The Whole in Your Soul | Dr. Robert Crosby

And let me just say good morning to all of you. So good to be with you today. And I should say, good morning, Allison Park Church. So good to be here. We've heard so much about this church and ministry over the years. And this is my first chance to be here with you. And we're actually, I'm gonna be here today. And then next week, as Pastor Josh said, I'm gonna bring four more team members back. Some of our most gifted counselors that do teachings, presentations, sessions, all about soul care. My wife, Pamela, and I moved to lead Emerge Ministries about seven years ago, 2019. Do you remember what happened the next year? Everybody needed counseling. So we did, I think, 36,000 hours of counseling in 2020. And we have about 40 counselors. We have a location in Akron, our main campus, and also one at the Assemblies of God headquarters in Mechanicsburg. And I get to work surrounded by counselors. And Emerge is known nationally. It's in its 53rd year. It's known nationally as a ministry that lifts the souls of those who lift the church. So we have ministers, pastors, missionaries coming in and out of our building all the time. But we do loads of local counseling,

counseling with people throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, other parts of the country as well. But it is so good to be here with you. And we are looking forward to next week, that opportunity. I was only at Emerge a few months when I thought there's so many nuggets of wisdom and insight through the Holy Spirit shared in these one-on-one counseling sessions. Could we ever create this into a weekend experience for a church and provide soul care tools, proactive tools, things that'll help us stay healthy, and the Bible is a soul manual. And it is loaded with tools and insights. And we're gonna do our best to share some of them with you. But I want you to know from the beginning, my wife, myself, the Emerge team, we've been praying for you. You've been on our hearts for weeks. And I say that along with other leaders and churches and people all over the country. Our hearts have gone out to you. We've been praying. We just had a chapel with our counselors on Thursday. And you were a major part of our focus. And we're praying for you. But I have to tell you something else. You know, sometimes a speaker will come out and they'll say, and I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna give you an opportunity right now. They'll say, how about that worship team?

Did they do a great job? Come on, come on. They did. And I'll sometimes say that, and they did. It's beautiful. I wanna encourage them for everything they do. But I have to tell you, this is a weekend very special to me because of what you have walked through as a church. And when I stood over there worshiping a moment ago, I kinda couldn't close my eyes because this house was full of praise and worship. I go to many different places, but I'm telling you, you were worshiping God. I felt a fullness, a sense of the presence of God, hearts really open to the Lord. I mean, it is, and I have to tell you, it's flat out beautiful. I got tears in my eyes watching. I don't know if you're supposed to watch people worship, but I did. It was so moving. So you know what I wanna say? Because this isn't about just me or you personally, but how about the person next to you? How about the people in the room that are going through stuff? I remember when I was working at Southeastern University, and there was a student that was always like worshiping the Lord in the front row, and one service, he just kinda chilled out.

And I went to him after and said, hey man, is everything okay? He said, yeah, I said, he said, why do you ask? I said, because usually you really engage in worship. You don't have to, but I noticed you were subdued today. Is everything all right? He said, yeah. He said, I just wasn't feeling it. And in that moment, I thought, okay, I think there's maybe a little lesson here. You know, we don't always feel like worshiping, right? Get up in the morning, mom's, dad's, right, first thing, praise God for everything going on in your life. No, that's not always the case. But you remember what David did? David spoke to his soul. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Yes, David was talking to himself. He was speaking to his soul. His spirit, his will was saying, come on, come on, my soul, don't you get shy on me. He was saying, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. So you know what I wanna say now? How about that worship team? Come on, come on. How about that worship team? And I say that to affirm you in the Lord,

because that's such a secret of. Strength, the joy of the Lord is our strength. And I'm telling you, the team asked me, what are you gonna be preaching on, Dr. Crosby, before they all come next week? And I'm gonna go home and tell them about the beautiful spirit in this church. And I just pray that God will give us some things from his table to be able to bring, to share with you. But I felt when I was at Emerge, there's so many nuggets of wisdom. Could we ever bring this into a weekend? We've done this at a number of churches now, but we're especially excited about being here with you next week. Emerge is in its 53rd year of ministry. We're looking at today as Soul Care Sunday. And I wanna say also that we do have a podcast. It's called Experience Emerge. It's in its seventh season. There are loads of episodes that deal with faith and mental health. Believe it or not, there's one interview on there with Auntie Anne Byler. Anybody like Auntie Anne's pretzels? People love those. I mean, every time I go to the airport, she on there tells her story of how, she says, Jesus and Emerge saved my marriage. It's an incredible testimony.

