Amen. Thank you so much, Riley. That was beautiful. And what a great prayer. Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Take your Bible, please, now with me this morning. And open to the book of Ecclesiastes chapter three. Ecclesiastes chapter three. I am a big picture kind of person. I will tell you by personal admission I'm not a detail guy. I'm not a detail guy. I'm a big picture person and I'm the kind of person that the big picture needs to be very simple for me. And I can understand something, the parts of something, if I can see it in a big picture. I'm not the kind of person that can focus on one little tiny part and then imagine what the rest of it will be. In other words, working in an organization. I like to see the big picture and then start thinking about the smaller parts. But really, if I had my druthers, if I had my choice, I would always just focus on the big scene, the big picture. I think there's something healthy. Now, by the way, if you're a detailed person, how many of you say, Pastor Monty, I'm a detailed person? Just raise your hand, just raise your hand. Okay, we need you. Okay, we need you. Okay, we've got to have somebody to keep things on the rails, and that's what the detailed people do. But the big picture people are important too. Sometimes in life, it is really easy for us to get caught up in details and not really see the big picture. I think it's good sometimes, and we're talking about New Year's. By the way, tonight is New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is New Year's Day. 2024. How many would say, Pastor Motti, I've already had a New Year's resolution that I'm going to do? Would you raise your hands? Come on, raise your hands. We're not gonna hold you to it for more than two days. Raise your hands. Okay, good, good. I have several, I have several. I need to heighten some things. I need to go back to some things. How many would say, Pastor, sometimes I need to go back to something that I know is better for me? Anyone like that? Yeah, I need to do that too. I'll tell you, from Thanksgiving until Christmas, this sugar thing, it needs to stop. It needs to stop, okay? I need to stop viewing it as my friend and start viewing it as the poison that it is. So, I need to go back to some things. But then also, in regard to that matter, I need to do some things that will improve myself personally and improve my effectiveness and the efficiency of the ministry of our church. So there are a lot of things that are kind of rolling around in my mind that I'm working on. Now, those are the detail things. Why? Because I want the bigger picture to be better. Life will never be perfect, but it can be better. Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1-9, we read a moment ago, really give us a panoramic view of life. He talks about in the passage the day that we're born and the day that we die. Those two words set the boundaries for our time, as Solomon would say, under the sun. They established the boundaries of that. And then he's going to talk about all the variety of life, the changes of life, the vicissitudes of life, if I may, that come to pass whether we want it or not. Now you say, Pastor, why is a panoramic view important? I think it gives us a big picture. So, for example, I like to go to the mountains. Now, when I go to the mountains, in order to get to the mountaintop, you have to drive through the valleys. In the valleys, you see the details. You see old rusting trailers on the side of the road. You see junkyard dogs running around. You see people with very little teeth. You see all of that if you're in the valley. But your goal is to get up to the mountaintop. Because then you go to the overlook and you see this tremendous expanse that is made up of all the details put together so that it all makes sense. Why would you want to do this, Pastor Monty? Why would you look at life this way? Well, for one thing, it speaks to me of my own insignificance, my own insignificance. It causes me to understand that my accomplishments in life are not that great when you take the big view of life. It causes me to understand that the issues that I face on a daily basis, they may seem huge to me, but in the grand scheme of things, they are infinitesimal. They're very, very small. Sometimes when I have opportunity to fly in an airplane, I love it when the sky is clear. And from 30,000 feet or so, you can look down and you can make out houses and farms and maybe you pass over a city and you see a whole city. And everything looks so tiny. And then you think to yourself, there are thousands of people that are living in those places, every one of them with their own heartache. Every one of them with their own tears. Every one of them with their own joy and successes. Every one of them with their own goal. That my part, though essential in the plan of God, from the standpoint that everyone's part is essential, is not the central part. Sometimes when we get a big picture, it causes us to understand how insignificant we are. My personal importance is really very small. My frustrations, most of the time, are very, very silly. Pastor, what do you get frustrated about? Everything. Everything. But my biggest frustration is broken things. When things break. You say, Pastor Whitey, what about people? Ah, people, that's easy. But when things break, it's really frustrating. We had our dishwasher was on the fritz for several months, it wouldn't drain water out of the bottom. So Kelly told me repeatedly every day that