and grateful that you are a good, good father. And this morning, as we come to you on Father's Day, we recognize that you are the greatest father that any could have asked for. And we thank you, God, for your goodness and your grace. And Lord, for all of us, Lord, we come to you this morning and ask God that you would teach us. Lord, we have the opportunity to hear from your word, that you would give us wisdom and instruction. Holy Spirit, may you captivate our hearts and minds. Lord, every thought will become captive to your spirit for the next 35 minutes or so as we study your word. And God, we pray that you'd be a pastor as he speaks again in the morning service. And God, that your blessing would be on the day. And we ask this in your name, amen. So, we are about seven lessons into our series on off-script. And so, that means we only have about four or five lessons left. So, we're actually on the back half of it. And so, last week, I asked the question to you, when your life goes off-script, where do you run? When your life becomes unpredictable, where do you go? When things are uncertain, where do you go? Last week, we took some time and we looked at some statistics about the, the, the mental health crisis that is currently going on in our country today. And what we found is that a lot of people today they don't know how to handle off script. They don't know how to handle difficult moments and again that's not to say that God's people can't struggle because we do. But at the same time we looked at chapter five last week where, where Schmidt in his book he described that many cases people are led by their emotions like a big dog jerks around a small child. They are jerked around from week to week, day to day, and they have very little control over their own spirit over their, their own emotions. And so, one of the. The primary verses that we looked at last week was located in Psalm 1, where it says that the righteous man is like a tree. A righteous man is like a tree who is rooted and grounded. He is firm and he's strong. It doesn't mean the storms don't come. It doesn't mean that a branch or two might not break. It doesn't mean that some leaves might not get thrown off the tree. And it doesn't mean that something might hurt, but he's rooted and he's grounded. And those roots that are dug down deep by those rivers of water, the Bible tells in Proverbs that the root of the righteous will not be moved. And so when these difficult times come, where do you go these difficult times come, where do you go and. In asking this, the takeaways from last week is, are we walking in the Spirit? We, again, sometimes make it so nebulous and so difficult and so complicated that we overlook the fact that we simply just ask, are you spending time with God? Are you spending time? Are you spending time reading His Word? Are you spending time just praying to Him? We can read all the books we want, but simply, are you abiding in His presence? Have you taken time this week, and have you spent time with the Lord? When we're talking about walking in the spirit, it's just practically spending time with him. Are you abiding in the spirit? And in terms of abiding, it's more than visiting, it is your staying. And this is not departing continually over time. It means to remain as one and not depart. It's that mindset of saying, God, I'm not going to get up from this time of prayer until you speak to me. I'm not going to get up from this time from my knees until I feel a sense of your spirit and your presence. That is the sense of abiding. I'm not going to depart. Are we yielding to the spirit? And this is surrendering our pride, which we've talked about many, many times. Pride is that villain with a thousand faces. It manifests differently in each of our lives. But are we yielding ourself to the spirit? Are we bending in humility? Are we listening and obeying? And so that is where we talked about last week. When life goes off script, where do you run? When life goes off script, where do you run? And we're talking about stability in an emotionally unstable world. And then when people look at us, they could say, I don't know how I could have gone through what you went through. How do you do it? And that's where we can talk about the root. We can talk about the root. That's Christ, because he is the true vine. And then if we do not abide in him, we can't do anything. And so now we get in the book of lamentations. This is where our study is at this morning. Studies at this morning. So the book of lamentation is predominantly believed to be written by Jeremiah. Back in lesson three, we actually talked about Jeremiah, his life, and just how off script it was how difficult it was how many things God asked him to do the difficulty as a prophet that he went through. But the Book of Lamentations is believed to be written by Jeremiah after the fact. He is called the Weeping Prophet because of what takes place during his ministry. The timing of this book is believed to be immediately after the Babylonian invasion in 586 B.C., as in like right after it. like right after it. So really, Lamentations is a very raw book, if you would. It is a very raw book, and when we read it, this is not someone who is just writing about a vision. This is someone who, as he's looking around him and he sees the destruction, he sees what has taken place in Jerusalem, he is writing this book. As a matter of fact, the original Hebrew name for Lamentations means alas. Or how, like how could things be this bad. Alas, or man, or wow. That is the tone of this