Several others that are on there, about 100 episodes on faith and mental health. But you know, when I think about the soul, and we've already sung about it a little bit today, when I think about the soul, I'm reminded of my childhood. Because when I was really young, like three, four years old, my dad and mom, when they put me to bed, they'd say, okay, let's pray. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul. If I should die, you know, pray that with a three-year-old or a four-year-old, that's pretty heavy, right? That's pretty heavy. But I didn't think of it that way then. But now at this stage, when I have little grandkids, I almost wanna tell my daughters and sons-in-law, don't pray that prayer with my three-year-old grandson. Let him get a little older. But you know what? If we do die before we wake, we do pray the Lord our soul to take that way. We entrust our soul to him. He's our soul keeper. He's the savior of our soul. And you know what else? He's the lover of your soul. He's the lover of your soul. You know, human beings go into mines

to look for diamonds and gold. Jesus is prospecting souls. And the Bible says, when the son of man returns, will he find faith in the earth? Not will he find a lot of big success points. Will he find faith in the earth? You remember when he, the centurion and his faith. I haven't seen faith like this in all of Israel. I'm impressed by that. I'm looking for faith. He's looking for it in us. And the hardships of life give us opportunity to use our faith. You see, faith is not about certain people that are just great at faith. We've all been given the measure of faith. It's a gift. The Bible says we've been saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves. It is the gift of God, Romans says. So guess what? Your faith is not as strong as you are. Your faith is as strong as God is. Because he put it within you. He put it within you. When you're standing in faith, you're standing on him. That's why I said a mustard seed'll move mountains. Why, because you're touching God in that moment. And let me tell you what else. Faith is not a magic wand that we use to get what we want.

Can I say that again? Faith is not a magic wand that we use to get what we want. It's not magic. It's a gift of God so that we can become the people God wants. He's put it within us, and we're to use it, and to walk in it, and to grow in him through it. So one of the things with the soul, I like to ask the question, when's the last time you faced something that you were not equipped emotionally to handle? But it's a different feeling asking that with this group, because there's a shared, deep challenge that you've walked through and are walking through together. Sometimes people will say it was 9-11. It was COVID. It was a problem in our family. It was a diagnosis that I was given health-wise, or I was losing a job, or some other difficult news. And in that moment, you wonder what you would do. When I was new at Emerge, I was in my office, and one of our seasoned counselors came over with an older couple, grandparents. And he said, Dr. Crosby, would you pray with this couple? I'm getting ready to counsel them. We've met before, but they would love it if you would pray for them. And he said, and they've allowed me to share their story with you. And I was standing about as close as I am to this table.

And he said, several weeks ago, they asked their daughter if they could take their five-year-old grandson. and her son out for the day, and take him on their boat and enjoy the day. And they went out, enjoyed. He played with toys and ate snacks. And they kept checking in the back to see how he's doing, sitting on the back seat of the boat. And they turned around and he was lying down, not moving, the bottom of the boat. And when they rushed to him, within a little while, they discovered, when people came to help, that the carbon monoxide fumes and the wind had surrounded him with carbon monoxide, and he succumbed to it and did not recover. Now, I'm standing about this close to that couple. Suddenly, you don't wonder what a soul is, do you? Your soul is, do I have within me what it's gonna take to get through what is in front of me? Can you imagine how they felt when they had to call their daughter? How about when they tried to sleep that night? How about when they tried to start their day the next day? How about when the next holiday came, and the next holiday, and the birthday, and Christmas? The trauma of that in their lives was life-changing. Suddenly, you don't wonder what the soul is. You know, I need something within me to get through what is in front of me.

Someone has said, unless that which is within us is connected to he who is above us, we will succumb to that which is around us. Unless that which is within us is connected to he who is above us, we will fall to that which is around us. Our soul needs God's help to be strong. So I wanna talk a bit today about the hole in your soul, not H-O-L-E right away, but W-H-O-L-E, the hole. We hear a lot today about wellness. It's kind of a challenge to keep up with all the wellness practices, right? Matter of fact, one of the correspondents for, I think, Good Morning America was given the assignment for years to keep up with the latest wellness trends and to bring them to the show. And she got so overwhelmed with this that she wrote a book called The Gospel of Wellness. And it talks all about how she began to deal with anxiety trying to keep up with all the wellness techniques. Little ironic. Now at Emerge, we talk about wellness and all these things, but we like the word wholeness better. We think it's more biblical, more theologically strong. God wants us to have a whole soul, a whole heart, a whole mind, a whole marriage, a whole life, not perfect, but being perfected. And then our brokenness is leaning on the one who is the perfect one.

