Anything Is Possible Pt. 1

This is the first Sunday of 2026, what? What just happened? It's 2026 and we have turned a corner. It's like the kids that are counting to 10, ready or not, here I come, it's here. And the title of today's message is Anything is Possible. And I can add in there in 2026 if you want. I know this, that God has good things ahead for all of us. We started a new era, if you will. No matter what happened in the past, you are in a new chapter of the story. Come on, somebody. In fact, turn to the person next to you and say, you started a new chapter. You started a new chapter. And if we let our ears be open, God will lean in and whisper to our souls, it's not over. I'm gonna do a new thing. And I don't need to be worried about it because today, today's a new day. No matter what obstacles I've gone through before, today is a brand new day. Jodi and I were in Florida this last week and we stayed at her sister's house. But I was able to drive over on Wednesday, New Year's Eve, Jodi and I to go to the Citrus Bowl where Michigan was playing in the Citrus Bowl against Texas. So as we drove over, Jodi and I, we would go to the game and we'd pull, it was about two hours away.

So we drove, we're following the GPS and then we see the stadium. And as we got there, we're like, where are we gonna park? And then there's all kinds of people waving their flags, just like the state fair, hey, park here, park here. And we're like, how much, how much? And finally, we're like, okay, let's go in. We get into the little spot, we're up in the grass. And we close the doors and Jodi goes, make sure you drop a pin. How many of you know what that means? She's like, she wants to make sure we make it our way back to the car. So she'd take out the phone and go to the GPS and hit that spot, you double click on the spot where you're in and you can drop a pin so that when you come out of the stadium, you know, you're way back to that spot. How many of you have forgotten where you parked somewhere before? And so out of fear of not repeating that kind of circumstance, we wanted to make our way back to the right spot. And of course, I would love it if you'd make, drop a pin today for Emmanuel where you're at in any of our locations, that every week on Sunday for this year, you can make your way back to church, come on, somebody. Just to remember, this doesn't have to be a one-time experience.

The first month of the year is an excellent moment to drop a pin, to stop and recognize where you are at this moment. Before you head into the future, look around, evaluate, locate your life. What's the actual status of your soul, your health, what's the status of the relationships in your life, your physical body, your finances? What about the location or status of the people around you? Often we think of ourselves, but how are the people closest to you doing? What's going on in their life to locate and understand where they are? And if we can do that, there's an ability to get back to where we need to be because if you're like me, I have a potentity to drift and so I can lose my purpose, I can lose where am I at if I don't drop a pin, if you will, and then when I do that, wherever else I am, I can bounce my prayers, my soul off a heaven's satellite and it can give me directions how to make my way out. Today we're gonna look at someone who dropped a pin and discovered that God was ready to raise his expectations for what is possible. His name is Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a Jew, he was born in captivity outside of his nation, if you will, and he rose through the ranks to the second most powerful position in the entire Persian Empire.

The last verse that Nehemiah wants is that he was the cupbearer to the king, which simply means there were a lot of assassinations back in those days and when there was assassinations, A lot of times they would use food or drink as their way to get their poison to the king. So the cup bearer was the most trusted person who would drink or eat the food before the king did. And if he lived, the king ate it, or drank. And if not, so you might think, well, that's just a taster. That's just somebody that tastes the food. But no, actually, it had to be the most trusted person to the king. It was actually a very high-ranking role. And here he is in this position. I want you to consider today that no matter what position of life you're in, you might have everything you want. You might have nothing you want. You might really like your life right now, or you might be in tension because there are things you want to have changed. All of us can find strength in Nehemiah's story because God would drop vision to Nehemiah. He was at the top, think about this. He was at the top of his career. He was at the top pay scale. Everything was great. His 401k was stacked.

He was ready for the end. He didn't need anything. He had everything he wanted. And yet in Nehemiah, we will see that God would drop a new vision on him outside of just what Nehemiah's life would be about. It was about a much larger picture in the kingdom of God. And I want you to know that God will drop vision in your life when you listen to him. We'll talk about the how in just a few moments. But you need to be aware it's bigger than you. It's more than just about you. It's more than just about your business, your family, your current status. It's actually a larger picture and Nehemiah was brought into that. And with God, anything beyond the borders of where you are is possible. Nehemiah chapter one. I want you to see how God uses an extraordinary man to do extraordinary things. It says this in Nehemiah chapter one. You can find it in the Emanuel MN notes as well. These are the memoirs of Nehemiah, son of Hakaliah. You can pronounce that how you want. In late autumn in the month of Kislev in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. Now it says right out of the gate in Nehemiah that these are the memoirs.