entire book. Here at the very beginning, if you can imagine, we've talked about exile so much here in the last year and a half, and so we should be decently familiar with just the destruction that has gone on. Think about the time frame of Solomon, how they said that gold was like dust. They were rich, they were influential, they had power. And now, post-destruction, the book of Lamentations begins, verse one, how lonely sits the hill that was full of people. We have this prophet who is sitting here looking around him and he barely sees anybody. Thinking about the riches of the country, thinking about the power and influence of the country, how proud as a nation that they were, and he stands back and he just says, man, where'd everybody go? This place used to be full. Everywhere that we looked, it was everywhere. When it opens this book, it gives us a picture of what he sees. It pictures a man of God puzzling over the results of sin and the suffering that is in the world. As the verses of lamentations accumulate, this is by Chuck Swindoll. As the verses of lamentations accumulate, readers cannot help but wonder how many different ways Jeremiah could describe the desolation of the once proud city of Jerusalem. Children begged food from their mothers. I mean, if you imagine the pitiful sight of a mom not being able to provide food for their children, and the pity that he must have seen when he looked around and saw the utter despair that a parent could not even get food for their children. The young men and women were cut down by swords. I mean, if you would think about it, everywhere he looked, there were just dead bodies rotting in the streets. This was the city that was once proud and strong. He looks around and he sees mothers who can't give food to their children. He sees dead bodies that are rotting in the streets and formerly compassionate mothers who use their own children for food. Yes. Even the city's roads mourned over its condition. So there's some personification even in here where he's giving human attributes to the city and saying even the city itself weeps for how bad things are. And keep in mind, Jeremiah saw this coming. As a prophet, he knew what was coming. Jeremiah could not help but acknowledge the abject state of the city that was just piled with rubble. And so again, we read verse one, and he says, how lonely sits the hill that was at one time full of people and proud and rich and strong and independent. And that is literally the tone of the entire book. And so, Look with me in Lamentations three, because we're going to read the first 20 verses. For us to get a strong grasp of the tone, I would really say even a stronger tone than where we are now. So if you see the major prophet Jeremiah and the major prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament, Lamentations is right between the two. And what I want you to notice as we read through this is that Jeremiah is not speaking in a passive voice, that something has happened. He is reading it in active voice. And he is giving the reason, the person that does this, the subject is God. Sovereign God is the one that did this. So keep that in mind as we read. In verse one, I'm a man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. Surely against me, he turns his hand again and again, the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation. He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me in like a prison about so that I cannot escape. He has made my chains heavy. Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones. He has made my paths crooked. So if you ever say it feels like God isn't listening Jeremiah could say I know exactly what that feels like. I feel like I'm in a prison and I can't get out I feel stuck, Jeremiah could say I could sympathize with you because I've been there. Verse 10, he is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding. He turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces. He has made me desolate. He bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrow of his quiver. I have become the laughingstock of all people. the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness and has sated me or satiated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace. It's bereft of peace, there's none. I have forgotten what happiness even felt like. So I say, my endurance is perished and also my hope has perished. Remember my affliction and my wonderings, the wormwood and the gall." And he says, my soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Man, that's pretty rough. It's pretty rough. And he says, in the net version, it's translated this way in verse 19 and 20. He says, I remember my impoverished and homeless condition. I don't even have a place I can call home. There's so much destruction. I don't have a place I could even go lay my head down, which is a bitter poison is what is translated for Wyrmwood. And he says, I continually think about this and I'm depressed. Who wouldn't be, who wouldn't be. And so In the book, Schmitt says this on page 110, he being God providentially leads us into hardship bigger than we could possibly control. He ordains and allows circumstances against which we are absolutely and utterly powerless. Much like Jeremiah is here. No amount of human anxiety, no amount of human anguish, no amount of human exertion will make a difference. In these places, we are altogether powerless. No solution lies within our grasp. No escape beckons our attention. Well, that's a pretty depressing lesson opener. Thanks. We're going to