Philippians: Part 7

Philippians: Part 7 - Learning to Ask and Trust God

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome this morning. Glad that you're with us. My name is Andre, I'm one of the pastors here, and excited to be together. Missing everyone who's streaming from home. I know there's a few of you, so welcome from afar. I want to begin today by going back in history for a second. November 22nd, 1873. Would anyone randomly know why that date would mean anything to anyone? I don't expect to. I didn't know this before this week. So it's a date that, on this date, a steamship was heading across the Atlantic, and on it, this man, Horatio Gates Spafford, had his family besides him, his wife and four daughters on this steamship. And tragically, another vessel, an iron vessel, collided with this steamship, and 226 people perished, including all four of Horatio's daughters. A couple weeks later, he finds out because his wife sends a telegram when she arrives at her destination across the Atlantic, sends a telegram back to Horatio that says, "Saved alone." He goes to fix another ship a couple weeks later, and he goes out to meet his grieving wife. And while he's on his journey, his ship crosses the point where his four daughters perished. And he was inspired in that moment to write the hymn, It is Well with My Soul. I wanna read the second verse of that hymn. It says, "When sorrows like sea billows roll, "though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, "let this blessed assurance control "that Christ has regarded my helpless estate "and has shed his own blood for my soul. "It is well with my soul." How could someone enduring such grief write the words, "It is well with my soul"? I believe it's only possible for Spafford to have written those words because of his deep, deep trust and faith in God. A faith that endured one of the most challenging moments of his life up to that point. And I'm sure Spafford had to ask God to sustain him daily, to carry him through each moment as he was grieving the loss of his children. I don't know if you've ever had to do that. If you've ever been in a place in life where you have to ask God daily just to get you through that day because of what you're going through, because of how little you feel you you have of your own energy, strength, confidence, whatever it may be, and you are depending on God saying, "I don't feel like doing anything, "so God, I need you to get me through the next minute, "the next hour." Have you ever, think of a time in your life when you've had to ask Him for that and then trust Him. You've had to ask and then wait in that trust that He will provide. Paul definitely has, the apostle Paul, who has written the book of Philippians, I think has gone through that multiple times in his life. We're getting to the end of our letter in Philippians, and he's wrapping things up. And as a reminder, our series is called "A Joy That Endures." Paul knows what that's all about from experience. He's in prison, unsure of his future, whether he's going to die soon, or if he's just gonna be kept in prison alive. But he's writing to the church of Philippi, persevering through his difficulties to continue the work of the gospel.

And I began with the story of Spafford, it is in this hymn, "It is well with my soul," because I wanted to preface this morning with the uncomfortable truth that for many of us, at some point, there is tension in our lives as we are devoted to following Jesus, and how that interplays between the realities that we face and what it means to follow Jesus. There can be tension in different seasons. Or maybe there's just, you're thinking like, I felt tension ever since I've been conscious and I just feel this tension of following Jesus and the world around me all the time. We are people who tend not to like tension. I don't know about you, I avoid it at all costs. I am very uncomfortable when it comes to tension, whether it's between another person or a situation is making, I feel the tension, I have to resolve it, or I have to do my part to get away from it, remove myself, or whatever it may be, but I don't like tension. Sometimes tension is good because it informs us that something's off and something needs to be addressed. But the uncomfortable truth is that other times, God wants us to just sit in tension. I think of the Psalms, and so many of the Psalmists have tension in those passages. There's deep despair and anguish, and yet they're also praising God. We'll get to more of that in a bit. If I'm being honest, one of the most frustrating parts of following Jesus in the day-to-day life is dealing with this tension. By the way, Jesus felt tension throughout his life, being fully man, fully God. There's a moment that I'm sure we recognize of when that tension becomes unbearable. It's in the Garden of Gethsemane. when he's praying to God, if there be any other way than what has to happen tomorrow or that morning, please let that happen. Jesus felt the tension. The tension in our Christian life too, doesn't have to be between just a bad thing and a good thing that's probably less tension. We just know that there's a clear cut right answer. There's a direction that God wants us to go. But sometimes the tension comes in two good things and trying to discern, God, What do you want me to do? Maybe you've been in situations where you're wondering, "God, is this a moment to humbly suffer for your kingdom, or do I stand up for justice here?" Or maybe it's, "God, are you calling me to my dream job across the country, or do I stay put in my community with my family?" Those are two good things. What is God calling you to do? There's tension in that. "God, do I continue in my friendship with a person who's not a believer, and I know that I am the only Christian friend they have, or do I distance myself because it's unhealthy for me?" "God, what do you want me to do?" Or maybe it's more focused on what we want to happen, like Paul might have prayed as he's sitting in prison. I think God had - or Paul had many prayers to God, thinking, "God, can you just either - can I join you in heaven? I'd rather be dead, can you just have them kill me so I can be with you in heaven, or have them release me so I can go about fulfilling my gospel mission. I don't like being here in prison. But sometimes the tension means sitting in silence, waiting to hear from God.