This is the personal journal of a leader. This isn't a book about a character. This is the journal of the leader. We're gonna learn his perspective, his thoughts, and we're gonna see how God intervenes and crosses over. Did you know that God wants to enter your personal journal? That he's not just giving big words for whole cities and churches and nations, but how many know he wants to talk directly to you? And so if you allow him, he will write a story in your own journal. And some of you are like, I don't want anybody to see my journal. Some of you are like, I don't have a journal because I don't want anybody to read what would be in my journal. But I want you to consider that perhaps God would do something in you just like in Nehemiah. Now it says that he was at the fortress of Susa. Susa is an interesting place. I'll talk about that in a moment. So Nehemiah is writing a journal in a place called Susa. This is his personal journal. And I want you to know you can learn from people who have gone the distance, gone ahead of you. People who have spiritual long-term records of success. Didn't mean they didn't fail, didn't mean things didn't go right all the time, but it meant that they lasted. How many wanna be one of those people

that's there at the finish line? Not just have like a little spurt that you did well, but did you continue to keep walking? Nehemiah is one of those people and you can learn from them. Hebrews chapter 13 talks about remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives and follow the example of their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I love those verses together. I didn't wanna leave out the Jesus Christ part because just because it was true back then doesn't mean it's left back then. But the values of what we can learn from these leaders like Nehemiah still play out today. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now he's at the Fortress of Susa. I just wanna pause and. I wanna show you a map of the area of the world that we're talking about. So on the screen, you will see that there, to the far right, is Jerusalem. That's in Israel. And then to the left, all the way over, you'll see Susa, just above the Persian Gulf there. Now that is the distance between Nehemiah and Israel or Jerusalem. It's 800 to 1,000 miles away,

depending on the routes that you take. So you're talking about a very far distance that Nehemiah is away from Israel at this point. And he begins to write. And of course, there's an epic story. There's a grand movie that's gonna be found in the following chapters of this book. And what he does is he starts off saying, this is kinda how it all started. So what had happened was, and he begins to share the story. So let's go ahead and look at it. Verse number two, it says, Hananiah, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, things are not going well. Everybody said, not going well. Things are not going well for those who return to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire. So Nehemiah's brother goes and visits Israel, Judah, Jerusalem. He goes and visits. Now, there's a backstory to this moment.

You see, God had promised Israel that he would be with them forever when the nation was established, the first kings. But God had also said, if you don't follow and obey my commands, then part of your discipline is gonna be, I'm gonna send you into captivity. So those 800 to 1,000 miles east, because Israel disobeyed God and he gave them chance after chance after chance, because they disobeyed God, now they're in another land for over 70 years. This is quite the timeout discipline, right? I'm gonna give your kids a timeout. He's putting them out in another space so that the people can turn in their hearts back to God. Nehemiah and his family, Nehemiah most likely was born in captivity. He was not born in Israel. He didn't have stories of growing up there, but he was raised by parents who said, hey, listen, don't forget our homeland. These are the stories of old. So Nehemiah and his brother, they had heard all these stories and his brother went on a trip. We don't know if it was a business trip or it was just a vacation or whatever else, but when he came back a few months after, he gives the word that things are not good in our homeland.

Now there have been, since the time of captivity, there have been a few groups of people that had gone back to try and rebuild Jerusalem. Ezra, who's a contemporary of Nehemiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the order of the Bible. Ezra was a priest who went back to rebuild the temple so that they could begin to sacrifice again in Israel. So he went back. Now they did the first things that they could do to get it back going, but the building was broken down and they really couldn't get regular supplies there. And it was not the religion that God had envisioned for them. And the people were not proud about it. They tried. So now Nehemiah is over in the Persian empire, the one that's in control of that whole part of the world, and Nehemiah is getting word back that things are not going good there. And part of the report was that the walls of Jerusalem, which is the great walls around the city, had been broken down and now they were vulnerable in the city to marauders, to invaders, to enemies, to come in and take. If people had already gone back like Ezra had and they were rebuilding things, they were vulnerable to the enemy coming in and taking them out.