go home. At the very beginning of this book study, our first main objective was to realize the reality of unscripted lives for all of us. because you may be sitting there thinking everyone else has it together in this room but me, but that is not the case. It's not the case. We are not promised a carefree life. None of us are, because we live in a broken world. And so here is where the light shines through, because keep in mind, we've only read a third of this chapter. We've only read the introductions of this chapter. There's more to come. Here's what he says. We may be helpless, but we're not hopeless. We may feel helpless, but we are not hopeless. We've read the verse a couple of times, but 2 Corinthians 4, verses 8 and 9, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We are perplexed, we're confused, we're bewildered, we don't know where we're at, we're disoriented, but we're not driven to despair. We are persecuted, but we are not forsaken. We are struck down, but not destroyed. And what he says in his book is that God may lead you to a place where you are helpless in your own strength, but please listen, but you are never to a place where you are without help and that you are without hope, ever. There's always hope, there's always hope. One of the number one rules in counseling is that you always give someone hope, always. You never want for someone to walk away feeling that there is no hope. And what we're going to look at this morning is that hope. We're reminded in Romans chapter 15, verses four and five, for whatever was written in former days, was written for our instruction, that through endurance, which is a word we've read several times in the last couple of weeks, and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. that we might have hope. And then may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus. We've looked at 1 Peter 1, and we've also looked at James 1. We're talking about endurance. And as a reminder, in James 1, verses 2-4, James is telling us as a part of spiritual maturity, Okay, and this speaks to all of us, spiritual maturity, counted all joy my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness or endurance. This difficulty, these off script moments in our lives, which often come when we're not paying attention, when we expect them least. Everything is going just great and fine, and then tomorrow, we're blindsided by something that we didn't see coming. And he tells us, and let steadfastness, let endurance have its full effect. Let God do it. Surrender to it, that you may be perfect or mature, lacking nothing. And I would like to call your attention to the next few verses in Lamentations. Lamentations chapter number three. And there's three things that we need to remember. Three things that we need to remember. I want you to notice when he starts off in verse number 21, he says, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. I am an awful rememberer. I'm an awful remember, we are, we are doing, we're having a vacation next week. And so here we were talking yesterday, and I said this is going to be great. How about we sit down today and we talk about the itinerary, and she just kind of has this like, are you kidding me look on her face, and she said, I've already done it. I was like, Oh, okay. Can we do it again? Cause I need to make some notes. Um, I am, I do not do well with remembering. And so that's for me why I have to make notes. Okay. So if you tell me something and I don't write it down, you may just remind me, Hey, are you going to write this down? Cause you're going to forget if you don't write it down. So as a whole though, we are forgetful people. We joke because our oldest son is probably the worst of us all. Okay. So you remember the thing, you remember the things that are important to you. I actually think that's not really that true. Have you seen my phone? No. Have you seen my wallet? No. So we decided for Christmas, we would get him a tile. It has been the best thing ever because you'll just hear the thing randomly beeping in the house. You're like, yep, he's looking for his wallet again. Okay. It's a tile. It's like a little, it's like the size of a credit card. Is that right? Is it called a tile? Well, this is like the size of a credit card. And so it's like the size of a credit card. And so the thing is, is that when he can't find his when he can't find when he has his wallet, but he can't find his phone, it works backwards. And he can click it and it will it where his phone is at. And so, and see what we thought what we thought was that it would help him remember better. But what we have found is similar like to a GPS. I don't have to pay attention where I'm even going, because I had the GPS. And so I don't even have to pay attention where I put my stuff now because I know it will help me find it right. And so it actually is, it kind of works but kind of does if you know what I mean. And so, but we are forgetful people we forget where we put our keys, we forget where we put our wallet, we forget someone's birthday. I remember as as a young child I thought mom and dad, how can you forget how old I am. How can you forget my name. And then as one of our children come up we start like well, which one is this, and I just started going through, I think it's what my dad just called his boy. That was easier to remember growing up. And so and people say well how old are your kids I like I guess to me is what I do, because I think I know. And so, I know. And as a child I thought how can you not keep that straight and then as