Help! How Do I Have Healthy Relationships? | Pastor Rebecca Peterson

Before we jump in, I wanna take a minute and welcome anyone who is joining us online. Hey, online family, we love you. We're grateful that you are joining us online, but we'd love to see you in-house next weekend. Come on, we'll save a seat for you. We'd love to have you here in person. And then, maybe you know this or not, but we do stream our messages into prison facilities all across the United States. And so, could you put your hands together and welcome all of the men and women who are joining us in correction facilities. We love you. You are our church family as well, and we hope that God speaks to your heart today. So today, my message is entitled, very simply, help, how do I have healthy relationships? How do I have healthy relationships? So, we're gonna have some crowd participation before we kick off. How many of you, show of hands, would agree that relationships are hard? Okay, if you didn't raise your hand, you're not telling the truth. They're hard at times, right? All right, another show of hands. How many of you would be honest this morning and say, I have some messy relationships in my life? Maybe it's with a coworker, with a friend,

maybe your marriage, maybe it is your in-laws, maybe it's somebody in this room and you didn't wanna raise your hand because you didn't want them to know you were calling them out. But at some point in our life, all of us are gonna have some relationships that get a little bit messy at times. I wish all relationships were easy. I wish it was just easy breezy forever, but there are going to be moments where we get our feelings hurt, where someone else gets their feelings hurt, where we get offended, where we say something we shouldn't have said, or where we're walking through a hard season and the relationship just gets a little bit messy. And so today, as followers of Jesus, come on, we have an opportunity to decide if we wanna stay in the dysfunction or if we want to do our part to make our relationships healthy. Romans 12, 18 says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. So as far as it depends on us, as followers of Christ, we're gonna do our part to live at peace with the people in our life. And so this is not an elbowing the person beside you. This isn't, man, I really wish that so-and-so

could hear this message today. We're actually gonna roll up our sleeves today. This is gonna be spiritual, but it's also gonna be very practical. And we're gonna choose to do the hard part to evaluate our relationships and to see if they're healthy and we're gonna do the hard work to evaluate are we actually the healthy ones in our relationships. And so we're not just talking about marriage today. So don't tune out if you're not married and just think, all right, this doesn't apply to me, I'm not married. No, this message is for all relationships. And what I do want you to know is if you are married, this is not a message today that's really gonna dig into the nitty gritty of the unhealthy side of your relationship. That's gonna come in another part of this series. And so if you are in here, though, and you would say, I am in a very unhealthy marriage, and not just like, oh, we're not getting along and we're fighting. No, I mean like, it's terrible. And there is maybe even potential abuse or you just feel like you are manipulated in your marriage. We wanna be here for you. We're not gonna be digging into that necessarily today, but we're gonna have a prayer team here at the close of service that would be honored to pray with you.

If you are in what we would label an abusive marriage, we've got some really amazing guys in this church that would love to help you get out of that abusive marriage. And so we've got, we'll have a prayer team here at the end of service. They'll be here to pray with you, to encourage you, and to hopefully help you find your next steps. And so we're gonna evaluate our relationships. Are they healthy? Are they unhealthy? How is my behavior in my marriage or in my relationships? And also another caveat for marriages, you don't get to walk out of here today and say, all right, Pastor Rebecca said my marriage is unhealthy, so I just get to peace out in the other direction. This is not like a free card today. All right, things got a little hard. Now I just get to leave the marriage. Like that's not what we're doing today. I'm gonna give you some tools, as far as it depends on you, that you're going to bring to the table in your marriage to make it be as healthy as it possibly can be. And so here's what we're gonna look at today. Healthy versus unhealthy. We're gonna look to God's word. We've got a lot of scripture to cover today, so I need you to get out your notes, take notes today, and you're gonna walk out and say,

man, what was that scripture that really just hit my heart? And you're gonna forget. So take some notes. There's a note sheet in the seat in front of you. The first one we're gonna look at today is loving versus controlling. Loving versus controlling. And again, this is for all relationships. We want our marriages to be loving and not controlling. We want our friendships to be loving and not controlling. We want our relationships with our children to be loving and not controlling. I won't ask you to raise your hand for this one, but I would imagine that most of us know someone in our life who is controlling, and it's not fun to be in a relationship with them. Now listen, I am the wrong. I'm a girl to try to control. There is something that comes out on the inside of me when someone tries to tell me what to do that I just want to run in the other direction. I am a rule follower for the most part until you tell me I have to follow a rule and then I'm like, peace, you don't get to tell me what to do. And so I'm working on that in my life because I don't like to be controlled. I don't want you to tell me what to do. But all of us, I think if we were being honest I would say that we could do some work