And although we feel the absence of clarity or direction, we can know that He is in the waiting with us. Oftentimes, our hearts experience the most transformation, the act of being molded by God in the midst of tension. So as we'll find out today, even in the midst of tension, of having to endure things, there is a call on our hearts to rejoice. What does that mean? Let me go ahead and pray. We're gonna dive into Philippians 4, and we're gonna find out what Paul's talking about. So would you guys pray with me again? God, thank you for our time this morning, And as we come before you, we pray that your word would illuminate our hearts to your truth and that we would understand better the life that you are calling us to. Speak to us through these words in Philippians, God, and I pray that we be encouraged and empowered to follow you with everything that we have. We pray this in your son's name. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Philippians 4. We're going to start in verse 2, or you can pay attention to the screen. I'm going to read the first couple of verses here. Paul writes, "I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the Book of Life." Paul is here admonishing them to seek and strive for unity. Again, this has been present throughout the entire book, But he wants the church, again, to understand that the biggest threat to God's church is divisiveness that comes from within. And one of the best ways to unify people is to get them together around a common cause. To unify them, have them have the same target in mind and say, "Hey, I need you to all to focus on this because you understand how good this is for the church." And so Paul tells them to have the same mind, there's unity, and then to help the women who have helped him. There's also a beautiful reminder here and request by Paul for the church to work out conflict as a community. And I love that picture and that idea.

The modern church for the past several decades has really emphasized an individual faith in Jesus, which is good. But sometimes they've emphasized it at the point of losing this communal aspect of our faith. And there are things that need to be done as a church, as a community. We just finished our community group about fasting, and in there we had a beautiful reminder too of the need to fast together as a church, and how that's different than just fasting alone. Jesus meant for the Christian life to be done in community, and so that includes conflict resolution sometimes. This is a part of bearing each other's burdens, of exercising love and compassion and understanding and forgiveness. So I want to remind us today that we at Spring Valley believe that, that if the situation were to arise and it was needed, we would be a church that would want to resolve whatever conflict together as a church. So that's Paul's little snippet there. And then we go into another final encouragement, summarizing the point of this whole entire and it's a lesson that is easier said than done. Let's go ahead and go to verse four. It says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. "I will say it again, rejoice." Guys, we could have a whole sermon on just this verse. I can't, I have to go through more verses, but this is, there's a lot to unpack here. This is easier said in the good times, right? Rejoice in the Lord. If you're in a good place in life, you're like, amen. I can do that. God's been blessing me, I'm in a great place, I'm feeling his provision, life is good, I'm gonna praise him. And you should, we should be praising God in the good times. But the reality is, the good times, I think, are one of the smallest percentages of our life. Pure, just great, a great time where there's nothing else that's going on in your life that's bringing you down, that's a very small percentage of your life.