an adult and I'm like, now I get it. Now I get it. And so, but we are forgetful people. And we can look in the Old Testament, and we can see a great example of that. Israel was always forgetting. They were always forgetting. How often did they see the hand of God? Like firsthand, in person, the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, when they would see the manna, when they would see the food, when they would see the water from the rock, when they would see just blessing after blessing after blessing, and they continued to forget. They continued to forget. But you know, one of the great things that you and I can remember this morning This is a great verse, Joshua 21, 45. Not one word of all of the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. all came to pass." Now, you may say, well, that was written to Israel. Okay, we could do a Bible study and find out that that's still just as true for you and I today as it was for them. That we look at this verse, we could find tremendous encouragement when we recall to mind, when we are forgetting about the goodness of the Lord, when we are forgetting about the things that are right up here in front of our face, and we can't see all the goodness of God, all the things that he has done. And Jeremiah is saying, right now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to remind myself of these things. I'm going to recall them to mind. And not one word of all the promises God made failed. Not one. Not one. Every single thing came to pass. If you read Psalm 27, Psalm 27 is very similar to what we read in Lamentations 3. It's a shorter version of it, but David is talking very similarly as Jeremiah is. And he switches his tone in verse 13, and he says, I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. How often do we forget about God's goodness and all that he has done? Along the same lines as Joshua 21, we can look at 2 Timothy 2.13. 2 Timothy 2.13 says, if we are faithless, more like when we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. And in these moments, we like Jeremiah need to stop and say, I've got to remember these things. I have to call these to mind. And these are the three things. Number one is his steadfast love. He says, I call this to mind in verse 22, the steadfast love of the Lord. It never ceases. I love what the net Bible translate this as covenant loyalty. The covenant loyalty of God never stops. It never ceases. This Hebrew word is used almost 250 times in the old Testament. And when it is used with the Lord, it is frequently tied to his covenant loyalty. For instance, for Joseph, when everyone else forgot about him, God remembered the promise that he had made to Jacob, and God remembered the covenant he had made to Isaac, and God remembered the covenant he had made to Abraham. This is the covenant loyalty in Genesis 39, 21, but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love. God remembered his covenant loyalty when everyone else forgot him. This is the same covenant loyalty we read about for Israel in the book of Exodus. In Exodus 15-13, you have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode, God, it's been 450 years that the Israelites have been in captivity. It was generations before that you made this promise to Abraham, but God did not forget his covenant love. He did not forget the steadfast love the covenant loyalty he had promised. If your mind goes to the book of Ruth and how bad things were for them in the book of Ruth in the beginning where they, they lost the dad, they lost the two boys, they were an abject poverty and they were going home hoping that some would have compassion on them, and God introduced the kinsmen redeemer is a picture of Christ and route to 20. And Naomi said, May he be blessed to the Lord talking about Boaz, the Lord, whose kindness or covenant loyalty, his steadfast love has not forsaken the living or the dead. Despite some of this being our fault. God still remembers His promise, and His steadfast love never ceases. For us, on the backside of all of these, when we see how Israel just continued to mess up, kind of like we constantly do, they continue to mess up, they continue for to get God's law, they continue to not live the way they were told to live. This is where the beauty of this comes in. Because we think about how many kings disobeyed prophets, how many times they were unfaithful to God, and they were facing judgment. Isaiah and Jeremiah, if you remember, are on the backside to where that is when judgment is about to happen. This is when God is almost at his end, okay, with what he's going to let them get away with. And Isaiah says, for the mountains may depart and the hills may be removed, but my steadfast love, my covenant loyalty shall not depart from you. And my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you." Jeremiah, who would have already written chapter 31 by the time Lamentations 3 came. He says, the Lord appeared to him far away, and he says, talking to Israel, despite your unfaithfulness, despite walking away from me, despite all that you've done, I have loved you with an everlasting love. with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness towards you." This is the extent of that covenant loyalty. And when Jeremiah says this, I recall this to mind. Things may be bad right now, but God still has this covenant loyalty. God still has this covenant love. David says in 1 Chronicles 16 34, Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever. and doers forever. In Jeremiah 31, in Jeremiah 31, as he's writing