David Anointed

We're going to jump right into 1 Samuel 16. For those of you who are new to City Grace, we're moving through the book of 1 Samuel. And you've seen all the highs and lows, the ups and downs.

And I want to start just by reading the first portion here in 1 Samuel 16. So if you have your Bibles, you want to open it up on your phone, it will be on the screen as well. And this is going to be in the NIV, so here we go.

1 Samuel 16. The Lord said to Samuel, Well, how long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way.

I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king. But Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me. The Lord said, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Invite Jesse to sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate. Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived in Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him.

They asked, Do you come in peace? Samuel replied, Yes, in peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. God's word.

I'm going to pause here for a moment. We'll come back to this story. There's more to come on this. But let me just say this to you about today. Today is going to be heavy on application. At City Grace, we love to dive in the word and dig in and look at the context and what things mean.

But I'm going to just go kind of straight to application just for today. Part of that is because we've done a lot of context in 1 Samuel. You've seen where people's hearts are at. You've seen how God has worked with people.

And so we've talked a lot about where we're at. So theologically, keep in mind all the lessons that God has been teaching his people. And the second thing is it's just what God put on my heart. And so I want to be faithful to that.

But also trust that you can study as well. Right? So as you've been reading along and God's been giving you things, continue to look into the word and study the things that God is pulling out of this passage. But this is what I have for today.

I want to put an emphasis on what I call the anointed life. Right? So here we see David is anointed as the next king. Meaning he's chosen. He's God-ordained.

He's going to be God. His life is now God-directed. He's going to live in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And now it's a little different from our time to the Old Testament time. Because in the Old Testament times, God would anoint certain people through the prophets.

And God's Holy Spirit would come upon them for a particular position, a particular mission, a certain time. And we see that in the Old Testament. In the church age, we all have access to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

Praise God. I love it. Like, right? We all have the Holy Spirit. So keep that tension in mind when you see things in the Old Testament. You're like, wow, is that different? Yeah, it is a little different. But also I believe we can still learn and glean from these stories, these messages, how God works.

So I want to look today. It's like, how did this anointing look for David? And then what does it look like for us today to live in that anointed life? And I want to give you three things.

Here's three characteristics or sort of actions that I believe are necessary to live this anointed life. Things that we see in 1 Samuel 16. And I want you to encourage you to apply it to your life. And it's nothing new, okay?

Newsflash. This isn't rocket science. It's not spiritual neurosurgery. Like, this is things that you probably already know. It's a little reminder this morning. So here we go. First one. To live this anointed life, we have to invite God's vision.

Okay, I want to see what God sees. We have to have God's vision. There's no other way to do it. In verse 7, it says, But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So the Lord sees the heart. And you've heard this before. Whenever we look at his passages, this, I mean, you've heard that.

And I want to invite us first. Like, if we're going to be those kind of people that believe that God sees the heart, first I want you to invite that for yourself. Okay, inviting God's vision into my life means, like, asking God to look at my heart first.

All right, God see me. Listen, and that is terrifying. Can I trust the all supreme being creator to, like, see right through me?

Like, none of us like to live in a glass house. And this is really where we see this cycle. Remember this cycle we've seen through all the judges and into the kings. Now we see it in Saul's life, this spiritual decay. This is where that cycle starts.

We think, like, man, I can't, I don't want God looking in my heart. I don't want anybody looking in my heart. We start to hide. We see Saul starting to hide now, right? He's hiding from God. He's hiding from Samuel. He's ignoring God. He's doing his own thing.

That's where it starts. But as much as it might feel terrifying, it's also very comforting because the Lord says, I am gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in mercy and love, right?

And David gets that. Like, the great thing about God seeing into our hearts, and David experienced this firsthand, is when, you know, Samuel comes and he goes through all these brothers, right?

And then finally he's like, do you have anybody else here? You know, is there someone else yet? Got out there somewhere? And David understood that, like, God overlooked all of his brothers and then saw him.

So it's very comforting to know that, like, man, on my great days and my worst days, my, like, worst hair day and worst human day, it doesn't matter, like, God still sees my heart. He knows when my heart is for him and when my heart is humble.

Or even if I'm trying, it's like, God, I'm seeking you. He knew that. And then David has this trust. Later in the Psalms, 139, I love this verse. Like, this is David, same kid, writing these Psalms.

Later he writes this, search me, God, know my heart, test me, know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, lead me in the way that's everlasting. Like, man, you want to start your day with that.

Like, he trusted God's vision to see into his heart. And then he's like, God, keep looking in me. Keep looking in me. Keep seeing me. We all need that. So we need that for our own hearts.