Do you know the passage that says that he will be called the Prince of Peace? That when Eugene Peterson translated that for the message version, bringing it into today's language, he translated it as the Prince of Wholeness. Don't you love that? Jesus is the Prince of Wholeness. He's my only hope for wholeness. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living what? Soul. Can you imagine when God made Adam and he's like a claymation laying on the ground, not moving, he's just lying there and you're like waiting for the claymation to come to life. And then God, whew, breathed the breath of life within him. You know, some Old Testament scholars have said even the name for God, Yahweh, is connected to breath. You know, Yahweh, that there's something about the breath of life put within us, and that pneuma, that spirit of God that he puts within us to live. And then Adam's animated, he begins to move around, and Eve begins to move around as God has made her. You see, there's something that's important to know. We hear a lot today about self-actualization, self-control, self-esteem. But I wanna tell you, you're more than a self, you're a soul, you're a soul.

You turn to the person next to you and say, you're more than a self, you're a soul. Go ahead, tell them, go ahead. You're a soul, a living soul made by God, the breath of life within you that God loves with an everlasting love. The soul is kind of what runs our life. Dallas Willard says the soul is kind of like the control center of us. Have you ever heard people talk about their lives getting disconnected? My mind is drifting, I'm falling apart. I need to pull myself together. That's the disintegration of the different parts of life, and sometimes there are parts of us that wander, sometimes our minds go to places they shouldn't go, or wander in places that is not healthy to stay. Sometimes our feet go to places that we don't need to go. Sometimes our emotions. will take us to places really far that God doesn't want us to linger in. And we'll need to say, come on, come on my soul, come back, come back. We need to pull ourselves together through God and it's Jesus and His example of life and looking at how He lived life, learning from Him that brings us back together. He showed us how to do it. He went from one place of prayer to another

and in the middle, He met the needs of people. Simple pattern, time with the Father, time with people, time with the Father, time with people, time with the Father, time with people. A time with the Father was often rest that God would give to Him. You know, I like the movie Apollo 13 when Tom Hanks comes on and they're having a hard time, they don't know if they're gonna be able to make it back to Earth and Tom Hanks gets the radio and says, Houston, we have a problem. That's what we do with our souls when we face a challenge. So we have a problem. We have something to face and something to walk through that is bigger than us and we're gonna need help to be able to get through it. You know, the early church father, Saint Augustine or Augustine, he wrote a book called Confessions. Many of you are familiar with it and in it, he just divulged with great transparency the sins and the tendencies of sin in the stages of his life. Let me tell you how transparent it was. You know how transparent it was? In that book, he said when he was a teenager that his prayer to God was give me purity but not yet. That's a pretty honest prayer, right? From a teenager, give me purity but not quite yet. But he said something else in that writing that I'll never forget.

He said, Lord, my soul is your house but it's too small. I need you to grow it and there are things in that house that will not please you but who else do I have to help me remove those things but you? My soul is your house. Pamela and I pastored a church for several years in Boston and we love walking the city, the historic sites but there's a house in Boston called the Skinny House. Here's a picture of it. Literally, the Skinny House in Boston. Isn't that amazing? Visit there if you walk through the streets of Boston and it's nine feet wide. You can stand four people shoulder to shoulder across the rooms but it has a kitchen, it has bedrooms, it has a living room, the whole thing and there's a story behind it. And it's kind of soul-related. During the Civil War, these two brothers were left this piece of land in Boston and one of them went off to war, the younger one. The older one stayed behind and while his brother was gone, he said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna build me and my family a house and we're gonna use as much of the property as possible and just leave my younger brother a little bit of space. Just enough that he would never try to build a house. Well, he must not have known much about little brothers because that brother came back and said, I'm gonna build a house on every square inch that you left