this, he says, behold, the days are coming to clear as the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. And he goes on and he says, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. Talking about this new covenant, this covenant love that we then see in the New Testament. When we're thinking about his covenant love that does not end, Romans eight gives us a beautiful reminder of this. Who shall separate from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, as it is written, for your sakes, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter. Knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors to him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, powers, height or depth, anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from his covenant loyalty. And so Jeremiah says, I'm grieving, I'm hurting, but this I call to mind and I have hope. One, I remember his steadfast love. Number two, his abundant mercy. His abundant mercy. He goes on and he says, therefore, I call these things to mind and I have hope. His mercies never come to an end. Is there anything better than the smell of fresh bread? Of all the field trips I have ever had, the one I remember most was my third grade field trip to the bread factory. It wasn't even a fancy bread factory. I just remember those olfactory senses when we walked in there, you could smell fresh bread. The net says, translate this and says that his mercies are fresh every morning. He doesn't give a stale bread every morning. His mercies are fresh and new every single day. I might have royally messed up yesterday, but his mercies are fresh today. The Hebrew word for mercies is seen over 30 times in the Old Testament. When we consider the idea that they never come to an end, we can see this in context when Nehemiah was talking to the Israelites. This was post-exile as they were trying to rebuild the city. And he is giving this historical narrative because many of them have probably never heard of it before. He reminds them that even when they had made being your forefathers had made for themselves a golden calf and said, this is your God who brought you out of Egypt and had committed great or manifold blasphemies. You, God, and your great mercies did not forsake them. Going back to his covenant love, while Jeremiah is seeing the destruction around him, Jeremiah is still amazed at God's mercy. He's still amazed at God's mercy. Remember, God had sent Jeremiah on a mercy mission. If you've got the timeline, Jeremiah was the last prophet that Israel was going to get, that Judah was going to get. In other words, God said, Jeremiah, your mission is one last time. You are the last person, the prophet I'm going to send before I utterly destroy Judah. So his very ministry is one of mercy. His very ministry is one where God is saying, you've got one more chance, one more chance. we could easily look at one moment in our lives and completely forget about the countless mercies that God brought to us again and again and again. Some verses to remind us, Numbers 14, 18. The Lord is slow to anger, thank God, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity, and transgressions. I have Psalm 86, 15 written in my Bible. I am sorry, in my prayer journal at the front. And it's a reminder about the gracious mercy of God. But you, O Lord, are a God who is merciful and gracious. slow to anger, abundant, overflowing, and loving kindness and truth. Psalm 130 verses three and four. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? While we're looking at these awkward moments, and they're tough, they're difficult, they're unknown, they're, okay. If God really kept record of every single thing we had done wrong, none of us could stand. And when we look at these moments in our lives, our thought is we don't deserve this. I've been such a good person. I've done this and this and this. God, I deserve better than this. We're reminding the Psalms, none of us are. Because none of us will get what we deserve if our faith is in Christ. If you, oh God, were to mark iniquities, no one could stand. but with you, there is forgiveness. With you, God, there is mercy. Things may be bad right now, but Romans tells us that the glories, that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits. Our hope is not here. My hope is not in this off-script moments. My hope is not in the chapter of life I am. My hope is in the prologue. My hope is in the final chapter. Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, that is where our hope is. And so for that reason, I can recall this to mind, and I have hope. Remembering His abundant mercy in the New Testament, we've read this, blessed be the Lord God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again. Titus 3, 5, He has saved us not because of our works, but because of His mercy. Number three, which was the one I really wanted to get to, His sufficient grace. In Lamentations 3, it tells us, I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope. Great is your faithfulness. Great is your faithfulness. In other words, it can be translated, ample is your grace. Your grace is enough. Your grace is enough. My mind automatically went to 2 Corinthians 12, 9. He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. How many colors are there? As a man, I say seven. Okay. Okay, so, well, you look perplexed. We're adding them. So I remember at my previous school, I was tasked to go down to the local place and to start ordering some stuff for the school. And so I went in and I said, I need to order this and this