So they're there, but they're not doing well. It's really bad. It's a bad report. So as Nehemiah gets this bad news, there was a spot in his heart and his mind that he is like, what do I do with this? And we'll talk about that in a moment. I want to ask you a question though, before we move on. What do you do with bad news? What do you do when you hear about things outside of your story? I mean, Nehemiah. at this point, he's doing okay. He's got his salary, he's got his position, he's got all the money he needs. But now he gets news in the middle of this. What do you do with what is bothering you? What do you do when somebody shares with you news about a family member? What do you do when it feels like things aren't as it should be? Personally, what if your family's not doing well or a family member isn't doing well? Or perhaps your finances aren't doing well, there's broken relationships. Some of us, we get disappointed in ourselves, especially in January. When we think about and look in the mirror and we're not where we wish we were,

and we're not whatever, you fill in the blanks. And we can be disappointed, our walls are broken, it bothers us, let me take it another step. What do you do when you hear bad news outside of your family? And you hear about it in our city, or our state, or our nation. And nowadays, it's a constant feed. There's a new event that happens, there's new things exposed, there's something going on, and at first you're like, yeah, that's bad, it's bad news. And then somebody else has a different take on it, and now those people are fighting over the bad news. What do you do with what bothers you? What do you do when you see things, and there's broken down walls in government, broken down walls in society, broken walls in your own life? I want you to know that in Nehemiah's story, because I can't preach about the whole thing today, that whatever happens next, anything is possible. It becomes a grand story where Nehemiah ends up going back to Jerusalem, and he rebuilds the walls around Jerusalem in 52 days. And God uses his role as the number two guy in the Persian Empire, and God gives him great things, but before we even get to the rebuild, we get to the strategy, we need to deal with what bothered him first. There would be no vision if we don't deal

with what the walls are broken down with. And anything will be possible for you when you pay attention to what bothers you. Pay attention to what you do with what bothers you. Let me give you four ways to turn a burden into vision. Four ways to turn a burden into vision. Number one, stop. Stop. Stop, look at verse four, Nehemiah one. When I heard this, I sat down and wept. This is a very important thing to not skip over on your way to vision land. How many want great vision in your life? You want God to do new things, and you wanna do, well, before you get there, stop. Turn to the person next to you and say, stop it. They just woke up, that's a good thing. Nehemiah sat down and wept, he stopped. He heard the news, and he didn't get calloused or hard-hearted, he stopped and sat down and he wept. If you ignore the burden, the thing that's bothering you, act like it didn't happen, or even jump into fixing the problem, no vision is coming your way. Because you're dealing with it yourself, you're ignoring it, or you're not available for God's vision yet. This is what the Bible refers to as lament. A song of mourning or sorrow may result from bereavement or the loss of a loved one, personal trouble, national disaster, or God's judgment.

Biblically speaking, there's a whole book in the Bible called Lamentations, so it's really important to understand how to lament or feel what's going on. Let it sink in, feel the loss, the hurt, the injustice. Let it be there, that's what stopping is. It's saying, okay, I need, notice the moment I'm in. Now, if I'm in that moment, we have to be able to feel that moment. I remember a couple years ago, we had a board member, Joe Martin, who was a good friend of mine, who I got word on a Saturday afternoon that he had a heart attack, and on our way to the hospital, hospital I heard through a text that he had gone to be with Jesus and I, Joe was more than just a colleague on the board to me, Joe was a friend, great amazing guy and he and his wife and his kids are amazing people and I love them so much and even mentioning his name I don't want that to cause pain to you I want but I want to feel the moment it's okay to feel lost and for me I remember you know Joe, Joe was the I first met Joe when we went to to Pastor Dwight Denya's house my predecessor for a meeting with the board Jody and I walked up it was our first meeting there deciding whether or not I was to be the next pastor of Emmanuel and as you know Jody and I had been praying and what do you think about that what are the people gonna be like when we show up there blah blah blah and we're walking up to the door and the first person that met us at the door was Joe Martin and Joe had a polo on with a Michigan block and on a shirt and I went it must be Jesus I'm like this is this is amazing he loved you know and and it proved to be amazing because we had so much in common our kids love sports he loves sports we text back and forth during Michigan football and basketball games and then we would have coffees together we would talk about raising our kids and there's just a lot of connection back and forth so when Joe died and I walked into the in the hospital room with this family they were