Second thing is this. I mean, sorry, not second point, but just an add on a note here. Like, inviting God's vision to see through us, to see our hearts, really, it's the only path to maturity.

It's the only path to growth, right? Again, nothing we haven't said in Samuel already. Like, Hannah had a heart like that, remember? She's like, God, I'm desperate for you. Like, she just throws it all out there before the Lord, right?

This is what I need. My heart's yours. But then we also see Eli and his sons, and so other people start to close off their heart, right? And we see maturity from people who open their hearts.

Second thing here, so we want God to look at our hearts, but inviting God's vision also means we're going to see other people's hearts. Now, here's a little caveat. We can't do this.

That is impossible. On our own, we can't see other people's hearts. I can't see inside your motivations, your desires, what you bring in to each day. But the Holy Spirit sees.

And the good news is, like, God can give us his view of other people. And here's how it works. 1 Samuel, verse 6. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands before the Lord.

Right? So he sees this guy, and it says he's tall, and he's handsome, and he's tall, all the things, right? But Samuel's attentive to God's spirit.

He has to go through that progression of, like, okay, God, what do you, because he saw what he saw, and then God's like, nope, not yet. And Samuel is patient. And Samuel, he perseveres. He actually listens through all.

Can you imagine all seven? That must have gotten a little weird. A little weird. Like, it's getting a little awkward, God. Like, we're going through all the sons, right? But Samuel has that progression of seeing what God sees. He's open to it. No one else saw what God saw.

But Samuel did. He says, send for him. We're not going to, like, we're going to sit down. We're not going to gather. We're not going to chill out and eat. Like, we're going to wait until this thing happens, right? God saw David's heart, and he saw who he was going to be, right?

Certainly his older siblings didn't see it. I don't know if anyone else has older siblings, right? They can be a real problem, right? I'm going to be honest. I'm just playing. Man, like, you're the baby of the family.

No one can point out your faults and flaws like older siblings, man. It's okay. It's a gift. Older siblings is a gift. We need it later in life. When we finally grow up, I'm the baby of the family. When we grow up, we need it. We need to be something like, hey, what were you saying back there when I was?

What? The baby of the family? What? They're like, what? Anyway, no one saw it. But hey, don't miss this. Okay, what God saw, he allowed Samuel to see. Okay? What God saw, he allowed Samuel to see. We can ask for the Holy Spirit to show us what God sees.

So to have this vision, have God's vision to live this anointed life, two quick things. Look past people's exteriors and see their heart. You might go into a day and you see someone and it's like, man, I don't know about that person.

But as you ask God to show you their heart, you're going to see maybe two things. One, you might have compassion. You might see like, man, you know, this person, gosh, they're struggling with something I didn't know about. You know? Family up the street from us, you know, just kind of seemed like an odd situation.

And I didn't know what was going on. I won't give you all the details. But then like my neighbor told me like, yeah, that lady, she's had those kids. Like her husband just passed away. And I'm like, oh, man. Okay, they're going through a lot. And you start seeing like, wow, people are, maybe they're struggling.

Thank you for showing me that. You might also see this, right? You might also see the people, you see their heart and you're like, God allows you to see some things. You're like, that's not great. That's a tough person right there. So along with seeing their heart, we also have to do this.

Envision who they are becoming. Okay? Envision who they are becoming. From all of human view, from man's view, David was too young. He lacked experience. Probably kind of dirty.

He's working in the field. Maybe he was a little odd out there. Spent a lot of time by himself. We had a kid in our neighborhood. He used to walk around on his iPad. Just by himself. He's like, we call him the iPad kid, you know? Just walking around.

He'd like walk through our yard. And I'm like, I was like, huh. I haven't seen him for a while. Maybe David was like the iPad kid. You know, out there by himself for a little bit.

I don't know. But God saw one thing, right? Future king. God sees future king. So who's your David? Maybe a neighbor. Maybe someone at the workplace.

Someone in your family. Someone at school. Someone who's like, maybe a little different or odd. Maybe they grade on you. Maybe what they show on the outside is a little pride or anger.

They're just kind of a tough person to be around. I don't know. What is it? You have that person in your head who you're like, man, this is not someone who's probably a candidate for the anointed life. Like in your mind, it's like they're just unworthy. I mean, I hate to say that, right?

But sometimes we think that. Like they look so far from what a Christian looks like. Okay? Get that person in your head. Or like, you know, Christians talk a lot about who's your Paul?

Who's your Timothy? Like we need a mentor, someone like a Paul in our life. We need like a Timothy. Someone we're like pouring into, helping. And I heard this this week at a conference. Dude's like, hey, who's your Peter? Well, that person that's just like kind of grates on you like, dude.