with Navy. And so they pull out this big thick binder and I thought, oh, these are the blue colors. No, those were the Navy colors. And as a man, I thought, it's just Navy. It's just blue. Yes. And I was blown away at the amount of Navy colors there are in the world. So I believe that God has created us all beautifully and intelligently. I believe that God has created us all to be smart in different ways. Some of us are book smart. Some of us are athletically smart. Some of us are smart with our hands. I am not color smart. I am not color smart. I will walk out in the morning like this. And my wife just says, no, no, no. Um, and I tell you, if some of you software guys can get with me, if we can create an app where you just, you hold it up and the app says yes or no shark tank all the way men like me would buy that all day long. Yes. This coordinates like on a scale of one to 10, this is a six or this is like a negative two. Okay. I would buy that all day. Well, yes. Okay. There are, there are over 10 million colors. Simple, simple. That's why I dress up. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So, all right, now serious. Now serious. All right. There are over 10 million known colors. 10 million known colors. Heidi, were you counting them all? So here, listen. I remember when Windows had 256 colors. That was like, wow, there's 256? So listen. Okay, here's where we're getting back to. He says, my grace is sufficient for you. He's saying literally in Greek, my grace is manifold for you. My grace is great. My grace is abundant. My grace is sufficient. My grace is enough. Literally, it means many colored. That word sufficient means many colored. So according to 1st Peter 1.6, if you rejoice in this, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by colors of various trials, different shades. Do you know none of us have the same uniqueness to our trials and our difficulties? All of them are unique to us. It's almost like there's 10 million different, you know, yes. So here's what he says later in 1st Peter. For every trial you have, there's a shade of grace for that. For every trial you have, for every shade of trial you have, God has a shade of grace for that. And it's amazing, this probably has nothing to do with it, but it's amazing how a light can, how a color can change when the light hits it. And Peter is saying, you may have trials of various kinds, but God has a shade of grace for every single one of them. And when Jeremiah is thinking about this, he says, I can have hope because my grace, God's grace is sufficient for this shade of trial. And so Paul is talking in 2 Corinthians 12 about a thorn in the flesh. Some believe it was his eyesight. Some believe it could have been like a PTSD from what he did, severe guilt of what he did, living the horrors of what he did to Christians and believers. And he said, I prayed to God three times and every time God said no. I'm not going to take it away. And we struggle with this because we think if God loves me, He's going to change my script back to what I want it to be. He is going to give me the desires in my heart, which quite honestly is kind of taking stripped out of context. When we surrender, He gives us the desires to satisfy, not backwards. And He says, My grace is sufficient for you. I'm not going to remove it. And He says, My strength comes to full power in your weakness. I'm not going to do anything until you're on empty. Back in spring of 2017 I kind of felt a little bit like this no this was spring of 2018 19. That's how bad it was. It was spring 2019 is what it was. And, and I remember, I've always kind of prided myself quite honestly and not really needing help. Okay. I'll just pick myself up by my bootstraps, you know, put on my big boy pants, and I'm just going to go out and just do life again today. Okay. And so I've always been that way. And for the first time, for the first time, I struggled getting out of bed. For the first time, I struggled thinking I have to make it through this entire day. for the first time. And again, we're not careful. If we've never lived it, we think those people are just weak. Maybe you just haven't lived it yet. And in this, there were several times I went to bed thinking, if I feel like this when I wake up tomorrow, I don't think I can get up. And there were a handful of times when I woke up and I felt like I'd slept for days. No logic to it whatsoever. And it's like God's Holy Spirit said, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Because now that you're weak, now I can be strong. This is why not many mighty are chosen. This is why not many wise are chosen, because they glory in their own strength. But he says, when you are weak, that's when my strength comes to full power. And so Jeremiah says, when I recall this to mind, I have hope. And I'll just leave this here, so this will be the last one, last thing. When difficulty comes, we have a tendency to flex our muscles instead of dropping our knees. When difficulty comes, that little prideful part of ours says, I have to solve this. I've got to be the one who digs myself out. I've got to be the one who fixes this. Well, then who gets the credit for it? And so God says, I can't use you then. I've got to make things a little worse. I've got to ratchet up that difficulty a little bit more because he says, I'm not going to have any glory in that. But when you have no strength, when you have no power, that is when my strength and come to full power, he says, and I get the glory for it. And so that is the lesson for this morning, Sam.