the dishwasher was broken. I mentally took note of it every day, but the more she told me about it, the more, well, the more it fell on deaf ears. How many men would say amen? Yeah, it just got old after a while. So then she stopped just telling me, but she started telling everyone we know. I actually expected one day to open the church bullet and just find a note. Preacher's dishwasher is broken. I don't really understand the big deal about a dishwasher. I thought I'd married one years ago. That is the last bad joke of 2023, okay? Y'all need to forgive that right now. Forgive it and move on, okay? Just trying to toughen you up for 2024. So it frustrated me no end. Do you know what it was? And it was mentally in my, I don't want to mess with this. I don't want to mess with this. I don't want to mess with this. I don't want to mess with this. I don't understand it. I don't know. I don't want to mess with it. You know what it was? A clogged pipe. That's it. And now I had to rebuild with the help of someone, rebuild the piping underneath the sink a little bit because that was leaking too and it was really gross. But that's all. That's all it was. You say, Bassemani, how come you built this up in your mind? Because it's just something that frustrated me, but now I look back on it and think how small that really was. When I take this big view of life, it causes me to see my own insignificance. It also causes me to see this, the bigness and majesty of God. The vastness of his creation, the importance of the big issues, eternity, heaven, hell, life, and death. And it really is a conviction to me about how much time I've invested in things that frankly don't really matter. Ecclesiastes chapter three then is a panoramic view of life. It's the big picture. Solomon, in this passage, desires that we would step back and see the big picture, to quit obsessing about every little detail that consumes us, to stop fixating on the tiny issues and say there's something bigger than myself Bigger than my issues, bigger than my problems, that life is made up of. Why? Why? Why take the big view? Let me tell you why. Only when I see the big picture can I respond appropriately to the seasons of life. Let me say that again. Only when I see the big picture can I respond appropriately to the seasons of life. He gives us, beginning at verse number one, a little bit of an introduction, and then he talks about the big picture, and then he talks about responses that appear opposite one another but are equally legitimate based on the season of life. So first of all, look at the big picture. Chapter 3, verse number 1. The Bible says to everything there is a season and a time, to every purpose under heaven. Did you note the words everything? In other words, every detail is included. Everything about my life has thousands of details, and that verse includes them all. To everything there is a season. There's a season for good, there's a season for bad, there's a season for happy, there's a season for sorrow. We'll get into that in a moment. It includes every detail. Now, this past year, we had a lot of happiness. Boy, some great things happened this past year. We had testimony time back in Thanksgiving time, and we ran out of time because you all had great testimonies, ran out of time. That was wonderful. This was a great year, but you know what else I know? There was a lot of sorrow woven in this year. There are a list of folks that are members of this church whose hearts broke as they said goodbye to loved ones. Funerals were held. People gathered with tears in their eyes. and said goodbye. Do you know that's all part and parcel of life? The big picture includes every detail. It also includes time, time. To everything, there's a season and a time. Note the word time. Time brings new realities. It brings new concerns. It brings new joy and brings new sorrow. I'm not the kind of pastor that's gonna stand here and tell you 2024 is gonna be all sunshine and happiness. In fact, the reality is some of us will go through deep trials in 2024, things maybe that we were not even expecting. The reality is in a crowd this size that there will be some people who are seated here right now, who this time next year will not be. I'm not naming names, nor am I praying. It was a joke. But that's just the reality, because it's happened every single year. It also includes seasons. I love that in verse number one, to everything there is a season. Well, what is a season? When we think about seasons, we think about summer, winter, fall, spring, not in that order. We think of all the seasons, how they come about. The seasons are appointed times. The Bible tells us in the book of Genesis that God appointed the seasons as a functionality of this earth. So when we see the word season in regard to our lives, we can think, you know, there are seasons of life. There are appointed period of time. These are longer periods in our lives. So for some, there may be a prolonged period of summer. How many of y'all like summer? Oh, I love summer, especially this time of year. I got to looking at the little lake and the boat and thinking, oh, I need to be out there, but it's too cold. We'd love it, many of us, if our lives could be one endless summer. They cannot be. We're in the winter season now in Indiana. It seems like it goes a long time. But by the way, I'm not complaining. I grew up in Minnesota. This is downright tropical, folks. It's wonderful here. But the truth of the matter is, the season goes for several