Like who's your Peter? Like you're like, can you not say the first thing that comes to your head all the time? Can you just stop pushing? Does it have to be about you, Peter? Right? Jesus is so patient with Peter, right? Who's your Peter? I might be someone else's Peter though.

Gee, that's not sure. Anyway, so having God's vision, right? With these kind of people in mind, okay? When we start to see people like God sees them, do this. Start seeing people with holy imagination and praying with holy expectation.

This is a kingdom life value. This is like a gospel life-centered thing. We have to start praying, God, help me to see this person like you do. God, help me to love this person like you do.

Give me a vision who this person will be when you come upon them in power. When your Holy Spirit anoints them with grace. When your Holy Spirit comes upon them and then they step into your purpose for their life, right?

In 10 years, man, when this person is like just a banging Christian, they're just, man, they're leading Bible studies. They're like bringing other people to faith. You know, you got to, we have to be able to picture that in our head. Like Samuel, no matter how people look now, we have to pray those Holy Spirit-inspired prophetic prayers of anointing over others.

And listen, if it makes no human sense, if you're like, I don't even know if I see this, but I'm going to keep praying it. That's okay. Prophetic prayers are always ahead of their time. Prophetic prayers are always ahead of their time.

You're not going to see it now. That's why you pray. We have to become those people who are not only comfortable praying impossible prayers, but we get excited to pray for impossible people.

Like, I'll take that challenge. I will take that bet. Quick story. I worked in a restaurant, and I was 29, 30 at the time.

I was kind of in between things in life. I won't get into the whole story, but there was a dude that I didn't like from the start. He was just kind of rude. It's not like we knew each other. He was one of the bartenders. His name was Joe, and he'd just say weird things, like offhanded comments.

And it was about me being a Christian. I don't know how he knew I was a Christian. So finally, I engaged with him, and I'm like, bro, man, what is going on here? And he had some questions for me, and I was basically like, hey, you do you, man.

I'm not going to judge you for who you are. Be you. And he was like, oh, really? And then we started talking about things, like God, and he asked me questions about things. It turns out he had grown up Catholic. He'd had some bad experiences with Protestants, whatever.

Held on to some stuff. And God just kept putting Joe in my life. Went to a baseball game together. Joe had lost his license. Too many DUIs. And he was like 25 at the time.

And then I just started having this all in my heart, like, man, God, how do you see Joe? And I had this thought, like, I wonder if Joe would ever want to come to church with me. And that's a tricky thing sometimes, right?

He's like, well, I have a good friendship with Joe. I don't want Joe to start feeling like, hey, you're not good enough, so you need to come to church. Because he's been hurt already by Protestants and blah, blah, blah. And so I did that really faithful thing that Christians do sometimes.

I'm like, God, could you make it easy? Could you throw me a nice low pitch here? Maybe you could ask Joe to ask me to go to church. Some deep faith stuff. That takes deep faith. Seriously, no, I do not lie.

I'm like, God, could you just ask Joe to ask me to come to church? And then within a couple weeks, I don't remember, but it was within a couple weeks, I'm in the walk-in freezer, which this is in Minnesota in the winter, and, like, nobody wants to be cold.

So you're inside, now you're in the walk-in freezer. I'm like, why, Lord? Anyway, and I come out of the walk-in freezer, and there's Joe, which is really weird, because they don't come back during the shifts like they're not, but he's like, oh, I need to get some lemons. And I'm like, oh. First thing Joe says to me, he's like, hey, man, you think I'd come to church with you sometime?

And I'm like, what? You know, I mean, I prayed for this, right? But I'm still like, what? Okay. God already had something in mind for Joe. He saw Joe's heart.

He saw Joe's future. He saw who Joe was becoming. And he helped me along to see it, and actually give me even the belief and the faith to see what he could do in Joe's life, okay? So here are these characteristics of the 19th Night 1.

Invite God's vision for ourselves and for others. Number two, embrace God's methods and timing. Again, nothing new here, but as we start to walk deeper into this anointed life, we need to allow God to bridge that gap between our spiritual life.

I don't like saying it this way, but just our spiritual life and our physical life, like our daily life, our mundane every day. I wake up, brush my teeth, hopefully, and then I like go to work. You know what I mean? Like bridge that gap between what God is doing, what God sees, and what I see on the ground.

Let me just say this. God's methods and his timings often won't make sense until we walk through the whole process of God's timing.

Let's look at the rest of the chapter. 1 Samuel 16, verses 13 through 19, then we're going to skip on to verse 23, okay? So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers.

And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord, it came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah. Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil or a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.