and that was the area that he was depending on to have light for his portico in the big house. So if you visit the house and you go up to it now, there's a little sign that says the spite house. The spite house, that's the skinny house, the spite house. He built it out of spite of his brother. But Augustine said something as we look at that small house. My soul is too small, I need you to grow it. It's been said, God never called us to build big churches or to grow big churches, but to grow big souls. And see, I think that's the beauty of Allison Park. I think this church has worked on growing big souls and big souls have room for more people because they're not stingy and greedy about what God's doing. They're like, come on in, the water's great. You're gonna wanna be here. And that's a wonderful thing and testament to this ministry and what God is doing in it and doing through you and what I believe he will do as you move forward with him. The hole in your soul, there's the H-O-L-E, Blaise Pascal, who said, there's a God-shaped vacuum in every man's heart and only God can fill it. One Christian apologist said that we have thirst, so that would portend that there must be water somewhere on the planet. We also have the sense of a need for a higher power, so that would portend that there must be one for us. God loves us and Jesus said this about the soul. What profit is it to a man if he gains the?

whole world and loses his own soul. Very important, there are a number of younger people, young adults in this room today, it's so important to hear that, to get that in your spirit, because you're in a season of you're making choices about where will I focus my life? And in the midst, and we pray, and I'm sure everybody here prays you're as successful in life and what you do as possible, but that in the midst of it, you don't make choices that would cause you to lose who you really are in Christ. You know, you and I are supposed to know who we are, like who we are, and be who we are. That's a mentally healthy place to be, easier to say than to always do, right? I would put it this way, we need to know who we are in Christ, like who we are in Christ, and be who we are in Christ. You know, Instagram can make you sense you're supposed to be like everybody else, but we don't need any more of those people. We need Christ in you, the hope of glory, because there's a whole audience of people that are unique to you and what God is doing in your life, and God has ways of bringing the soul to life in our hearts. You know, sometimes ironically, do you know one of the biggest growth points for a soul is when we experience weaknesses in our life, weakness, we don't really like to talk about weakness much,

but somehow life brings things that cause us to come face-to-face with it. You might remember in 2 Corinthians, Paul said that he was given a thorn in the flesh, and that he prayed three times that God would take it away. I was given a thorn in the flesh, and God, three times I prayed that God would take it away. Can you, now if the apostle Paul's gonna pray three times, I'm pretty sure that heaven heard it, but God said, my grace, he didn't say no, but he said, my grace is sufficient for you, because my strength is made known in weakness. You know, I remember when I went to pastor the church that I led in Boston, and I'd been there about two years, and I was speaking on a Christmas Eve, and in the middle of the sermon, my voice went out. I mean it, I mean it went out. It's like somebody turned the volume down. I'm doing a Christmas Eve sermon, we're gonna have communion, and all of a sudden, I'm like this, I just couldn't get, it's like somebody literally turned the volume down, and it was so weird and embarrassing, and so I shortened my sermon, which you can do on Christmas Eve. People probably appreciate it, you know? And I go out, and I'm talking, and people are like, hey, pastor, take care of that voice, you must have laryngitis.

The next day, we're opening gifts, and I said, Pamela, can I talk to you in the other room? She said, yeah, honey, I said, you gotta pray for me, something, this is not laryngitis. I don't know what it is. So for weeks, my voice was like, it was like wrestling to try to get my voice to come out, and I didn't know what it was, and I mean, people are praying for me. We're a Pentecostal church. Elders anointing me with oil, little grandmas anointing me with oil. I was the oiliest pastor in New England, and I was struggling to speak, and God had called me to Boston, and I would, in my private times, God, you called me to Boston to lead a church and to preach and to minister, and now I can't even talk to my wife, and it was so frustrating. We had a visiting evangelist one weekend with a big, booming, George Whitefield-bellowing, clear, clarion voice, and he's in my office. We're getting ready to go out to the service, and I'm sitting down, and he walks over to me. He said, man, your voice sounds terrible. I'm thinking, thanks for the encouragement. I can tell you have that gift. He said, let me get this right. He said, you're a preacher, and you can't talk.