in the love department. That we could do some work in our hearts to be more loving in our marriages, to be more loving in our friendships, to be more loving towards our children, to be more loving towards the difficult coworkers. First Corinthians 13 defines for us what love is. It says love is patient and love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others and it is not self-seeking which means it does not care about what itself wants. It is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. This is the type of love that we want to have in our life. A love that is patient, a love that is kind, a love that does not just care about yourself but a love that cares about others. A love that doesn't wake up in the morning and say how can I serve myself today? How can the people around me serve me today but instead know how can I care for others? Love isn't just wanting what you want all the time and so love says I want what's best for you. I'm gonna choose to serve you. Control says I want what I think is best and I'm actually gonna demand my own way but love says I care about you. I want what's best for you. I care for you. Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit

and the fruit of the Spirit is basically the proof of what God is doing inside of you. It is when you are connected with the Holy Spirit you're walking hand in hand with the Spirit of God. This is what produces on the inside of us and what others get to enjoy on the outside of us and so it says the fruit of the Spirit is love, is joy, peace, forbearance which is patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control and so if the Spirit of God is working on the inside of you this is what should be produced in our life. There should be a love that's coming out of us for other people and we should be operating in self-control which means I'm more concerned about myself and I'm more concerned about controlling myself and my emotions and my habits and my behavior than I am about controlling you and your habits and your behavior but too many of us are too busy controlling everything in our life and every relationship and what every person does that we have lost self-control over ourselves and so remember today is about us. It is about our heart. It is about what we are doing in our life. We are evaluating our own selves. Am I too busy controlling the people in my life that I am not aware of what I am actually producing in my life?

There has to be a point in our walk with Jesus where we choose to lay down us and we choose to lay down our flesh and our feelings and our desires and we care more about other people and when the fruit of the Holy Spirit is developing on the inside of you, you will not be able to help loving people and being patient and being kind and loving the people in your life. If we keep depending on ourselves, we are going to be divided in our relationships but if we depend on the Spirit of God, there will be fruit that comes out of our life and we will be unified and we will be spirit-filled, not perfect but fruit-driven and I want my relationships in my life to be Holy Spirit-filled and so how do we do this? You pursue God and let Him change you. Pursue God and let Him call the things out in your life. I promise you this, sit with God for about 10 minutes and He will humble you really fast. Sit with God for about 10 minutes and say, God, what are the things in my life where I'm being selfish? How am I not bearing fruit in my life? He will call you out and then sit with Him, let Him fill you with His Spirit and before you know it, you will be producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

You want to become more like Him? Gotta sit with Him. You have to pursue Him. You have to be around Him and as you sit with Him, you will become more like Him. First John 4.8 says, Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. This is his character, this is his nature, this is who he is and as you pursue him, you will be overcome with his love and as you are overcome with his love, it will go inside of every part of your body and you will begin to love those around you. You won't even be able to think about how you can control them because you're too busy loving them. If you are constantly controlling the people in your life, you are lacking in love. James 3.16 says, where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder. This was my marriage for the first six to seven years, constant disorder, not because we were jealous of each other, because we were selfish. I wanted my way, he wanted his way, that doesn't work. And when we are lacking in this desire to love and serve the people in our life, there will be constant disorder.

Every day was full of frustration, there were consistent arguments over the same things again and again because neither one of us were willing to lay down our selfish desires and choose to love and serve the other. Pastor Adam likes to take the most of the brunt of our first couple of years in our marriage and I like to let him take responsibility because he's the man, that's his role, right? But we both were, we both were selfish. And the more selfish he was, the more selfish I just wanted to become. And the more he tried to control, the more I wanted to buck everything that he said in our life. And it didn't work and there was constant frustration in our life. And so let me pastor the married couples for just a moment. Husbands, your wife is your partner. She is your best friend. Stop trying to control everything she does. You are called to love her like Christ loves the church, which means you're called to actually lay down your life for her. You are called to serve her. She is your queen and not your sandwich maker. Like serve her and treat her as such. Some of you, some of you men need to go home this week

