to your sin. Let's gather the church, shout out to care best. You wanna see God's goodness? Look up.