Scripture and Prayer

Amen, we really do believe that Jesus is worthy of it all. In fact, last week we talked about how he is the only one that is worthy of our prayer and our devotion and our praise and our worship. So we bring everything to him, everything we are, we lay before him. Scripture tells us to do this. And one way we do it is through prayer. We actually sung about that too, that day and night, night and day, let incense arise. The Bible talks about our prayers as if it's the sweet aroma of incense rising up to the almighty God, which means he actually delights in our prayers. He wants to hear from us. So would you now pray with me? Almighty God, you are worthy of it all. Some of us here believe that because we have seen you be faithful time and time again, but God, I know that there are others in this room and all of our rooms that aren't there yet. They're wondering if you even exist, and if you do exist, are you good? And so God, I'm praying that your spirit will now land in all of these rooms and remind us of your love and your grace that you have for each one of us, and maybe even the peace that we so desperately long for. Show us that it comes from you and remind us in the name of King Jesus, we pray, amen.

Amen. Before y'all have a seat, go ahead and find a few people around, tell them hi and how glad you are that they're here today. Thanks guys. What the heck? Well, I am really glad that you're here and it's good to be here with you. My name is Joel Burke. I'm a pastor. I've been on staff for over 17 years now, so I can hardly believe that. I'll let you do the math. I said earlier that God is delighted when we bring ourselves to him through prayer. And it's not just me talking. The Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, in his letter to the Philippians, he says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayers and petitions, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And so the peace of God. Oh, how my soul longs for that. I don't know if I'm the only one. I mean, if you joined us for Christmas, we asked you what you're longing for. And the number one answer was peace. But did you notice that he specifically calls out anxiety?

Isn't that interesting? We are not the only anxious generation. There have always been bullies that intimidate, loved ones who deceive, friends that betray, bosses and rulers and people in authority who abuse their positions. This feeling of hopelessness and loneliness and powerlessness. I'm not saying any of this to minimize what you're going through or what you're feeling right now. I actually think this is good news because it means that we're not alone and that scripture actually has something to say about this. So if you're feeling anxious or hopeless or lonely, Paul says that we bring even that, maybe especially that, we bring to God through prayer and his peace will cover us. The peace of God is the antidote to our anxiety. And it comes through prayer. So one of the things that we're gonna learn today is that prayer is one of these tools that we're gonna pick up, we're gonna learn how to use because it is vital for the journey ahead. We're in the second week of this Base Camp series and we said at Base Camp is where you pick up knowledge and experience and tools that will equip you for the journey. So if you weren't here last week, go back and watch it. And if you were here last week, actually go back and watch it

because it will help you. was a really good way to start the series. I mean, that interview that we had with Farpu, who's a Sherpa, who helps people summit Mount Everest, which means he has summited it, I don't even know how many times, and he had so many wonderful things to say. The thing that I remember is he said, you have to come to a place where you trust the guide because your life is in his hands, which means you better have a pretty good guide. And then he came back around and said, Jesus is the ultimate guide. So what we're hoping to do through this Base Camp series is equip you for this life ahead with the ultimate guide in Jesus. And what I'd love for you to do now is turn back to the people that you kind of said hi to just a minute ago and talk with them. If you're new here, we like to do this. We think it's good to acknowledge each other and include each other in these conversations. So go back, talk to them. What part of a conversation are you better at? Listening or talking? ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

All right. This is my friend Nathan Brown, fellow pastor, and you and I have known each other, been working together for... About four years. Yeah. Four years, and a lot of that was at the Fenton campus, so hello to everyone at Fenton and, man, and Grants Trail and Midrivers and Overflow here at the Hub. I'm just so glad that we are all here together right now. So I'm curious, Nathan, talker or listener? Yeah, so contrary to the stereotypical pastor, I am an introvert, and I enjoy listening a little bit more than talking. All right. Well, I guess I am the stereotypical pastor. You like to talk? Because I like to talk. If you haven't noticed already, he didn't even ask me, and I still felt like I needed to answer. But you have a good reason. You have a good reason why you talk to me. Do we have any twins in any of our rooms? Do we have any twins? I see a couple. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So I have a twin brother, and so you all, you feel me, right? You have to talk if you're going to get anything. So I feel like I come across as...