The reality is, for many of us, it's not often - I would venture to say it's not often - that we just feel like rejoicing and praising God. More often, I think more likely, life is complex, full of difficult-to-parse situations where there is good, but there's also something else going on. All of our lives are connected, And so, when you feel stress, anxiety, disorder, or chaos in one area of life, it often affects the other areas of life too. So the question becomes, what does it look like to rejoice always in those times? How do I rejoice when maybe there's seemingly nothing to rejoice over? Hence the tension that I was talking about at the beginning. Well, I want to restate what we've talked about earlier in the series that rejoicing is not just being happy, having a smile on your face, though that may be what happens sometimes, but that's not what Paul is talking about here. Paul is saying to rejoice always and not in everything. He's not sitting there in prison saying, "Man, I'm a rejoicing guard. Can you give me another lashing? This is great. Love it here in prison." It's not what Paul is saying. He's saying, "Rejoice always." So what does that mean? And before you may quickly have this answer of like, "This is what it means," and that's good, hold that answer. I want to throw some scenarios at you, and I just want you to wrestle with maybe how you would answer. If this is someone you knew, and they were saying, "This is my situation. How should I rejoice?" So what does it mean to rejoice always when someone you love is slowly dying? What would it mean to rejoice always when a relationship in your life continues to cause you pain and hurt over and over again? What does it mean to rejoice always when your job is no longer feeling fulfilling and you're starting to feel the sense of loss? And just what am I supposed to be doing? What's my purpose? How do you rejoice always when you look at your budget and you're wondering how you're going to afford the necessities of life or how to provide for your family? What does it look like to rejoice when your faith in God starts to feel full of doubt and questions? I'm sure you have your own situations that you can fill in the blank there. How am I supposed to rejoice always, whatever you're going through or have gone through? Can I confess something to you? I'm still figuring this out. I mentioned tension in the Christian life earlier, and this is one of those areas that I feel tension. I don't always know what it means to rejoice always. There are situations we face where we may know we're supposed to rejoice, but as much as we want to muster it out of our own strength, there's just not, there's nothing there. Sometimes we may ask, "How do I bring myself to do that?" We may feel like we have conflicting emotions or desires within us. I do think we often think of emotions as all or nothing, in the sense of, "If I'm feeling happy, then I shouldn't be feeling sad. If I'm feeling this, then I can't be feeling this other thing." But you may already know this. I did some research this week. We, our human bodies, God created us to feel multiple emotions at the same time, hence more tension in our life.

For me, one of these situations where I feel this tension, People will ask how my dad, who has Alzheimer's, how he's doing and how I'm doing with it. And I love, I always appreciate people caring for me, but that is one of the hardest questions to answer. Because it's a mess inside for me. While I'm feeling so sad and grieving the loss of someone who's slowly dying and forgetting everything, I am also so happy and grateful to be getting time with Him, for that my family, my daughter, can be getting time with Him and making memories with Him. So the sadness I feel does not mean that there isn't any happiness, and the times that I am happy doesn't mean that I'm not deeply grieving. It's just both, and there's tension there as far as what I'm supposed to be feeling, and what I feel the most, and what I want God to do about it. I think rejoicing often means sitting in the tension of multiple emotions or desires and realizing that we aren't in control, that God is, and that the outcome that we may want, we can express to God, but ultimately we'll have to surrender it to God. most basic level, I think it means trying to see things from God's perspective and resting in His sovereignty. That's a working definition for me, so in a year I may have a different definition.

But there's so much and there's so much more we don't have time for. There are people, amazing pastors and theologians who write books on this about rejoicing always. So this is a very condensed version, but again down to its essence, I think a part of rejoicing always means rejoicing in the fact that we're trying to see God's perspective and we're resting in his sovereignty and the fact that he's in control. I think that could include praising him in that moment for who he is and what he's doing in our lives. It could mean rejoicing in the sacrifice that Christ made for us and the provision and the and the salvation that he offers us. It could mean rejoicing. Rejoicing could look like, well, we cannot see and understand everything. We serve a God who does see everything and understands everything. Rejoicing always could mean rejoicing in the temporary duration of this life and knowing that eternity is spent with God. Or rejoicing always just may mean thanking God for this day and that we're looking forward to the very next day. And that's it. And I understand that some of these things during the hardest times, if you were to say this to someone, it might sound cliche. It might sound like lip service. But at the very least, when someone hears this, hopefully, and even the mere attempt to do any of these things, to look at God's perspective, to try to see what God is doing, to try to rejoice, The mere attempt of this is turning our eyes and our hearts to Jesus. Even if we aren't successful in the sense that we don't start singing, maybe we don't start singing, maybe we don't become very happy in that situation, but we're at least looking in the right direction towards Christ. And we may not be bounding to Jesus, running to him, being, "Praise you, God, love you, everything's great." We may just be crawling. But even a slow crawl is us heading toward the Almighty. The implication of this verse, when Paul writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice," the implication is that we will be suffering in this life. He knows, that's why I think he says it twice, right? He's, "Rejoice always." They're like, "Yeah, yeah, good times, we're gonna rejoice." Again, I say, "Rejoice." See, your life as a Christian means suffering. Another pastor spoke on Matthew 16:24, where Jesus tells his followers to take up their cross and follow him. And the pastor pointed out that people don't often think about what that really means. If we were to pause and think about the journey that Jesus took with the cross, after being tortured, beaten, then he had to carry his own cross to the hill that he would die on. And Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me.”