months. Summer, spring, fall, winter. The seasons of life. You can look at your life this way. Kelly and I, sometimes when we're talking, we say that we have three different lives. Three different lives. Well, Pastor Money, what are you talking about? That sounds mildly bipolar. It is a little bit, but we had Can you even be a little bit bipolar? I don't know. That's a question for a doctor. But we had our early ministry years. Our very first church in Concord, North Carolina. And we think back about that. And that was like a little miniature lifetime. And then we had our time in Minnesota. And that was like 18 miniature lifetimes. So that was another miniature lifetime. And then the longest time period in our lives has been the 25 plus years that we've been here in Indiana. And it's like another epic. And so you can divide your life this way based on events in your life. So here's one for you. Here's one for you. How about the time prior to children? How many remember that? Oh, look at those happy hands going in the air. Then you have the children time. How many, remember, are in the middle of that? Okay, we will pray for you. And then, and then you have the empty nest time. How many are there? Okay, those are seasons of life. So the Bible teaches us that there are seasons of life. It includes change. Whether that change would be sudden or gradual, this big picture includes change. But it also includes this. To everything there is a season and a time, to every, what is the next word? What? Come on, what? Purpose, okay, purpose, a purpose. Okay, quit playing Angry Birds and listen to the sermon. There is a season and time to every purpose under heaven. That word, by the way, should encourage you. because all of it is a divine plan. Now listen carefully. It is not that God ordained everything that happens in the world from before the foundation of the earth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We don't buy that. But you know what it is? The God in heaven is sovereign. He is in ultimate control. And the things that he allows into my life good or bad, how I would categorize them, good or bad, they are all allowed into my life with a purpose. I love that as a Christian. That means that nothing happens randomly. That sometimes something that seems to me to be bad is God knocking hard at my door to get my attention. That sometimes something that I view to be very, very good and I say it is a blessing, sometimes those things come with some real liabilities. But whatever it may be, however I categorize it, good or bad, it is God having a purpose in my life. So he then gives examples of this. And drop down to verse number two. We said already that these are the parameters of what we're talking about, life under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die. That's true of everyone in this room. We're not here forever, folks. We sometimes act as if we are, but we're not. The Bible says that our life is as a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. This is an example of the big picture. Life, birth, and then death. But look at, continuing in the verse, a time to be born, a time to die. Note this, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. What is that based upon? Seasons. Seasons. How many have a garden? You all have a garden? Okay, good. You're good people that have gardens. Gardeners and fishermen are good people, okay? And so you've got a garden. What do you do? You get really eager to plant in the spring. How many of you would say, Pastor Monty, I even look at seed catalogs, do you? Yeah, that's so much fun. The pictures in those catalogs are always way better than the result that I ever got, but it's fun to imagine and to dream about this. Pastor Wall loves to do that, to page through seed catalogs, make all kinds of plans, spend all kinds of money, plant all kinds of stuff, and then just let it go to the devil. It's fun because you're in the preparation stage. So that's a season of time. You plant it. You let it grow. You nurture it. You hopefully pull some weeds here and there. And then it produces fruit. But then at the end of that time period, what happens? Think with me. It gets coal. The vines stop producing fruit. It dies. So what is the next step? Pluck it up. Pull it out of the ground. Prepare the ground for next year. That is the big picture of life. It includes life and death. It includes destruction and construction. Look at verse number three. There's a time to kill. Now, by the way, some people don't like that. Pastor Marty, is that really in the Bible? Oh, yes. Now, that is not the same Hebrew word as is found in the commandment, thou shalt not kill. The Hebrew word found in the commandment, thou shalt not kill, is the word that means specifically murder. You're not allowed to do murder, premeditated or not. You're not allowed to do that. But the Bible says there is a time to kill. It also says there's a time to heal. There's a time to break down and a time to build. So our friends in Israel are right now experiencing a time to kill. Pastor Monty, you just dared to get political. I just dared to get really practical with you. Evil. Horrible evil. Horrendous evil beyond anything we could possibly ever imagine has for decades brooded on their doorstep. and it finally overflowed. And it is for Israel right now, as Solomon said, a time to kill. There is a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up. Look at verse number four. There's also a time for sorrow. There's a time to weep. Pastor, I