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't... Not to be too obvious here, but, you know, you need to be able to do both if you want to have a conversation with anyone. If you are a better listener, eventually you'll need to talk, and if you talk too much, you'll have to... You'll have to stop talking and learn how to listen better. In fact, there are studies out there that show that meaningful conversation is actually good for our well-being. In fact, there's a scientific theory called the communicate-bond-belong theory that says conversation is the number one way that we satiate the need to belong. In other words, there is something hardwired inside of us that desires to be with other people. We need to belong with other people, and according to the study, meaningful conversations is a core piece of that. Yeah, can I stop you though? Because I know plenty of people who say, I don't need to belong. I don't want to belong. I've had conversations with so many people who say those things, and it's in those conversations we typically find out it goes beyond being an introvert or an extrovert. It typically traces back to maybe you were hurt by a person or a group of people,

and I never want to underestimate the amount of hurt that a person can cause another person, so I'm sorry, but let me also say, please, please don't let other people ruin God for you or this life that God has for you, and Joel, you're saying this life that God has for you has to include other people, but it's also because you were created to be in a relationship with God himself. Absolutely. And let's just pause there. Let's not move too fast, because think about that. The creator God of everything wants to know you. wants to talk with you and listen to you. That's amazing. So I guess the question then is how do we do that? Because I mean, it's not like this, like I can't see, touch, feel. So how do we listen to God? How do we hear His voice? And then how do we talk to Him? At the risk of oversimplifying things, it comes back to if you wanna hear God's voice, He speaks through the Bible. So we need to read the Bible. And if we want to talk to God, we do that through prayer. It has to come back to prayer and reading the Bible. That's right. Well, and you know, that is a really simple way to put it.

Of course, there are other nuances, so much things that you know that scripture is and all of that, and there are nuances. But let's start here. Let's start with prayer, because my guess is that many of you, maybe most of you have had doubts or questions or hangups when it comes to prayer. Maybe you don't pray because you're not really sure that somebody is on the other end listening, or maybe you've tried praying and it's like, it just seems so boring and monotonous. Maybe you're wondering if it even works, or you know what, God has an entire universe to run. Why would he care about little, like I'm not gonna bother him with just my little things. I mean, should I keep going? Well, I think you've said plenty. So let's just, let's start here. What is prayer? Yeah, that's actually a really hard question to answer because it is so many things. One of the things that it is, is extremely personal. And so if you just Google that question, there's gonna be a whole bunch of stuff that comes up, different definitions and things that it's supposed to accomplish. For example, John Bunyan, he says that prayer is the shield to my soul. Desmond Tutu goes back a little bit further,

says the foundation of all of it, the foundation of prayer is God himself and his love. E.M. Bounds calls prayer, the greatest of all forces. Jonathan Edwards just says, it's the natural expression of our faith. And taking that thought one step further, Martin Luther King Jr. says, to be Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. So even there, you see how personal, yet diverse and nuanced all of this stuff is. Yeah, but each of those, especially the MLK quote, I think they're saying prayer is essential. Yes. Like if you're here and you're wondering, can I follow Jesus and not pray? No, you have to pray. So we need to learn how to do it. How do we pray? Is there a script or like a formula that we can follow? Dallas Willard says that prayer is talking to God about what we are doing together. And I almost get this vision of like a friend. Like you're just talking and walking with a friend about life. That's kind of what Dallas Willard is saying, which means, I love it because there's no like recipe where you have to have all the ingredients precisely measured and mixing them together in the right order for this to turn out.

So there is no right way to pray. Having said that, there are a few places in scripture that have what you call like a script or a formula. The Lord's Prayer is one that comes to mind. It's probably the most famous. I know many of us grew up reciting this prayer probably every week in church, or maybe every night as you're going to bed. And Jesus explicitly says, when you pray, pray like this. And so you can look at this and there is a type of formula. So that is one way to pray. Yeah, you said pray like this. We had a sermon series all about the Lord's Prayer called Pray Like This. Many of us, we loved it. It brought meaning back to that Lord's Prayer. And so if you're here and it is kind of maybe boring or just this rote thing, I would encourage you go to the app under resources. We've put that series there for you. And I think it'll be really helpful. It might help that prayer come alive again for you. I think that'd be a great place to start. But that's not the only place in scripture that tells us how to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5 says to pray without ceasing. And so that doesn't mean that you just kind of have the Lord's Prayer on constant repeat. What it does mean is that you are talking to God