all feeling great pain and loss and it was sudden he was in his 50s nobody saw it coming he seemed to be in great health all of that the family was stricken with it was just outer shock so as a pastor I had to walk with them through those moments it was a Saturday evening by the time I got back left the hospital is midnight I was driving back and I needed to preach the next morning at church and I remember I was taking care of them but I had yet to deal with Nate you know I'm saying some of you are always taking care of everybody else but you haven't really dealt with your own loss yet and I think it's important for everyone to have a moment to stop to sit down and to weep not all of us know how to cry so I'm not saying you have to become a crier but to acknowledge the loss and for me I needed to do that the next morning I like God's grace was there I was able to preach but then began my journey of stopping I remember just acknowledging it to my wife and acknowledging it to keep people close to me this hurts I don't have an answer for it but I got to be a part of the funeral and other things and then the weeks to come I even went to the my counselor and I just said this is what I feel and in my counselor would ask me so what are you feeling now this is two months later so I'm not saying you get over it all at once because you acknowledge it but acknowledging when it happens is an important thing for you to do now I'm not even talking about just loss from a loved one or a friend or a death but there can be lost for other things in our life season changes our kids grow up and they move into the next season of life or now all of a sudden I'm getting older you pass certain birthdays and you don't feel as good as you thought they would feel and you hit different stages of your life where there is loss it's okay to stop because in that moment that's where God will join you Psalm 34 18 the Lord is close to the brokenhearted he rescues those whose spirits are crushed too many people rush to fill that void we get super busy with our calendar we act like nothing's going on or even in simple ways when we're bothered in social media by some political thing going on in the land all of a sudden anger rises up within us and we're not comforted we become

something other than we should be if you wait and let the Lord hold you and minister to you his grace in your pain in the burden in what you're bothered by then there is opportunity for vision that's where the vision can kick in four ways to turn a burden into vision number one stop number two surrender and turn to God surrender and turn to God look at verse 4 again it says when I heard this I sat down and Well, in fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. Now, fasting is the biblical action of intentionally denying any other source than God. At a basic level, we all crave food or look to something to fill in the agitations that we feel. Food is specifically mentioned in every biblical fast. So let me just say, food is always in there. Food is also there in the first sin. Come on, somebody. So is it any surprise that we have to deal with this in fasting? But it's always linked to fasting and prayer as well. So it's not a matter of just letting go of something. It's also a matter of what you turn to in your loss, in what is bothering you. Surrender means that we stop trusting in anything else so that we can turn to God. It could be any appetite. It could be a need for approval. It could be going to social media. When we stop, there's a vacuum that we're trying to fill in. So we've stopped, we're acknowledging, we're bothered,

but what we do next is really a big deal. It's critical to fill that void with God. That's where word and the worship and prayer matters. It's not just a diet and shutting off the faucet of food. It's also about what we open ourselves up to in that moment. Now, this is why when you're bothered, you're frustrated, what do you do? Do you go for the bag of chips? Or the half gallon of ice cream? Or do you start scrolling? Because listen, something is filling a void, a vacuum inside of you. And all of us know the truth. When we're just scrolling, we're not getting better. We're not feeling whole. Our grief might be medicated or shifted to anger towards somebody else. And let me tell you this, we all deal with this. This is just a human thing. Like, things just happen in life. Jody and I, when we're driving in the traffic in Sarasota, Florida, which was ridiculous, and lights, and it's, you know, you go three miles, took 30 minutes, and trying to figure out how to navigate this. And it seems like on some days, like everything is not going your way. Anybody ever had a day like that? And I can remember, we get into Starbucks, and the line is long, and the service is slow.