want every single day to be sunshine and happiness, and I just want to be filled with absolute joy and giddiness for the next year, and that's my resolution. It won't work. Because God says in the seasons of life, there's times of sorrow. And there are people, to whom I'm talking right now, who've gone through a dark time of sorrow. Maybe it's something that happened to you, your family, or the loss of a loved one, or a job problem, or something like that. Maybe it's the darkness that comes from mental illness. And you say, Pastor, I'm going through this really dark time. There is a season of weeping. The Bible says that, but look at verse number four. A time to weep, a time to laugh. Aren't you glad for that? A time to laugh. Boy, laughter, the Bible says, doeth good like a medicine. You should look for the humor in things, look for the laughter, because there's a time for that. There's a time, the Bible says, to mourn, and there's a time to dance. There's a time of mourning, there's a time of celebration. The Bible teaches that. There's also, interestingly enough, times of friendship and animosity. Look at verse number five. Now this is the big picture of life. This is the big picture of life. So many of us in life want just to have the positive things, because see how positive is juxtaposed with negative throughout the entire passage? Most of us want just the positive things, but the negative comes along too. And look at verse number five. There's a time to cast away stones. and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. Now, Pastor Monty, what's this thing about casting stones? While I was studying about this, most of the commentators said that the casting of stones was actually throwing stones in the enemy's field to inhibit the crop production in that field. What? That's not nice. No, it's really not. But it does illustrate, because the Bible goes on, it's his best commentary, is the Bible itself. The Bible says there's a time to embrace, and there's a time to refrain from embracing. Folks, as difficult as this sounds, some people are the enemy. Yeah, no, we love them. but we don't embrace what they believe. You're following what I'm saying? We don't embrace a philosophy that is antithetical to the Bible. We view anything that is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ to be the enemy. We have to view it that way. You cannot understand life unless you understand it in the framework that there are friends and there are enemies. That not everyone who exists is a friend of the gospel and the Apostle Paul even said that in Romans chapter 11. So we understand this, we understand in verse number six, there's a time to get. What does that mean? To gather stuff, to accrue stuff. When you're young, you gather stuff. And a time to lose. Sometimes when you're young, hopefully not when you're old, you take unnecessary risks and you lose. Then it says there's a time to keep. That is, preserve the things that I've accrued, that I've attained. But now everybody look at the last part. And there's a time to cast away. The big picture of life, when you're young, you're gathering everything you possibly can. I love dumpsters. Love them. I had rather shop in a dumpster than at Target any day. I don't like Target. It's just too weird. I'd rather shop in a dumpster. And boy, you know, when I was young, I could be dressed like this if I saw a promising dumpster. You say, Pastor Monty, what does that mean? Overflowing with cool stuff, okay? I would pull over to the side of the road. I'd get out and I'd start digging through. I brought stuff home. I accrued stuff. All kinds of stuff. You know what I'm doing now? Getting rid of it. How many are in that get rid of stage? Amen. And how many of you in the get rid of stage ask yourself why you ever saved it to begin with? Yeah, okay. In the big picture of life, there's a time to get it, to preserve it, and then there's a time to cast it away. Verse number seven says there's a time to rend, that means to tear something, possibly a piece of cloth, and a time to sew, in other words, put together the cloth again. So there comes a point in time, gentlemen, when you look at your blue jeans, and they have a little rip, but they're fairly new. They've only been washed a few times. What do you do? You ask your faithful wife to sew the little rip. By the way, it's fashionable to have rips. I never understand people who buy clothes that are pre-ripped. I will never understand that for as long as I live. What are you trying to do? Make people think you actually work? Okay, that's really, really deceptive. Okay, that's unchristian deceptive. Okay, well I just want them to think that I'm a lumberjack. I want them to think that I actually do something when really all I do is play video games and buy ripped jeans, okay? I have no purpose in that whatsoever. But gentlemen, there comes a time when that favorite pair of jeans has too many rips to sew up, right? There comes a time when you tear it. What do you mean you tear it? You cut it up and turn it into shop rags. Or, if your wife is clever, she makes a quilt out of it. There is a time to tear and a time to sew. The second part of verse number seven says there's a time to keep silence and a time to speak. That's really good. In my life, the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of silence. Even as a preacher, the older I get, the more I see that I don't have to say everything I know and I don't have to talk about everything I've heard. I understand