about your life as you are living it. That's part of what it means to bring every situation to God as you're living this life. Yeah, so we've talked about Jesus's words, the Lord's Prayer, Paul's words, to pray without ceasing. There's one other place that I think about when I think about prayer in the Bible and it's the book. Psalms, 150 chapters of prayers. And there's all sorts of prayers in there. There's prayers of thanksgiving and joy, gratitude. And then they're like right next to prayers of lament and confession. And alongside of that, like there's all this different kind of language that's used. And it's so freeing when I read the Psalms because it's like, oh, there isn't truly like a right way to pray. I can be angry. And the words that I use when I'm angry are different than the words that I use when I'm thankful. And I guess what I also read is God hears them all and he wants to hear them all. Yeah, that's right. And he can handle it. He can handle angry you, I promise. He just wants to hear from you. And so again, that's part of what it means to bring every situation to God. So there is no right way to pray.

I think what we're saying is just start. Start somewhere. God will honor that. Yeah, and if I stand back and just look at like all the prayers in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the thread between them all is honesty. If it matters to you, it matters to God. And now we're starting to talk about this like, oh, I don't wanna bring my petty little things to God. Like if your petty little things are taking up space in your heart and mind, God wants to know about it. First Peter 5 tells us that we can bring our anxieties to God because he cares. Yeah, and I've fallen into that trap before thinking, you know, I don't, my stuff is just so little. God, you've got much bigger things to worry about. But if I peel that back, I think behind that is really a, you know what, God, I've got this. I don't need you on this one. I think I can handle it. And if I'm not careful, that begins to snowball. And pretty soon I'm saying, you know what, God, I don't need you at all. I can control it. I think I got this. And then I stopped talking to him altogether. But with that, the petty little things, you know, I remember about a year ago I was, I pray for my family every morning. I have specific prayers, you know, for my wife.

I have three daughters, specific prayers for each one of them. And about a year ago, my prayer for my youngest daughter was simply, God, help her to do the right thing. That was it. And about a month into the school year, I got an email from her teacher that said, Hollis has been an amazing, like all capital letters, example in class. Hollis has been peaceful, hardworking, respectful. And here it is, Hollis does the right thing even when no one is looking. And when I read that, I wept. Like it's hard for me to like hold it back right now because it feels like all of time and space just stopped. Like the entire earth stood still and God was looking directly at me saying, I'm not too busy. I see you. I hear you. Yeah. Oh. Do you think that Joel would have had that experience with God had he not been honest or specific? Like the specificity of that, of just like, God, I pray she does the right thing. And then almost to the T. It was the exact phrase. Yeah. Yeah.

I love that. Oh man. And I think we're starting to touch on something else that I want to pray, but it's boring or monotonous. Has anyone else felt like prayer has ever been boring or monotonous? Just the pastor. I love that. Just the pastor has his hand raised right now. Let's say hypothetically, I wonder if prayer is boring or monotonous because we pray the same words, the same ways over and over and over again. I had a seminary professor say, prayers without variety eventually become words without meaning. Prayers without variety eventually become words without meaning. But when you see prayer as you talking with the most important person in the universe about what matters to you most, well, now it's starting to become less boring, less monotonous. And there's a relevancy and a variety to your prayer life now. And now we're back to that pray without ceasing. That seems a little bit more interesting and attainable now. I heard a pastor once say, you do this by just,

when you realize you're not praying, pray. And I just love, you said the visual of just like walking with God, talking to him about the things that you're doing together. Like, when you realize you're not praying, just pray. So this, I mean, it's so easy, guys. Like if you're walking into a meeting and you're starting to feel stressed, either out loud under your breath or in your mind, God, I'm feeling stressed, I pray that you help me now. Maybe you're, you pull into the garage after a crazy day at work and you can hear the kids screaming inside the house, God, God, I need you to supernaturally somehow give me the patience. Help me now, Jesus. Or maybe you sit down and you're about to take a test that you've been stressed about. God, I need your help. Please bring back to my mind everything that I've learned. I want what I'm about to do to honor you. Like, it's easy. You're talking with God and before you know it, prayer is like breathing. You aren't thinking about it, but you're just constantly in this conversation with God and now your relationship with him is getting stronger. Yeah, that reminds me, a mentor of mine calls these breath prayers.