What am I feeling right now? I'm feeling bothered. What do I do with what is bothering me? Because the longer it goes, the more something's growing inside of me. I can, in that moment, say, thank you for the fruit of the Spirit, Lord. Love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control. Give me that patience, Lord. I need some of that patience, right? Because if I lean in at that moment to what's bothering me, whatever I lean into comes out of me. So if I keep leaning into being bothered, noticing somebody else is being treated better than me, somebody else got the light, somebody else got the parking spot, somebody else is doing something, and if I lean into being bothered, the more I lean into that, the less of the fruit of the Spirit comes out of me. So I've been intentionally locking in on this, because I am notoriously frustrated when I'm driving. The left lane is not for slow drivers, y'all. Come on. Does that sound like the fruit of the Spirit coming out of me? No. You know, like, I was raised growing up in Michigan, like, you talk to everybody else while you're driving. You're like, you know, the gas pedal's on your right.

Let's go, great blinker you got there, you know, or whatever, I'm talking. And my wife has shared with me that when I'm driving, she doesn't feel loving. She doesn't feel, like, loved by me. I must be growing into a porcupine or something while I'm driving. So she's not gonna hug me. She's not gonna feel great around me. So what I've been working on is just saying, Holy Spirit, help me on the little things that bother me. Not just the big moments, but the little things that bother me. Help me to lean into you in that moment. Lord, I thank you, no matter what happens, even if we're late to get there, even if I, Nothing works right. Thank you that my name is written in the land's book of life. Thank you, Lord, that you know how to weave everything together for the good. I don't see it right now, but thank you that you know how to do it. And then you lean into that, you surrender and turn to God. Now, starting tomorrow, we start our 21 days of prayer and fasting. We do it every January here at Emmanuel. And we do it, you can do it individually, but we do it as a church family. I believe that when we do that, great things happen.

We don't do it so that God loves us more. It's so that we can hear him better, okay? And we lean into what he's doing. And so tomorrow starts that. We've got booklets on how to fast and pray, and some guides, even practical things on how to fast, how to pray, even a prayer wheel if you wanted to pray. There's a whole lot of great things. You can get that on your way out today and I encourage you to utilize it. Now, if you've never fasted before, don't start fasting 21 days without food, like cold turkey. It just won't work and you'll be the porcupine. Nobody wanna be around you. So there's a way to kind of ease your way into it. There's a way to go about it. If you're a veteran faster, I understand that. But here's the point, that when you jump in, what's happening is you can choose not just food, but you can choose other sources to cut out of your life too. If you have found yourself in the last seven days getting more angry every time you scroll social media, maybe don't do social media for three weeks. What would happen to your soul? Well, I wouldn't know what happened. You can read it in the newspaper tomorrow. I think they still have those. You know what I'm saying? What would happen?

You're shutting something off and then you can go to the Word. You can let the Word saturate your soul. You can listen to worship instead of other talk shows. Why not take your soul to a different place? During those 21 days, God will speak to you about yourself, about your family, about your business, about the world that is around you. And we're believing for God to do that, just to help one of the things that I'm gonna do starting tomorrow, Monday to Thursday for the next three weeks, from six to 6.30. I'm gonna go on our social media manual with prayer. You can join me if you want from six to 6.30. I'm gonna do it from our prayer room in Spring Lake Park. It's in our parking lot in our building. You used to call it the porch. You can join me in person if you want from six to 6.30 and we're just gonna pray. Or you can go on for wherever you're at at your house. Some of you, like, you get up at 4 a.m. and six is late. And some of you, if you get up and you pray at 6 a.m., it's a move of God. So I know that we're all over the map on this. You might even say, hey, listen, I'm gonna replay that later in the day and then you can just pray it later in the day with us. I wanted one thing that we all did together, if we could. So if you wanna do it, we're gonna start tomorrow. It's just a half an hour.

You can join for five minutes. You can join for 30 minutes. You can do it however you want, but we're gonna start it tomorrow, Monday to Thursday, and I'll be on there and we're gonna pray together. Everybody said amen to that. Four ways to turn a burden into vision. Number one, stop. Number two, surrender and turn to God. Number three, pray specific prayers. Pray specific prayers. Verse number five of Nehemiah 1. Then I said, and remember, this is a personal journal. Nehemiah says to God, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands. When he turns to God, he bases his prayers on God's character and God's authority. So when you turn from your burden and you're gonna talk to God, success starts, follows when you start with his greatness, not your inability. Now some of you, I won't ask for a show of hands, but when you go pray, in your head you're like, I'm not sure if God's gonna listen to me. I'm not sure if he hears, he must hear Pastor Nate's prayer way better than he hears mine. No, no, no.