and you need to pick a night and say, baby, I got it. I'm cooking dinner, I'm cleaning up after dinner and there are flowers on the table for you. I wanna see pictures next week. Don't just try to control her. Love her, serve her. We are easy to please, I promise you. Wives, I know you want your house in a certain order. You like things done a certain way. But you constantly trying to control everything in your home is leading to disorder. Stop stressing about everything being perfect. Stop trying to control your, like they're afraid to leave a cup on the counter. Like take a breath. Your husband sometimes wants to step in and help you but you're too busy controlling how he helps you. Therefore, he doesn't wanna help you. Speak in love. You need help, tell him in love. He's maybe doing something the wrong way. Like who cares? Listen, if my husband loads the dishwasher, praise God. I might be on the other side of the kitchen thinking, dear Lord, I could fit like 10 more things in that dishwasher, but he did it. And I'm gonna be grateful for that and I'm not gonna try to control the way he chooses to help me.

Some of you women need to go home and take a breath, leave the mess, stop stressing about your home being in perfect order and control. But that's not an excuse, men, to not help. Like come on, step it up. But some of you are living in this disorder because you're constantly controlling. Colossians 3.14 says, above all of these virtues, put on love, which binds them together in perfect unity. It lists out other virtues like kindness and gentleness and forgiveness, but it says above all of these virtues, put on love because that's what's gonna bring unity in your relationships. So if your home feels like there's disorder, it's probably because there's a lot of control and a lack of love. And so let's start loving better. Let's love when we correct. Let's love when we ask for help. Let's love when there is an argument or disunity. And when we love, there will be unity in our homes. Amen? Action step for you to identify. Where am I being controlling? my relationships, and ask God to break the control off of you in Jesus' name. Next thought today is that we wanna be encouraging versus negative, encouraging versus negative. And we're gonna talk about this in how we speak,

but also in what we choose to discuss. Ephesians 4.29 says, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. So do not let any negative or unwholesome or bashing talk come out of your mouths, but instead, when we speak, let it be helpful for actually building up the other person that we're having a conversation with. It can be really easy to slip into unhealthy conversations in our relationships, and I think this mostly comes up in our friendships. And so when someone comes to us with a problem, are we just commiserating with them, or are we actually helping them? Are we just listening so that they can just vent to us, or are we actually helping push them forward? When you go to a friend, do you feel better afterwards, or you just think, well, man, I'm glad I got that off my chest, but now what am I supposed to do? We need friends in our life that are gonna be a good listening ear for us, but are also gonna point us to truth. Some of your friends in your life, they are just your echo chamber. You go to them, and they're just like, yeah, I'm just mad about that now, too. And before you know it, you're both in this pit of negativity, and you're just wallowing around

back and forth, talking about all of the terrible things in your life. And so let me tell you how this typically plays out in my friendships. So I don't get my feelings hurt too easily, or if I do, I'm not gonna tell you, because I wanna be tough, and I don't wanna pretend like my feelings are hurt. But sometimes I do get mad, and I get really angry about really dumb things sometimes. And so sometimes, I need to talk it out with a friend, like, am I crazy right now? Why am I mad about this? And sometimes it matters, but let me play out for you just kinda how the scenarios work in my friendships. I'm typically going to go to my best friend, Eva. We've been friends since middle school. She has walked with me through every single season of my life, or I'm gonna go to Pastor Aaron. Pastor Aaron has the unique role of being on my staff, and so I am her boss. She also has the unique role of being my sister-in-law, so we're family, and then on top of that, I make her be my best friend. So she has a lot on her plate when it comes to taking care of me, and she doesn't ever really know which hat she's gonna be wearing when I come to her. Like, okay, am I her employee right now? Am I her sister right now? Am I her friend?