Just say, it doesn't even have to be that long. Just say this as you're breathing, I love that. But Nathan, what about those of us who have prayed? I'm sure that there are many people here who have prayed and all it seems is that they get silence. It doesn't seem like anybody's on the other end of the line. I didn't get my healing. I didn't get the thing I was asking for. Those test results were not what I wanted and it seems as though, as one author says, that God is on mute. I pray, but all I get is silence. Yep. I've been there for, and my wife as well, for about two years we were in a difficult season. We were trying to start our family and had experienced two miscarriages back to back and it did feel like our prayers stopped at the ceiling. And there were times where it was just so difficult to show up and to be honest with God. It didn't feel like we had like the strength or even the faith to pray at times. And then the times that we did pray, I'll speak for myself now, like I was angry with God and my anger came out in the form of asking Him, why? Why is everyone else able to start a family and not us? Why God, did you take away two babies? And I still have not received an answer to those whys, but over time we just kept showing up, talking with God. We received something far better.

We received Jesus's presence. Jesus gave us more of Himself and it's Jesus, one of His names in scripture is the man of sorrows because He is more acquainted with death and suffering and sorrow than any of us ever could be. He gave us more of Himself and Jesus is the best answer to every prayer. Hmm, I hope you all wrote that down because if you're wondering if prayer works, I mean, it depends on how you define works. Are you gonna get everything that you ask for? No, if you've been following Jesus so closely and you're doing all the right things, does He owe it to you to answer your prayers exactly how you want Him to answer them? No, let me help you with that. We don't have God on the hook for anything. But Nathan, what you just said is so profound because what you're telling us is that when we pray, somehow we enter into the presence of God and that is more than anything that we could ever want or anything that we could ever need. That is the peace of God. You can't really describe it because you don't fully understand it, but you're living with it and you are learning how to live inside of this peace. So I guess the question is, as we continue to think about this, what is your next step when it comes to prayer?

I mean, it could be just, like we said, start somewhere or maybe this praying continuously without ceasing, maybe that kind of caught your eye and you're gonna maybe keep track over the next week of how many times you talk to God throughout the day or maybe it's something else, but prayer is an essential part of this journey. So what's your next step there? Now, it is only one part of the conversation though, right? So it's us talking to God. Let's talk now a little bit about what it means to listen to God. And I know I was goofing on us. talkers earlier, some of you might feel like you don't, that you can't listen or that you just, I don't know if that's true. I think deep down, we all know how to listen and we can learn how to listen well. So turn back to the people that, your friends that you were talking to. And what is one thing that you remember your parents saying all the time, growing up? All the time. All the time. Come on. All the time. Asking a question which is completely different than never. Okay. Let's flower.

Come on. One, two, three, four. Come on, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. You better stop being mean. Milo, go to bed. Pick up your toys. Go to bed. Eat your dinner, young lady. Eat your dinner. You're being so slow, we're gonna be late. Brush your teeth. Give me your phone. And a little bit. Do this, do that. You go to your room. Alexis, go clean your room up. It's messy. Lord, I'm not gonna give you any money. Don't do that. Stop that. Stop that, Kenzie. No, you can't do that. No. No. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What are they saying? I have no idea. Well, I don't know what you guys were talking about,

but hopefully your parents said more than no, you know, this, right? But I can't help but wonder if when we read the Bible, what we hear is no, no, no, no, no, which eventually becomes blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and can lead to, I have no idea what he's saying. I'm not even gonna read it. Yeah. So Nathan, you're gonna help us with this because God's word is so much more than thou shalt not. But before we do that, can I just say something? If this is how you are hearing God's word lately, or maybe this is how you've been taught to hear God's word, Psalm 100 is just one of many places that says, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. The Lord is good. He is good, I tell you, and his love for you is everlasting. So because he's good and because he loves you, he wants this relationship with you and he wants you to love him back. And this relationship goes back to talking and listening. This is how we have conversations with him and prayer is how we talk to God. How do we hear God's voice? It comes back to reading the Bible. Now I wanna say something that maybe will change or transform the way you approach this book. What if we approached this text as not just information to be learned, but as a voice to be heard?

I think that'll just change things for us. Like we can hear God's voice when we read this text. It's not just information. And I know we're all over the place when it comes to this book. Some of us, we've read it cover to cover multiple times. We are familiar, maybe too familiar with this book. Others of us, we've opened it up kind of randomly and we're confused. We've read things that are maybe violent or like really romantic and we don't know what to do with it. Other times we just like open it, close our eyes, open it up to a random page and this is how we start. Some of us, we believe these are God's words to us directly and others, you couldn't think this is more disconnected from reality. So just to get us all on the same page, can I define what the Bible is? The Bible, it's a collection of prayers and poems and stories, history, and letters. They're written by people trying to make sense of life with God. And also supernaturally, it is how God speaks to us clearest today. And hear me now though, you don't need to understand. Dan, you don't have to have read the entire Bible to hear the voice of God. That's good news.