What are you gonna do, write? Little did he know that for years, I'd been writing articles for different publications. I prayed about writing books, didn't know if I should, but guess what? When my voice shut down over the next four years, I wrote and published about four or five books for families and church leaders, two of them with focus on the family that went all over the world, and the books that I wrote that were about questions to use in marriage and with parenting, I had a brilliant title, Great Questions, very plain. Focus said, we wanna use the title, Now We're Talking. So here I was struggling, this was before the internet, to talk with my wife, and now there are books that are going out all over the country, and I'm speaking to people all over the place. When I'm weak, then I'm strong. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Sometimes God will close a door, and if we open our eyes, we'll find out he's opening another one. We never expected. So I went to different doctors, and doctors, eventually they diagnosed it. They diagnosed it as, great title, spasmodic dysphonia, which is what RFK Jr. has. And I said, is there any treatments for it? Yes, we can do injections in your vocal cords. I'm gonna pray a little bit more, you know.

But eventually, so many people praying and giving it to God, I began to get that help. And it's been incredible help to me. And I've been a professor since then. I travel, I preach, I teach. I get help with it periodically. God can still heal me completely. And yet, it still keeps me telling that story. But I say that to tell you, it's done something in my soul. It's helped me in ways I never expected. And I, a few years ago, I asked God, I said, teach me what you were trying to say to Paul when you said, when we're weak, then we're strong. One of the things that came very clear to me is this. We all have strengths. You know, the person around you, they have a strength. You have a strength. The person that you, we all do. Things that we're exceptionally good at. But we also have a weakness. You've been given a strength so that you can serve God. But you've been given a weakness to keep you depending on God. You remember the story of Jacob and the limp after God blessed him? You've been given a weakness to keep you depending on God. Two of my kids deal with some learning needs and other things, but I see how God is using it incredibly in their life. So we're gonna talk this weekend about a number of things

that God uses in the soul to help us and to grow us and to build us. And one of the things we're gonna talk about is how do you know when you need counseling? So if you're somebody that said, you know, I've always wondered about maybe doing that. This is a weekend to come because you won't be at a counseling appointment, but you'll be learning things that you begin to learn in that experience. But in that house, Lord, my soul is your house, but it's too small. When you move, sometimes there's a room that's the last room to get clean. You know what I'm talking about? There's still boxes in that room. Any of you still have a couple of those around? And when company comes over, you dare the kids, do not let anyone go in that room. We have areas in our hearts. We say, I don't wanna go there. It's too painful, it's too personal, it's too difficult, and I don't know if I can get help there. And I want to say to you, that may be the very place that God does want to go, but I wanna reassure you, he will never force himself into that place. He will kindly bring you to that place to get the healing that he wants to bring you. And this is one of the beautiful things about ministries like Emerge, helping people find beauty from ashes

in life through Christ. You know, the most often read article on our website is called 12 Ways to Work on Your Joy. 12 Ways to Work on Your Joy. People want to experience joy. We wanna know it. We want to walk in it. We wanna experience it in our lives. But one of the blessings that God wants to give your soul is rest. It's rest. Have you ever felt like you got plenty of sleep, but you're not very rested? That's because your body needs sleep, but your soul needs rest. Jesus said the most wonderfully comforting words to you and me in the Gospels. Come unto me all you who are struggling, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you what? Rest. You will find rest for your souls. Do you remember when the Hebrew children were in Egypt and Pharaoh built that culture of anxiety? More bricks, less straw. More bricks, less straw. Work harder, we're gonna give you less. That's kind of a culture like we live in today in our world. More bricks and less straw. And we think of Moses taking the Hebrew children

and leading them to the promised land, and they're just gonna jump into the promised land. No, no, no. God had to teach them something first. He gave them 10 commandments, one of which you will have a day every week that is a day of rest, a day of shalom. Shalom is a greeting that means may you experience wholeness. May you experience fullness. May you have rest in your soul. May God fill you and bless you. Because as I said, God loves your soul. Your soul is beautiful to him, and he wants it to remain fresh and strong so that you have what you need to get through what you're going through. Tony Evans said, we're either in a storm, we're coming out of a storm, or we're about to go into a storm. That's for sure true in Pennsylvania and Ohio. So in other words, as in the church, and I feel this has been done beautifully here, we need to help other believers keep their souls ready because you never know in this planet what we walk through next. And we need his help and his strength. But one of the places that gives us a view of God's view of your soul, it's one of the most wonderful stories in the New Testament,

it's in the Gospels, and it's probably my favorite, the story of the prodigal son. Some would call it the story of the faithful father. Some would call it the stories of the envious brother, you know, because there's a meanwhile to that story. But what really impresses me is that father. Don't you wonder how long he prayed before he saw his son coming back? Was it weeks, was it months, was it years? He prayed and prayed. His son had gotten his inheritance. He squandered it on wild living, drinking, prostitution, all that. And then his father's walking day after day, looking on the horizon, praying that his son would return. And then one day, he sees a little silhouette on the horizon and he wonders, could it be? And he looks, and more and more it becomes the form of his son, and he's moved in that moment. And we know that story, what does he do? He doesn't walk towards him, what does he do? He runs towards him. And when he greets him, they embrace one another and they weep with one another. And then he calls and says, put a robe on his back, put a ring on his finger, kill the fatted calf, we're gonna celebrate. The one who is dead is now alive. What a moment, what a moment. You know what that's a picture of?