And so she has to figure it out in any given day what I need of her in that moment. And so typically, I'm going to one of them, and I'm just like, can you believe, da-da-da-da-da? And I go through the whole story, and they're also very loyal girls. They have my back. They stand beside me through any season of my life. Like, they are very loyal to me. They hurt when I hurt. They fight when I fight. They sit with me when I'm sad. Like, they are my girls. But what they do when I come to them with an issue is they listen to me, they let me talk, and then they're like, all right, now can I say something? And 90% of the time, they are pushing me towards Jesus. There's a 10% of the time where I don't let them. And I'm like, no, you stay mad with me. We're not doing that right now. But they love me, and then they push me towards Jesus. They hear me, and then they pray for me. They love me, and then they ask you, but how's my heart doing in this moment? That's the kind of friend you need in your life. They're gonna sit with you in the mess, but they're not gonna stay in the mess with you, and they're gonna help get you up and move you forward. And then they're gonna check on you the next day and make sure you didn't slip back into the mess

that you were in the day before. This is why I don't like to go to my husband when I have a problem. Because he gives me about four seconds before he's like, how's your heart? Have you prayed about it? Have you offered forgiveness? Like, what do we need to do right now? Let's get to work. I'm like, buddy, I just wanna be mad right now, and I need you to give me like 30 seconds to get all of this out of my system. Why? Because he knows how easily I can slip into negativity, and how easily I can just wallow around in all of my frustrations, and before I know it, I'm on the ground all negative and crying and frustrated. He doesn't wanna deal with all that, and so he's like, girl, let's get up and let's do some work. Some of you need to find some friends in your life that will not let you sit in the negativity. They're gonna hear it, and they're gonna call you on it, and they're gonna help you clean your heart out. Don't let your loyalty to a friend cause you to get in the pit of negativity with them. You've gotta pull each other up and push each other forward, because here's the truth. Encouraging friends will help you move forward. They're gonna push you towards your walk with Jesus. Negative friends will keep you stuck,

and there have been moments in my life where I am stuck for days, and I'm just talking it out with the same person over and over again, and we're not moving forward, so we need a safe place to talk through what we're walking through, but if your friends only listen to you and don't help you, that's not a friend. need people who are gonna encourage you in your walk with God and help you move forward. Hebrews 10, 24 says, let us consider how we may encourage one another to love and to do good deeds. So let us consider when a friend comes to me and they've got a big problem and they're hurting and they're frustrated, how can I encourage them to love? How can I encourage them and move them forward? This is the kind of friend and spouse and coworker and parent and child that we need to be. Let me talk to marriages again. Husbands, can I pastor you again? Stop being so condescending and negative to your wife. When we wake up in the morning, whether you're a stay-at-home mom, you work in the home, you work outside of the home, doesn't matter whether you have kids, don't have kids, when we wake up in the morning, there are constant negative thoughts in our mind. I'm not a good enough wife, I'm not a good enough parent,

the house is always a mess, I don't know what I'm gonna make for dinner. It is negative all day long, lies from the enemy. We don't need it from our husbands. We need encouragement. We need you to pour into us. We need you to tell us how good of a job we're doing. If she's had a long day at work, don't criticize her, don't say, why is the house a mess? Get up and help, maybe, number one. And number two, encourage her. Your words will build us up in a world where we are getting fed lies every single day as to what we should look like and what we should do and what our lives should look like. We need our husbands to speak life over us. Wives, stop nagging and complaining about everything that he does. I don't know why women have this tendency to be naggy. We can blame it on Eve, but the Bible says it's better to live on a roof than to live with a nagging woman. And it is so unbecoming of us. Listen, your husband is a lot more sensitive than he says he is. If he does something right, encourage him, even if he does it halfway right. And on the other side of the room, you're like, I wanna strangle you, encourage him. Baby, I can't believe how you just saw that

and threw it away. Like, that's amazing. And guess what? What gets celebrated will get repeated. And so celebrate the small wins. And before you know it, he's gonna start cleaning up the whole table. And then before you know it, he's gonna start actually cleaning up the whole Zion. Like, listen, he's not here. So I can say this, like, he is trained well. I have encouraged him in the small ways and he knows the things that just make my heart happy, but you've gotta encourage it. Don't take for granted what your husband does for you. If you stay at home with your kids and he is out working, like, thank you, baby, when you get home that you have provided for our family. If you're both working and trying to figure out this whole thing together, either way, he is wearing a weight on his shoulders to provide and take care and nurture his family. Encourage him. Don't nag, don't be negative, and don't complain. Thank him for who he is to you. Thank him until he becomes what you hope he will be. And he will rise to your encouragement. So action step for us. Do I have people encouraging me and am I being an encouragement to others?

