Hope in Your Darkest Moment | Exodus 7 | Crossroads Daily

Every morning I would get up and I would go outside and I would drink coffee and I would I would just sit and we're literally in the middle of the woods and I would sit down and I I would talk to God pretty openly just about like I'm not sure I can go on but I just remember every time I was that honest with him I just felt a sense of relief and it just eventually got to the point where it was like oh he instilled some sort of belief in me that I hadn't had before that life can and would be better. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts. No perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. Welcome to Crossroads Daily. My name is Caleb. I'm Dani. I'm Josh. I'm Sierra. Guys, we have something very exciting going on. This is better than Shark Week. Shark Week? It's Plague Week! Yes! All week this week we're doing the plagues that got sent on Egypt using Moses to rescue his people. It's gonna be fantastic. Do any of you watch Shark Week? Equally terrifying. No, I haven't watched Shark Week since I was a child. No. I was just curious. But Plague Week I would watch. I would too.

So we're starting in Exodus chapter 7. This is where all the action begins. God sends Moses and his brother Aaron to Pharaoh and we get the first plague. The first plague is the Nile River turning to blood. Not just the Nile River, but water and basins that were drawn from the Nile and the palace and people's houses all turn to blood. So let's say you drank in your bottle water and suddenly it turns to blood without thinking about it. Action! Go! Spit it right out. That's pretty terrible. Gross. I had a... I don't know, man. It does not immediately disagree. Real talk, like if it happened, I am always on the lookout for miracles. Like, show me something crazy. That's what I am. So if it turned to blood and I was drinking, I go, what's next? Word. Okay. What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next?

What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? Which is kind of what God is doing here. Yeah. Because this is the first one. A big thing happens. What is the lots of crazy stuff that's happening next? But we're going to stick with this one for a minute. So you think about Egypt, probably the first thing you think about is pyramids, but maybe the Nile River is next. Right. I mean, it is tied to the identity of Egypt. It's tied to the power of Pharaoh. It's tied to their commerce. Yeah. The whole thing is built around the life that happens to be growing around this river. Right? And God just wipes it off the shelf. So we're going to start deep end. Okay. Can you think of a time in your life when God took something and just took it away or changed it dramatically to show you that he was more important than that thing? I think that's what he's, at least partly what he's doing here, right? I have a deep end one.

Yes. Go. Um, so it's been, I don't know, it's been maybe 12 years, 12 or so years ago. The Lord decided to give me a nervous breakdown and I was, uh, I had fully planned to end my life and by the grace of God, um, I was rescued by friends, uh, story for another time, but wound up in a hospital for a week and I sort of began this journey of healing from trauma from childhood trauma. But in that time I went on sabbatical for my job. It was almost a year I was gone and, uh, among other things, I'm a musician. And for that time, my entire family went and moved into the woods with some friends and I had no idea what was next. Um, wasn't going to come back to work, had no idea what I was going to do. And it was one of the sweetest times in my life because the Lord had taken everything that had been my identity up to that point. Every, every single thing. The only thing that was left was my family and some really close friends. And I had no idea what was next. And since then, like a lot of amazing things have happened. But in that time, all I had was a, the probably the first time in my life, a true dependence on the Lord with no plan B. And I know, because I know you, he gave some of that stuff back too, right? And some. And some. And more than before. Yeah. More than ever. More than before. Like going through healing and. really learning to be a human for the first time and now on this side of it it's like oh my gosh yes yes but it it was a long time of being unsure and not

know just hanging on just hanging on well I've I've been in situations where God has stripped the people around me because of a variety of things choices and walking out of alignment with him and and so there's a there's been a stripping of relationships so that he can get me back on track that's not fun when that happens because then you find yourself alone and also he doesn't want us to be alone you know yeah I was thinking about this in in my life I graduated from college and I went straight to being a science teacher because I cared I was I was young I was like you know like I said like 24 25 everybody else in the department was not and stop caring a long time ago and so the school of me the district love me I mean they were like this guy and after two years I've through a number of things I feel like God told me very clearly to stop teaching I was like what this is why I went to school this is I'm affecting kids lives I'm being a positive influence I don't know what I was gonna do and I ended up going from that running my own life with an apartment my first paycheck I'm do whatever I want it's it's awesome freedom to moving in with my grandparents both in their 80s to be their living caretaker Wow one of them was in a wheelchair one of them had advanced dementia they both had diabetes so I went from like rock in the classroom to like showering my grandpa right huge 180 I mean like someone pulled the plug on a treadmill and I just went right and in that though got for me in so many ways but one of the most one of the easiest ones to recognize is both those grandparents had diabetes I didn't know later when I got married my daughter would be diagnosed with diabetes when she was two and so what was still like very overwhelming I at least had handles for because I knew how to do a shot yeah I knew how to calculate a carb ratio I knew how to respond to a low or whatever and so it's like God knew what was coming right and gave me an opportunity to get some muscles that I would definitely need to leave my family because my wife didn't know anything about diabetes and we had three kids under two at that point so it was just like balancing everything did you make that connection oh like pretty soon thereafter yeah because my wife was

stressing and I was like yeah babe we got this yeah only because I spent a you're doing right yeah I mean it was hard and that's amazing yeah very hard right so God God does this crazy miracle and like like Josh said more is coming and I think probably in all these stories that we've shared we've seen that hope is coming but we didn't know that hope was coming in the moment so when you're in the middle of that because I know somebody out there is in the middle of that and we probably could all name things that we're still in the middle of right now yeah what keeps you going like what are you grabbing a hold of what gives you hope to get up the next day try again even though something's hard I think for me it's just knowing that like this this isn't the end and that could be my love of like literature storytelling and knowing that like some of the best characters and story arcs are long drawn-out hard challenging but they're so good those are always the best one comes to mind love of story arcs that's a good question I don't know I just saw Odyssey this weekend okay oh my gosh I'm not gonna lie I fell asleep for a little bit you guys what I did see it was great what else Josh if you could go back to that place where you're just living in the woods so I'll tell you the thing every morning I would get up and I would go outside and I would drink coffee and I would I would just sit and we're literally in the middle of the woods and I would sit down and I I would talk to God pretty openly just about like I'm not sure I can go on like I was still sort of in the middle of that and every and I don't I wish there was a better answer than this because it doesn't feel helpful but I just remember every time I was that honest with him I just felt a sense of relief and I would do it every single day and it just eventually got to the point where it was like oh he instilled some sort of belief in me that I hadn't had before that life can and would be better and that feels like supernatural and out there and that and I the only way I can describe it is is that it was just a sense that things were going to be okay amazing yeah amazing well God is not done with plagues we have a lot more that we're gonna hit this week but

whatever you're in the middle of I think at least what I can take away from Josh the story if you've never heard this before God wants you to be honest with him he's not asking you to put on a mask he's not asking you to put on the church clothes or the face or whatever and just act like everything is fine tell him how you're feeling good bad ugly be completely honest with him think hope comes from that place when we are honest with God and we let him break into our lives we'll see you next time