That's the picture of how God feels about you and your soul. The way he loves you and me. Because what is not often talked about in that story is what the father did not say. Did you notice what he did not say? He didn't say, I can't believe you messed up again. Did you waste all of that money? You never get it right. You always mess things up. You perpetually get yourself into trouble. He did not chide him. Why? Because he was praying for his soul. I'm not saying that we should never do correction. But there's something in that story of God wanting us to see how he loves our soul. He's the maker of our soul. He's the savior of our soul. And he is the lover of our soul. In light of the grace of God at work within us, I think of the way someone put the gospel. They did it in light of a house, kind of like the house we're talking about. And this was Dick Foth, he said, you can look at it this way. Through the gospel, God said, I'm gonna leave my place. I'm gonna come to your place. I'm gonna take your place. And then we're gonna go back to my place. Don't you love that?

I'm gonna leave my place. I'm gonna take your place on the cross, die for your sins, make a way for you to know God. And then we're gonna go back to my place. That's the good news of God. It's the good news for your soul and mine every minute of every day. I wanna pray with you and take a moment. If you'll close your eyes, bow your head. Think for a minute about God and his work within your soul. Think about your soul as God's house. Maybe you, like Augustine said, God, my soul is your house, but it's too small. I want you to grow it. I need you to grow it. The things within it, I want you to help remove and heal, God. There's grace and help that I need from you. And Lord, there may be even places that I need you to help me to step towards in your way and in your timing. And God, as we come before you today, as we draw nearer to you, we put our faith and our trust in you, we pray that your Holy Spirit would search our hearts. And God, you would know what is within us today. And we know that you do because Psalm 139 says, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise up, you're familiar with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue,

you know it completely because you know us so well, God. You know us so well. And yet you have called us sons and daughters of God. And you love us with an everlasting love. What that means is you love us with a love that will never stop loving us. No matter what anyone has ever said, no matter what anyone has ever done, you love us with a love that will never stop loving us. us with an everlasting love, and you want that to be sealed in our hearts. God, I truly believe the healthiest place to be in our minds and in our hearts is when we deeply know that we are deeply loved by God, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what. So God, in this moment, would you have your way within the souls in this room? Move among us as the good shepherd minister in all the ways you desire. Say the things that only you can say as you breathe in hearts and lives today. I pray that you would heal hurts, God, in hearts and lives, even in these moments, that you would come alongside the one that feels alone, even the one that struggles to feel, and that you will bring strength and life and joy, the presence of God. Lord, when there are no answers that are satisfying, that your presence would bring a different kind of satisfaction,

a different kind of fullness. God, where life is stolen, we pray that you would restore. Where our hearts have hurt, where we have made, even had experiences that have wounded us, that you would bring grace and healing. As we're praying, some of you are here and you're saying, you know, I feel distant from God, Dr. Crosby, and I wanna be close to him, I wanna walk closely with him, and I can tell this God that you're speaking about today, and Jesus coming the way he did, that he wants me to be close to him and to stay close to him. And if you're here and you're feeling far from God, and you just want to get closer to him, remember, he's the one that said, come to me, all you who are struggling, and I will give you rest, I will give you rest. If that's you, with every head bowed, every eye closed, and you need to get closer to God, and you wanna be a part of this prayer, just put your hand up right where you are, I'm gonna wait just a moment, just put it right up. God bless you, put it right up. Pray for you, I'm gonna wait another moment. Put it right up and then right back down. God bless you. God bless you. And then there are others of you that say, absolutely, my soul is God's house,