Am I being negative and nagging or am I being an encouragement to others? Last thought for us this morning, to evaluate our relationships. Are they godly or are they ungodly? Are my relationships godly? And so I know in a church this size, we've got people in every different walk of life. Some of you, your relationship with God is new and you don't have a lot of friends in your life who know Jesus yet. Some of you, you've been a follower of Jesus your whole life, you're very connected in this church, and you've got a circle of people who are godly and who are encouraging and who are pushing you forward. That is the purpose of the church. We wanna surround you with people who are gonna push you forward. But others of you, this relationship with God is new. And so let me define for you what I mean when I say godly versus ungodly. This is not good people versus bad people. That's not what we're talking about here. But a godly relationship is where both parties or all parties are walking towards Jesus together. Where we are, we're not perfected, we are not trying to do everything perfect, but we are pursuing the Lord together and we are on the same mission. We're not distracting each other

with what the world has to offer. We are on a faith journey together. There is accountability, there is encouragement instead of negativity, there is love instead of control. Proverbs 27, 17 says, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. As iron sharpens iron, we are sharpening one another, strengthening each other as we pursue God together. Godly people encouraging other godly people is going to help you grow in your godliness. You need people in your life who are gonna help strengthen you and sharpen you and push you forward. But if all you have in your life is ungodliness. Relationships over time, if not guarded, they will begin to dull your relationship and they will actually end up distracting you from your pursuit of God. Doesn't mean they're terrible people, but it does mean that they're not gonna sharpen you spiritually. Very simple. Godly relationships are gonna sharpen you spiritually. Ungodly relationships, as good as they might be, they cannot sharpen you spiritually. Someone who does not have God cannot sharpen you to pursue God. Someone who does not have the Spirit of God on the inside of them cannot encourage you to move forward in your life spiritually. And so this doesn't mean they're terrible people,

this doesn't mean you can't be friends with people who don't know God. I hope you have some friends in your life who don't have a relationship with God. But it does mean that these are not the people in your inner circle who are going to encourage you to pursue the Lord. Second Corinthians six says, do not be yoked together with unbelievers for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common or what fellowship can light have with darkness? And so this term here, do not be yoked together with unbelievers. Often the church will just use this term just to talk about marriages. And it's not just for marriages. This is for marriages and friendships and dating relationships all over the place. And this is an agricultural term. And so I got a picture for you. And I'm not a farmer, so I called these cows last service and somebody said they're not cows, they're ox. So whatever, they're something. And then somebody else said bison. And I was like, okay, I know it's not that. So all right, around them right here, this is what is called a yoke and it is holding them together. And then behind them, they're gonna pull something like a plow or something like that.

And they're gonna do something amazing agriculturally for the ground. And they're yoked together so that they can produce and do a great purpose. They've got a job at hand and they are bound together by this yoke and they're gonna go step by step in line with one another to get their job done. But if this guy over here gets a little cranky and wants a snack or something and it tries to start going in the other direction, what's gonna happen? That yoke's gonna yank them back in line and he's gonna get back in step and they're gonna keep moving forward. And so how does this apply to our relationships? I think you know where I'm going. If you are not in step with someone and you're not pursuing the Lord together and you're not walking in line with one another, yoked together by Jesus Christ, you are going to veer off into another direction and it's not gonna look, because guess what? They're yoked. Oh, it went away. That's okay. They're yoked together. And so if that one buddy wants to go down the other way and that's not the way God's calling you to go,

guess where you're gonna go? He's gonna yank you and you're gonna go in the other direction. But if you are together, on purpose, on mission, pursuing after the Lord, you're gonna walk in step with one another, holding each other accountable, encouraging each other spiritually, sharpening your relationship with God. And if they are mismatched, if you are mismatched in strength and pace and purpose, that work and that job and that purpose of pursuing the Lord, it's gonna start to become really strained and really difficult at times. I'm gonna invite Pastor Jonathan up. And so again, let's apply this to our relationships. Let me be super clear. This doesn't mean you cannot talk to people who don't know Jesus. If you're in here today and you're like, I don't know God, so now none of you can talk to me, that is not it. We are about people, we love people, and we can be friends with all people. But it means my inner circle of people that are the closest to me, that hold me accountable, that I'm doing life with, they better know Jesus. Because if not, we are not going to be pursuing after the same thing.