And also, you don't even need to be sure of your relationship with Jesus yet to start reading the Bible. It's so practical. I think it's so practical, Joel. Yeah, that's right. And there's actually compelling evidence to back that up. I mean, we talked about this a little bit last week, but there was a survey done over the span of eight years with more than 100,000 people that participated. And what they discovered is that when you engage with God through his word four times a week or more, all areas of your life begin to improve. Your mental health, your physical health, your spiritual life, all of it with just four times a week. It's called the power of four. Yeah, and this study, I wanna get specific. The correlation between engaging with the Bible four days a week leads to lower levels of anxiety, less anger and bitterness, decreased feelings of loneliness, greater hope and resilience. I love this next one, more clarity about purpose and meaning in life, faster spiritual growth, and a significant reduction in behaviors like excessive drinking, watching pornography, mishandling money, lashing out in anger. I mean, who doesn't want that? That's right, and just four times a week. So we can do this, can't we? We can do this.

In fact, we've got a whole team of people who think that this is so important that they've developed a way to help us engage with scripture four times a week. And what they came up with is so easy. It is so easy. It's right here on our app. You know, if you don't have the app, you can just go to whatever store you get your apps from and search for the Crossing STL. And when you get it, open it up and just click on the banner there that says first five, and it will bring up that prompt for the day. So you mentioned that this app resource is called First Five because it can take you just five minutes, longer if you'd like, but five minutes, I think we all have five minutes to spare. When you click on that, on Monday, you'll see three different translations of a small passage of scripture. It's important that you read each of the translations because you see like the nuances in the text, and maybe there's a word or a phrase that stands out to you in one that you wouldn't have gotten if you just read the other. But please hear me now. The main thing stays the main thing across all these translations. That's right. They're all faithful to the original.

Yeah, that's right. But if that trips you up, if you have questions about the original languages or can you trust the Bible? Is it reliable? Come and talk with us. There are pastors, our pastoral staff loves having these conversations. But that's Monday. And we'll actually experience this in just a few minutes because we know that this might be a new way that many of you have to engage with God through his word. So that's Monday. Wednesday is kind of more of an audio experience. So you'll hear somebody read the text again and then pray over you. And then Friday is a, you'll have just a brief pastoral insight from someone on our pastoral staff, and then they'll read the scripture over you again. And then you're right back here on the weekend. So that's number four. See how easy that is? I think this is a step that all of us can take. Join us tomorrow for first five and see if God doesn't help you with those things that you were saying, like lowering stress or anxiety, or even maybe help you not do some of those destructive behaviors,

like lashing out in anger or watching porn or lying. Just watch how God meets you through his word. I love how you're saying, like, just come and see, take it for a test drive. Like, what's the harm? Like, yeah, please join us for this first five. And then there's one other resource we wanna give you. And it's just so cool because we believe that everyone should have a Bible and a translation that they love to read. And so this weekend, we are having a 20% off sale on all of our Bibles at the bookstore here, but also at the campuses, you have pop-up bookstores, and there are people that are trained to help you find the right translation for you. So please take advantage of that. I told them, bookstore people, we may sell out of Bibles, and that's all right. Like, let's not leave any Bibles for the 11 o'clock service. Let's do this. And Joel, back to that study though, you mentioned the word engage in Scripture. That's right. And I was using that word deliberately because engaging with Scripture is different than reading. And a lot of times when we read something, we're just doing it to get through. Engaging is a little bit different. It is reading, but then it's also reflecting and then responding.

And so all of that is a great. That's how we should be reading scripture. Yeah, so as we wrap up our time, I wanna give you a way to engage in the scriptures. And it's so practical, it's so relevant. What might happen if we combine what we've been talking about, praying and reading the Bible? What if we put those two in the same room together? What might we get? We get a spiritual discipline called praying the Bible. Crazy, right? Praying the Bible. And Joel and I didn't come up with this. But this is a discipline that I've been practicing for the last two years. And it has made my prayer life take off. It's something that I look forward to now. All of those, like hangups and questions around prayer, praying the Bible addresses each one of those. And now when I approach the word of God, it's much more like a conversation. I'm hearing God's voice. And here's how you pray the Bible. If you're taking notes, you should write these down. First, read. Read a small section of scripture. And then you reflect. You reflect on a word or a phrase. What is God speaking to you?