and I truly want him to continue to grow it, I want him to help me with things that are in my soul that I need his help with. I want my soul to be so grounded in Christ that I am in Christ, and I know that I am, and that I walk with him fully and freely on that journey of becoming more whole through him, through getting close to the Prince of Wholeness. I want my soul to be more whole and complete through him. If that's you, put your hand right up, right up. So many of us in the room. And then I'm gonna ask you to do something, something that can be very helpful about a physical expression of a spiritual commitment to remember a moment of surrender to God. In a moment, we're gonna sing a song. Here I lay it down, here I lay down my surrender. This is my surrender. I will make room for you in my heart and in my life and in my soul. I'm gonna ask everybody to stand and let's continue to be in a prayerful mode before the Lord. I'm gonna invite you to pray a simple prayer after me, but as you do, would you do this, do something maybe a little bit different, to represent the soul that God has given you and every one of you he has. He's breathed in you the breath of life and you have a soul. I'm gonna ask you to take your hands

and just cup them in front of you. And as you close your eyes, think of that, that God, you have made me not just a self, but a soul. And this is the place where faith works to help bring the parts of my life together. For me to walk in your integrity, you don't want my life to be detached and pulled away and separated, but you want to integrate the parts of my life, to bring them together in you, to look at how Jesus did it, to follow his example and to draw near to you and to love you. So just repeat this prayer after me. Dear God, I need you. I'm lost without you. I am empty without you. I am desperate for you. I yield myself to you. You have given me this soul. You are working within my life. You're bringing beauty out of ashes. You're growing me in you. My soul is your house, but it's too small, God. I need you to grow it. There are things within it that only you can help me remove. There are places I need to go

that only you can help me go. Savior of my soul, lead me closer to you. Make me completely yours. Bring healing and grace in all the ways that I need. Thank you for your deep love for me. Help me to believe it even more deeply in Jesus' name. As we sing this song in your private way, just express to the Lord how you wanna make room for Him in your soul and in your life, and make this a prayer to Him today. Here is where I lay it down, every burden, every doubt. This is my surrender, this is my surrender. Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt. Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt. This is my surrender. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to. Oh, we thank You, Lord. Here is where I lay it down, every burden, every doubt. This is my surrender,

this is my surrender. Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt. Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt. This is my surrender. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to. Awesome, so as we get ready to close, I want to do a couple things. First of all, can we just thank Dr. Crosby for being here and for sharing such an awesome word. Thank you. It's an honor to have you with us. And so before we close, let's just sing this through again. And man, it's so good that when we worship, if you're newer here, you might not be used to the physical expression, but we believe the physical expression is so important because it's leading our souls.

So sometimes we let our feelings kind of dominate our lives, but we're saying, okay, God, I surrender to You. I know You're close. I know Your thoughts and Your plans and Your heart for me is good, even when I don't feel it. So as we get ready to sing this again, come on, just posture yourself before Him now. Maybe you put your hands out in front of you. This might be a little different than what you're used to, but you're just saying, Jesus, You're what I'm after. Let's sing this again now. I will make room. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. To do whatever You want to, God. Oh, I will make room for You. To do whatever You want to. Yeah, come on, sing it again. Whatever You want to. I will make room for You. I will make room. ♪ For You ♪ ♪ Just do whatever You want to ♪ ♪ Do whatever You want to ♪ ♪ I will make You, for You, for You ♪ ♪ Just do whatever You want to ♪ ♪ Whatever You want to do ♪ ♪ Have Your way in me, Lord ♪ So let's just keep that posture.

Let's pray that now. Lord, we pray, have Your way in us. Have Your way in us. Lord, we want to pray this every day this week. We don't have the answers. We don't know how to figure everything out, but we pray, have Your way in me, Lord. Have Your way in my family. In Jesus' name. Now just stretch forth your hand. Let me pray a prayer of blessing over you before you go. I pray that the Lord would remind you that He's close to you, that He desires to know you and to be known by you, and that He would guide every step this week as you trust in Him, as you draw near to Him, as you submit to Him, that He would guide every step. I pray the Lord's blessing and His favor upon you and your family. In Jesus' name, everybody said, amen, amen. Awesome. Hey, before you go, I know for some of you that you feel this during your next step, as Dr. Crosby was sharing, is to come to Soul Care Weekend. So let me push you. Before you leave the building, you gotta sign up for Soul Care Weekend this Friday and Saturday. We're looking forward to that, and the band's gonna hang around for just a few minutes

and sing the song. If you need to create some extra space just to breathe and to be with God, they're gonna sing. But thanks for being here. Have a great weekend. Thank you.