And we don't have the same faith and we don't have the same alignment. And we need people in our life who are gonna push us towards Jesus. Being equally yoked is not about excluding people from your life, but it is about including people close in who are gonna help you in your pursuit of the Lord. And the closer the relationship, the more important it matters. Because the people closest to you will either strengthen you in your walk with God or they will pull you away. If you are not married in this place, but you know God, this is a non-negotiable when you go to start having a dating relationship. If you are a student or a young adult or you are wanting to step into a relationship, like this is it, like this is the hard line in your life where you say, hey, do you know the Lord? No, all right, then I'm going over here in this direction. I don't care how cute, how talented, how rich, how amazing, none of that matters. What matters is what's happening inside of their heart. And so if you have a conversation with someone and they don't know the Lord, it's see you later, buddy. I'll catch up with you later. Like that's not what we're doing. You need to be on mission and on purpose pursuing after the Lord. And so you keep running your race.

You keep pursuing after God. And as you're running that race, at some point. You will look beside you and someone else is gonna be running the same race toward the Lord and you're gonna be able to look and Say hey, hey you you following after the Lord. Let's go together. Like let's run together equally yoked pursuing after the Lord together It matters who is in your life. I lived three years of my life with someone who did not know Jesus I did not bring him closer to the Lord. He pulled me farther away and farther away, but guess what? It's my own fault I literally looked up one day and had created this whole pit of destruction in my life because I chose to step out of the covenant design that God had laid out for us as followers of Jesus and it did not end well and had I been patient and had I waited on the Lord and had I Trusted that God had the best in store for me I actually would have met my husband about two years prior and would have saved us both a lot of heartache Wait on the Lord Trust in his design Do not settle for less than God's best if you are in this place and you are in a marriage and One of your and your spouse does not know the Lord. Maybe you've recently said yes to a relationship with God Keep praying and believing that through you they will see the light of Jesus Christ They will see the love of Christ. They will hear your encouraging words. They will see you pursuing after Jesus We have relationships in this church where one spouse knows God and the other and they have prayed for years on end And we are seeing seeds being sown over the years of prayers and we are seeing relationships begin to be restored We are seeing husbands come through these doors for the very first time and jump into the growth track and begin serving alongside of their Wives we are seeing spouses who have prayed and not given up year after year we believe that there we serve a God who heals and restores all things and So we're gonna close out use our last couple of minutes in some time of prayer And so I'm gonna invite you to stand up on your feet wake you up a little bit here And here's how we're gonna pray If you're in here and you've got a marriage that is a mess We're praying for our hearts today God as far as it depends on me What do I need to do to help my marriage and my relationships

If you have adult children who are not following after the Lord Another amazing testimony. We've got people in our church that have prayed for years for their children to return to the heart of God And we are seeing them here in this house plugged in serving Jesus. They're starting to outpace their parents now It's amazing. So parents do not lose heart the seeds that you have sown into your children They are there the prayers that you are praying are ascending to the heart of the Father Keep praying and believing that God can bring salvation and I believe that we will see prodigal stories begin to come into this church If you're feeling lonely in here You wish you had some people surrounding you that were pushing you towards Jesus. Please let us help Let us get you connected in the brotherhood or in the sisterhood Let us get some people around you that are gonna push you and strengthen you spiritually And so if you've got some messy relationships in your life I'd love for us to just spend the last two minutes praying over one another and so if you've got some areas in your life Where we could pray over some relationships, would you just lift your hand? And so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna be the church in this moment And so if someone around you has their hand lifted, would you just put a hand on their shoulder? Once someone's got their hand on your shoulder, you can put your hand down make sure that everybody has somebody praying for them So God we come to you mighty name of Jesus Thank you that you are our healer and thank you that you restore all things And so I pray for every broken relationship in this place. I pray for the marriages God that are struggling The marriage is God that right now are even in separation God. I pray You would do a miracle. I pray for humbling. I pray that pride would fall to the side. I Pray that addictions would be broken in Jesus name I pray that love would be pursued that forgiveness would be offered and that healing and restoration would happen I pray for friendships that are just a mess right now where there's disunity God. I pray that we would humble our hearts That we would admit where we are wrong and God that you would bring healing I pray for the lonely heart in here Would you remind them right now that they stepped in foot into a church? that was the first big step and I pray right now God that they would find a family and a home in here a Surrounding of people who are gonna sharpen them spiritually and push them forward I pray for parents in here who are praying for their children to return home. God, I pray right

now that they would hear you calling out their name, that they would know, God, that you love them and that you are pursuing them. And I pray that we would not lose heart, but that we would trust God that you are working and moving. And we pray for healing in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.