That's not life is gonna be great, we're gonna be Christians, it's gonna be so happy. He's inviting us into suffering. He's inviting us into trials, difficult times. 1 Peter 4:12 says, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed." It's encouraging to know that both Peter and Paul are on the same page here. always, no matter what you are going through. Alright, we're not even close to halfway done. That was just one verse. The rest will go quickly, I think. Verse 5 says, "Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." Paul is instructing the church in Philippi to continue in their compassion and love towards other people. It's one of the markings of the church, it should be something that stands out about a Christian, a follower of Jesus, is that they are prone to gentleness, to caring for other people, extending grace and mercy, as opposed to maybe the chaotic spirit as one who is prone to selfishness and stirring up strife and is all about their own pride and their own gain. Paul says, "Continue in gentleness. Be compassionate. Have a godly approach, a Christ-like approach. And he says the Lord is near trying to spur on urgency saying this is so important. We don't know when Jesus is coming back but you need to, he's coming back soon, so you need to live your life, this Christian life, with urgency. Don't slack off on this. Don't think you can push this off until like let me get some stuff figured and then I'll start being gentle and compassionate and gracious.

I think we need that reminder today. That this is, that life that we are called to live needs to be lived right away. All right, the next two verses bring us right back into the tension that we can feel as we walk with Jesus in the midst of difficult situations. It says, "Do not be anxious about anything, "but in every situation, by prayer and petition, "With thanksgiving, present your requests to God, "and the peace of God which transcends all understanding "will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I hear this verse, and it makes sense to me on a head level. Like up here, I understand. I even have a piece of art over my desk that has Matthew 6:26, says, "Look at the birds of the air. "They do not sow or reap or store away any barns, and yet the Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Meaning God will provide. There's no need to worry because God will provide for you. God is in control. Do not be anxious about anything. That's what Paul says. That is so tough. That is really tough. Paul is writing this from prison. So it's not like I can say Paul you don't understand. He's in prison. He's got a lot going on. I think he's battling anxiety. Our series is about a joy that endures through all things. Oh man, Paul is writing this and he's well aware of the hardships that the church of Philippi is going through, just like God is very much aware of the things that we are going through. And yet, we are to trust and depend on Him daily. Another plug for the practice of fasting is part of the growth that I experience, I think others experience too, is in this practice of fasting, you're learning to trust God with something small. You skip a meal or a couple meals, and you are trusting that when you're hungry, when you're feeling low energy, He will provide for you. He will give you what you need. And by doing that, if you do that over and over again, it's like a muscle, right? It's easier for us to depend and trust in God so that when something difficult in life happens, We are ready, we are more prone to trust and depend on Him in that situation. So I think it's kind of what Paul's talking about here. Don't be anxious about anything. Trust in Him. As you do this more, it's going to get easier to not be anxious because you're going to realize all that you can trust Him with, which is everything.