there's, now there's times when I have to say some things, you know that, that's just how life is. But really a lot of times the better part of wisdom is to keep silent. And then he says in verse number eight, and this will be hard for some to swallow, in the big picture of life there is a time to love and a time to hate. What? Yes. Just as I'm commanded to love certain things, I'm commanded to hate certain things. People today think that the emotion of hate is something that is foreign to the Bible. It is not. In fact, if you do a study of that word, you'll find that there are certain things that we're to hate, certain philosophies that we're to hate, certain things that are diametrically opposed to scripture, and it is okay to have a hate relationship with those things. A time to love, a time to hate, The end of verse number eight finishes with this, a time of war and a time of peace. Pastor, I wish we could have peace forever and never have another war. That day is coming, I wish it too. But that day is coming, it is not now. No matter what kind of peace treaty is signed, what kind of agreement is made, and the Middle East is littered with broken peace treaties, whatever agreement is made, it will never result in peace until Jesus himself comes again. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He is the one who will establish peace in this world when there is absolute victory over Satan, So, in the world in which we live, the reality is a time of war. And sometimes nations necessarily go to war, other times they do so unnecessarily, but that is the reality of the world in which we live. That's the big picture. Well, what does it mean? Let me throw out a couple ideas. God allows the seasons of life for his purpose. Look at verses 9 and 10 of chapter 3. What profit hath he that worketh in wherein he laboreth?" Well, what's the point of all this, Solomon asks. He says, I have seen the travail, the suffering, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. What is the answer? it goes back to purpose. Do you notice that God has given us the travail? God has given us the difficulty. For what purpose? To be exercised in it, to be honed, to be changed, maybe to be made better, maybe to be made stronger. In other words, we can be assured that God allows seasons of life for his purpose, and then I can embrace them even if I don't like them. I can find hope in the words that God has given. It's not random. God allows everything that enters my life and yours as well. Another big picture thought is this, God can make everything beautiful. Look at verse number 11. He hath made everything beautiful in his time. Many of us in 2024, pardon me, 2023, went through some really ugly moments. It was those moments that we had a big spat with our spouse or with our kids, or maybe we had a problem at work, or maybe we had some kind of difficulty among people that we're friends with, and we went through a really dark time. Can I tell you something? All of that darkness will ultimately be something beautiful, but it will be in God's timing and not mine. He hath made all things beautiful in His time. What does it mean? That God can take everything, the ugly things, the things we don't like, the things that are unpleasant, the problems, the issues, the failure, God can take all of that and mix it together with all of the things we categorize as good, and God can turn it all into something beautiful if we let Him. And by the way, if we let him, and we're patient, waiting for his time, I need to trust him, and I need to trust his timing. If you look at the second part of verse number 11, the Bible says, he hath made everything beautiful in his time, also he hath set the world, so something much, much bigger than the small, small little focus of my life, he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. God has a plan, he can make everything beautiful, but God doesn't necessarily reveal his plan. Do you catch that? Do you know what, to be quite honest with you, there was a time when I wished I could know what God had in store. You ever feel like that when you were young? Wish you could just see it, just, you know, maybe some highlight clips, not the whole thing, but some highlight clips of what your life's gonna be like. I am so glad that God doesn't do that. I'm so glad. By the way, he doesn't tell me what his plan is. I'm part of it. Some people wander around saying, well, Pastor Monty, because of this, this, this, and this, God whispered in my ear that this is God's plan. Be careful of stuff like that. You don't have any more revelation than you have in that Bible, folks. Be very careful about that. Be very careful about saying, I know this is what God is doing. Because the Bible here says we really don't know that. But the Bible says we can trust Him. We can trust Him. We understand then that God has a plan, but it is not ours to know. Well, Pastor, what do we do with all this? Look at verses 12 and 13. This is all big picture, folks. Look at verses 12 and 13. I know that there is no good in them, speaking of the years of life, but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of his labor, it is the gift of God. What is my proper response? I should learn to enjoy life even with my limited understanding. I should learn to look at the good things and not the bad. I should learn that even in times of sorrow, there can be times of joy. I have a limited understanding of what God is doing, and yet I can still rejoice in the fact that He is doing something. And by the way, there is always something to be happy about. You see, my work in and of itself is temporary, but God's is eternal. Look at verse number 14. Solomon says, I know. I love those words. Those are two good words. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it. You can't add to it, nor anything taken from it. You can't take away from it. And God doeth it that men should fear before him. God's work is permanent. The bird's eye view, the aerial view, the mountaintop view, the view from the airplane, I think I'm pretty big stuff until I see life that way. And all of a sudden, though I'm significant because I am a creature made in the image of God, I understand my own insignificance in regard to the entire world that the world does not revolve around me and that it is by the grace of God that he can do anything with this lump of clay. It is by the grace of God that his work can be accomplished in some poor way through my hands. And it is only what God does that makes any permanent difference. Every season then has a purpose. That gives me hope. Change in life is inevitable, just like the seasons. You can't push against it. Life is a mixed bag. It was in 2023. It will be in 2024. My responses to life are based upon the season of life. There are times to hate. There are times to love. There are times to kill. There are times to heal. Those things are not antithetical to one another. They are not opposites in the fact that we have to choose one or the other. It's based on the season of life that we're in. Opposite responses are appropriate based on season. What served well in one season may not serve well in another season. You ever think about that? Summertime. Short sleeve shirt and knee length shorts. You know what? It doesn't work so good right now. Although we can be awfully thankful that it's not as bad as it could be. It doesn't work so good right now. What served well in one season won't serve well in another. Seeing the big picture then should moderate and balance my emotions. There's another verse that talks about that. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. We're all, by the way, when we talk about life, we're all in the same predicament, aren't we? We all are. Look at me, everyone. Look at me. Look at me. We're all in the same predicament. Don't make life harder for anyone else than it has to be. You hear what I just said? We're all in the same predicament. Don't make life harder for anyone else than it has to be. It's already hard enough. It's already gonna have the plus and the minus. It's already gonna have the clouds and the sunshine. It's all going to be blended together. But as I go through the seasons of life, I don't want to run away from them. I want to embrace them. Kids in your home, for 18 years. It is really like having beggars living in your home. It really is. They're very dependent. They want everything from you. They give nothing back. They're very demanding. They're time-consuming. They're money-consuming and resource-consuming. They all are. That's the nature of children. Brats. I mean children. But we love them, don't we? We love them. Then all of a sudden they leave the home. What do we do at that point? We have to embrace the big change of being empty nester. Yes! Really easy to embrace that change. But the truth is, as I go through the seasons of life, I don't run away from them. I embrace them because they are God's intention for me. 2024 is going to have a mix of everything I just read about in Ecclesiastes 3 and more. 2024 is going to have great victories and it's going to have deep disappointment. It's going to have some real sorrow about it. 2024, you say, Pastor Matty, are you prophesying? No, I'm just basing it on what scripture says. 2024 is full of surprises, but not one of those things, not one of those things is a surprise to God. If you know Christ as your Savior this morning, you're held in His hand. If you know Christ as your Savior this morning, you understand that there is a purpose in the good and the bad, the hard times and the happy times. There's purpose in all of it. But if you're here without Christ, you're not certain where you stand with the Lord. Let me encourage you about something. There's a time to be born, and there's a time to die. And before you reach the time to die, the most important and key decision you will make is to come personally to Jesus Christ. Not to become a Baptist, not to join this church, not those things, but to come personally to know Jesus Christ as your Savior. And if that's your need, we want to help you with that this morning. Let's all stand together. Everyone standing together. Father, please take the Word of God this morning as we've sought to explain it. Help us, Lord, to recognize the good, the bad, happy, the sad, the easy, the difficult, the sunshine in the rain are all factors that make up life and that behind it all there is a purpose. Father, for any that have come this way without Christ or they're not certain where they stand with you, I pray this morning you'll speak to their hearts. Help us, Lord, to recognize that life is always going to be challenging. Help us, Lord, to take the big picture, not just focus on something so small that it obsesses us and frustrates us and becomes a distraction in our lives. But Father, help us to look at the big picture and then lift our eyes above the horizon. To see the glory of Christ. I pray you'll speak to every heart in Jesus name heads are bowed eyes are closed. We're standing