What is standing out? Take note of that. And then you pray those words back to God. And lastly, we rest in his presence. And so now I'd love to just kind of practice this with you, invite you into what my routine looks like. And we'll practice this a little bit together. So I typically wake up around 6 a.m. I have a two-year-old son who wakes up around seven. If I try to do anything that involves quiet after 7 a.m., it ain't happening, all right? And I know we're blessed with a good sleeper. You don't need to tell me. So 7 a.m. or 6 a.m., I wake up and I go downstairs. And it's easily 10 degrees colder in my basement. So I get a blanket and I walk into, it's not my study or a library or my designated prayer room or anything like that. It's my son's playroom. So I'm like stepping over Legos and I step on one and I say something that now I need to apologize to God for. And I come over to a chair in the corner. I sit down, turn on a lamp, and I open up my Bible or the app to first five. And for our time here now, we're gonna be in Psalm 119. This is just a sneak peek of what will come tomorrow. And sometimes I play a little bit of music just to help me stay awake. So we'll do that now too. We'll read just a couple verses

and I want us to read them out loud because when we read out loud, it helps us kind of stay on track. Our mind doesn't wander. We're gonna read it in a few different translations. So this first translation, will you read these words out loud with me? I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Here's another translation. At the campuses, please join in. I have tried hard to find you. Don't let me wander from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And lastly, one more translation. With my whole heart, I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. So we've just read scripture. Let's now reflect. As you look at these three different translations, is there a word or a phrase that sticks out to you? What is God saying to you right now? Reflect. Let's not rush this part. Let's not go to Google or chat

or open up Bible commentaries. We're praying the Bible. There's a time and a place for Bible study, but here we are about to pray the Bible. Let's take a moment and reflect. Amen. And now we come to the place where we pray God's words back to him. And this is a humbling thought that these very words, they originated in God's heart and mind, and now they're affecting our heart and our mind. We now get to speak heaven's language as we pray to God. So I will offer up a prayer and then just give you a moment that in your own words, you can pray scripture back to God. Let's pray now together. Jesus, I confess that I don't always seek you with all my heart. I don't always try hard to find you. More times than I like to admit, I do stray, I do wander. I pray for myself and for everyone here that we would just approach your word differently, that we would hide it in our hearts so that we would not do anything that creates space between us, God. I don't wanna do anything that disappoints you or hurts me. God, I trust that your way is better and I wanna trust you more. I wanna seek you with all my heart.

I wanna try hard to find you. I pray this in your name. Amen. And then lastly, we rest. We rest in his presence knowing that he is with us. Maybe you keep lingering on the words of scripture, but also you just wanna create space for God to continue to speak to you. I was talking with a spiritual mentor once and I was just so frustrated. I was praying, praying, praying, not hearing from God. And he smiled and he said, Nathan, sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is shut up. You know, some of us, we talk too much. We don't give time to God for him to speak. So now let's just sit in some silence and allow God to continue to speak to us. Let's rest knowing that he is with us. Amen. So for many of you, I know that that may be the first time that you have experienced scripture like that. So way to go. Way for hanging in there and experiencing this. Now you do have a little bit more knowledge of how you can now join and engage with God's word for this journey. And here's the thing, this journey with Jesus is exactly that. It's a journey.

When we talk and listen to Jesus through prayer, it really is like the oxygen that fuels our souls. There will be moments where you feel so overwhelmed, you're not even sure that you can take your next breath. But then there will be other moments that are so exciting, you're not even sure you're living in real life. See, engaging with Jesus through prayer and scripture, it gives you words to speak and ears to hear. It's the hope when it all seems lost and it's the joy when it seems like you can't lose. It brings meaning to the mundane and awe-filled wonder to the extraordinary. This life with Jesus brings a peace that can't be understood, but it has to be lived. And this is the journey that Jesus is inviting each of us to take our next step in. So now will you stand with me, hear these words, let them settle into your soul, and maybe even inform how you live. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, through prayer and petition, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. May you go now knowing that God listens and He speaks and He does both of those things because He loves you. Go in peace.