The end of verse 6 instructs us to present our requests before God. Now, this is, again, I'm confessing a lot to you. I start to have trouble here. This is hard for me. I grew up learning to trust in God's sovereignty, like that Matthew verse, trust. God knows everything that I need, so why do I need to tell him? Why do I need to err? Like, "Hey, God, you know, you see me, "and you are gonna look out for me. "You say you're gonna provide for me. "I don't really need to tell you what I want "or what I need because you know. "So God, please just give me what I need." But recently in the last six months, in the last month a lot, I've been challenged with the thought of being specific with God in our prayers. Let your requests be made known to God. Now I know that God answers specific prayer. There's so many examples. I love being a part of the prayer chain here at this church because we see God answer prayer. I mean, just this morning we were talking about Arthur's housing situation. How God provided a place for him. Shelley, who's not here with us, but prayer came in that she was given notice for 90 days that they were going to have to move. And within five days of that notice, they found a new place, a better situation. Amazing! I know that God answers specific prayer. I even think of, we go back in church history, George Mueller in England who ran an orphanage And he started this orphanage and he didn't have anything. And daily he would pray, he's like, "I have no food for all these kids tomorrow. God, we're going to pray right now that you would provide a meal." And over and over again, the next day, someone would show up who had no relation, he had no idea, but there would be money or food to provide for these children. countless stories of God answering specific prayer. Even in the Bible, and this is a passage that I've just been dwelling on for a month now, it seems, Matthew 20:29, Jesus and the crowd are leaving Jericho, and he's walking along the path, and there's two blind men, and they cry out, "Jesus, have mercy on us!" And the crowd hushes them, says, "Hey, can you stop, knock it off? We're trying to listen to Jesus here." and they cry out even louder, "Jesus have mercy on us!" And Jesus says, "What do you want me to do?" And they answered, "We want our sight." And the verse says, "Jesus had compassion on them and healed them." Now I read that, and I say, "Why?" Jesus, you of all people would know what two blind people want. They probably want to see. Why are you asking them what do you want? And it starts to become clear to me, even though I'm wrestling with it, that it's a heart issue. God cares about our hearts and getting us to this place of trust and surrender. See, but putting all this is difficult for me.

We're not supposed have any anxiety and yet we naturally have expectations of what we want for life and what we want God to do for us. We hope that God will provide certain things. We are to pray for what we want and yet we are to trust that and surrender that He will just whatever God sees best. And mixing that all together is so difficult. God I'm supposed to pray specifically what I want and yet at the end of this prayer I'm supposed to come to a place where I just surrender if that happens or not I'm going to praise you?" I think the answer is yes. And some days I'm okay with that, and other days that's really frustrating to me. So how do we surrender our will and our desires to God? Trying to exercise trust and yet present requests before Him. Well, He says in verse 7, When you do this, when you present your request to God, it's like Paul knew what people are going to be wrestling with, then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts. I love that phrase "transcends all understanding." I think that's a really fancy way of saying you're not going to understand. You're not going to get it. It's not going to make any sense to you. God's going to work in a way that you will not comprehend. I like to comprehend. I want things to make sense. This is challenging for me. But it is true that the peace of God will guard our hearts. See, I'm just formulaic. I want 2+2 to equal 4, and that's not how prayer works. It's not, "God, if I pray this, then I will receive this." If I present this request, and I surrender, then God will give me ultimately what I wanted. I think of Solomon and I'm like, "God, can I just have that? You offered him money, you offered him power, you offered him wisdom. He was supposed to choose wisdom and he got everything else. God, can I do the same thing? Can I get the wisdom and everything else if I got to that?" No. It's about this process of learning to trust God with our hearts, of surrendering our wills and saying, "God, your will be done," just as Jesus prayed. And as we voice our hearts when we're vulnerable with God, and we trust him that he'll provide however he sees fit, whether it's what we wanted originally or not, the peace of God will guard our hearts. Paul is bringing the imagery of a soldier guarding our hearts against fear, anxiety, and doubt. So when we pray, petition, we reach this place of surrender, then we trust Him, and then we can praise Him. Because we know that only He is in control, and we know God's character. And there is no one better to be in control of everything than God. And in there, there is room to praise Him. There is reason to praise Him. All right, I hope and pray that that made sense. Because that was a lot and it is still stuff that I am processing in life right now. as I wrestle with this passage. But we have this pattern developing here. Don't be worried, rejoice in all things. Don't be anxious, God will give you peace.