God comes close to the brokenhearted, to the humble, and when the humble recognizes, I know who I'm not, so I'm not basing this prayer on me. I'm basing it on the greatness of God. And when you turn to God, away from the thing that bothers you, and you turn to God, you might be prepared to talk about those things in a moment, but you start with saying, God, you're amazing, you're faithful to a thousand. thousand generations, you follow up on your covenant. Your contract is real. When it says in your word that you forgive the sinner, you do that. When it says you heal the sick, you do that. When it says that you'll come through to those that call on your name, you do that. So when I talk to you, I'm talking to the one that actually follows through. He's the most reliable source in all the world. And he never runs out. His battery never runs dry. And he talks to the Lord. He starts praying. Then he says in verse number six, listen to my prayer. Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned.

We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses. Please remember what you told your servant Moses. If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored. The people you rescued by your own, by your great power and strong hand are your servants. Don't you see, very simply, Nehemiah owns the problem. He makes himself a part of it. He's not just a critiquer pointing out all the problems out there. He owns it for himself. We are in this predicament because we abandoned your ways, God. And so he owns it for himself. This is the key. If you want vision from God, own the problem. Even if you personally didn't start it, you're one of the family. You're one of the city. You're one of the state. That when you look around you and you see the things you don't like going on and the news during the week and there's different reports coming out

about our government and how money was working and things going on in the military and everybody else is fighting over all of those things. Instead of just sitting there going, nope, nope, that was you, nope, nope. What if you just turned to God and you said, God, this is my city. Forgive Minneapolis. Forgive Minnesota. Lord, we're in a predicament because we didn't follow your ways and this is the result of it. But we need a Holy Ghost revival. We need you to come and change our hearts. We need repentance, true repentance. We need a change from the inside out, not just on the outside, but on the inside. Please forgive us. Instead of separating myself from other groups of people, I need to join them in my prayer life and say, Lord, thank you for my governor. Thank you for my city. Thank you for the business leaders and the education people in my community. There are things I don't understand and way beyond my pay grade to fix, but I'm going over their head and I own this. This is my town. This is my city. So what I'm about to ask you for, God,

I'm not just asking you to change them. I want to be a part of the solution by joining in with it. Come on, somebody. This is my house. Yeah. Gonna make me start preaching now. Then he says in verse number 11, oh Lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me. In those days, I was the king's cupbearer. He asks God for success to be a part of the solution. He recognizes it's not just a prayer, it's a team. Lord, I want you to move. I want to fist bump heaven, but I want to be a part of the win. Help me in the place you've put me, in the role that I'm in, in the season of life that I'm in. Grant me success so that this world that you've given me can be utilized to change the world that you're gonna give me a vision for. And what he does, a vision begins to start to form because he's a part of the problem and a part of the solution. Four ways to turn a burden into vision. One was stop, two is surrender,

and turn to God through a vision. Three, pray specific prayers. And number four, make room for vision. Make room for vision. When you go pray, be prepared to listen. What is God saying? Be ready to write it down. Bring a pen with you. Write it somewhere. What is God's vision for your business? What is God's vision for your family, your time, your focus? Let God's vision become bigger than what bothers you. Let God's vision become bigger than what bothers you. Proverbs 29, 18, when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful. Psalm 37, 23, the Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Habakkuk 2, and the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it. What if you wrote down what God is saying to you? Listen, and then let God drop vision in your heart. Over these next three weeks, 21 days, what if God began to give you some new stuff? Proverbs 16 says this, commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed. I'm calling the church to drop a pen today. Start with where you are.

What is the true state of your heart and your life? What are the obstacles, those things that bother you? Your burden can be turned into vision. What are the walls that need to be rebuilt first? You can't move on to other dreams until you deal with that. Nehemiah had to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem so they could fix other things inside the city. What are those things that you need to do first? What does Matthew 6, 33 say? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things will be added unto you. Take a paper, write a note, put a note in your phone, drop a pen if you will, and say, Lord, I'm ready to be utilized by you.