And then to help remain in Christ, Paul says do the following and we come to verse 8. "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Oh, we don't have enough time. There's so much good in here. Okay, this list, "True, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy." This is a good list. it has been proven that the most successful way to stop doing something that you don't want to do is to set yourself a new target, to focus on something new. For example, if you were to eat a donut every morning, and you want to stop eating a donut every morning, you couldn't just not eat anything. You need to replace that with something else and say, "I'm no longer going to do this. I'm instead, I'm going to do this." That's this list right here for Paul. He's giving us something new to focus on. If when you are living like Christ, if you need something, you're going to stop, you're going to refrain from doing these other things, here's what you want to try to do now. And he's also saying, "Look at how I have followed Jesus. Do as I do." Not in a boastful way. He's not saying, "Look, I'm really great at this. I'm kind of awesome at following Jesus." He's just saying, "I know it's helpful to have someone to model it for you." Jesus is ascended, He's in heaven. Look at me as an example of what it means to follow Christ, to live like Christ. And then it says, the most amazing part is that He assures us that God will be with you. Did you notice this? That earlier in our passage, it mentions that the peace of God, the peace of God will be with you. And now He assures you that God Himself will be with you, who we know to be the Holy Spirit. How amazing is that? Now we can have comfort and peace in our hearts knowing the Holy Spirit God is with us in everything we go through. Even more reason to not be anxious. God knows what we need and what we need is Him and He gives Himself to us. So in the midst of this tension we have the God of peace with us and as we wrap up I want I want us to reflect on what God is calling you to do and what areas of your life need to be re-centered around Christ.

And so I just have a couple of questions I'm gonna ask you. Just think of these things this week. Number one, what situation are you in right now that you need to rejoice in? Whether it's a good one and you need to praise God for what God is doing or whether it is one of the most challenging situations in your life. What is that situation? And what does it look like to rejoice always in that situation? Second question, what requests do you have that God needs to hear? Are you being specific with God? I'm asking myself that question every day. How can I be more specific with God? And then as you ask that, Are you trusting and surrendering your will to His? Saying, God, this is what my heart desires. I hope that this desire comes from you, that this is a godly desire, but ultimately your will be done, God. Third question is, who is your model? Paul was talking about him being a model. And I love that last week, Pastor Lauren brought up this idea of spiritual godfather God and mother, that we are an example to other people. I'm gonna flip it this week and say, who's your example? Who is your model of the Christian faith? If you don't have one, this week, this is your specific prayer, ask for one. God, give me someone I can follow in life. God, give me someone who has walked with you longer than I have, that will help encourage me, that I can go to in times of trouble, of anxiety, that I can lean on and depend on. And if you have one, I would encourage you to connect with them this week. If it's been a while, just ask them out to coffee. Text them, thank God for them. But who is your model? And then lastly, which one of this list from verse eight, the whole list of just good things to focus on, which one do you need to focus on in life this next week? Right, our hearts are prone to wander. And so we need to focus our hearts on something good, excellent, praiseworthy, noble, true, whatever that list. Pick one, pray about God, which one do you want me to focus on? Our prayer as a church, as a staff, as pastors, knowing that so many of you are going through difficult situations, is that you walk with Jesus in that tension, whatever tension you're feeling, and that you are trying to see things from God's perspective, and that you're able to rest in His sovereignty, and the fact that He is in control, and that ultimately that you can rejoice.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, we are so thankful for who you are, what you've done, and how gracious and patient you are with us. So much of this Christian life of trying to live like you, we don't do perfectly, we're trying to figure it out. We're wrestling with things of, what does this mean? How do I do this? And yet, I think that you love that we are trying our best to live like Jesus. And so as you empower us through your Holy Spirit to live like you, I just pray that you would also encourage us, God. There are so many things that are happening in this world, in our lives, that easily just bring us down, that bring discouragement, that bring discontentment. And God, we pray that as we surrender our expectations, that we lay our desires before You, that You would give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. and that You, God, that we would feel You with us. God, be with us this week in every situation. We love You and we trust You. We pray this in Your name, amen.