Saul's attendant said to him, See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre or the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.

So Saul said to his attendants, Find someone who plays well, and bring him here to me. One of the servants answered, I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior.

He speaks well and is a fine-looking man, and the Lord is with him. Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me your son David who is with the sheep.

Whenever the Spirit of God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul. He would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. All right, let me make a quick note about this.

If you're used to reading the Bible, if you grew up reading the Bible, like sometimes to read these stories, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I see it. That makes sense. Okay, I'm going to say this. Like, no, that makes no sense right there, okay?

Even if it was your dream, like you're going to plan a strategy to get this country kid out in the sheep fields, right, into the royal palace to start training to become a king, this is not a likely scenario.

This is not even a probable strategy. Samuel didn't see it at first, right? I'm sure David had to be a little confused with God's methods and his timing. When they come to ask him, like, Hey, we need you to come play for the king.

Like, I'm sure he was like, You want me to do what? Like, not now? Like, right now? Like Saturday morning, right? Someone comes to your door, you're like, You want me to do what now? Right? That kind of thing. I'm sure he was a little bit confused. There's always a point of confusion for us when we start to follow God's methods.

We start to, like, lean into his timing. And there's always this, like, temptation. Like, well, maybe this isn't God. Isn't it real? Like, listen, even though you're confused, the anointing is still real.

When Jesus feeds the 5,000, I start thinking about things. I was talking with staff this week. Like, imagine that he's going to feed these people. There's thousands of people. And you're the first disciple to get a little basket of bread. And he's like, yeah, go start feeding the people.

That makes no sense. I'm like, this is going to, like, there's like 20 people this might get. And then I'm afraid the rest of them are going to mob me. Like, I'm going to get fast, like, the first 20. And then the other 4,800, whatever.

They're going to be so mad, right? Like, that would make no sense as you're carrying that first basket out. We've been talking about this widow who is desperate. And Elisha comes to her. And she has nothing.

He's like, what do you got? And he's like, oh, this jar of oil. And he's like, oh, go get more jars. I'm sure she was thinking, I don't need jars. Like, I need help. Like, Elisha, I need some help right here. But she starts collecting jars.

And you can imagine those first few jars. Like, praise God, she collected a ton of jars. Like, can you imagine, like, how many jars? It's kind of awkward. You're asking for these jars. Like, that makes no sense. Joshua.

Like, God commands him. Like, hey, why don't you go step in the water first? And Joshua's probably thinking, no, I need to get across the water. He's like, no, step in the water, right? This is how you're going to start your campaign. This is how you're going to start your leadership.

Like, Moses was great, but you're going to fill his shoes. I want you to step in the water. And they're going to walk around that city a number of times every day. And then shout real loud. That, not a good strategy.

Very confusing. Very often. Very often. Not always, but very often. Following God does not make logical sense. David spent a lot of time in the fields, right?

He's being overlooked. He's out there being a shepherd. That makes no sense. That's not the upbringing for a future king. Like, if you have a king in training, like, you get him into, like, the private schools. You, like, get him training. All the things, right?

I don't know what they do back then, but all the things. And even after he's anointed, he's actually still there as a shepherd. But he's going to spend years, like, serving the king.

He's going to fight in the army. And then he's going to be betrayed. And he's going to spend a lot of time running away for his life from this very king that it says he loved. In this chapter, it says, like, he loved King Saul.

He's going to be betrayed. And he's going to flee for his life. And he's going to be hiding. That's not the way it should have been scripted. Not how we would have scripted it. And I just want to give you this this morning, okay? Because these moments in our life, they're very crucial.

You might be there today. You'd be like, that's me. The reason we need God's vision, we need to embrace his often confusing methods and timing, is because this is the place in life where most of us want to quit.

We're just like, this doesn't make sense. I can't see spiritually, God. It's hard for me to see spiritually what's, that you're in this, what's happening physically. I can't see the connection, God. And let me just be honest about one quick thing, too, is, like, how important it is to have spiritual community in these moments, in these times.

Like, you need people around you. And that's because these are the times when the enemy will not just agree with the confusion. You start feeling a little disoriented.

You get discouraged, right? Start feeling a little bit alone and isolated. The enemy won't just, like, agree with you. The enemy will double down and start to affirm all the things in your head that are really lies.

You start to get confused. And Satan will whisper these things like, yeah, you feel like you don't have a plan? God really doesn't have a plan either. It's getting really hard.

It's probably not worth it. You should probably quit. And this one, I hate this one. You feel alone? Yeah, you really are alone. And no one else really understands. When you start to hear those thoughts, that's the enemy doing his thing.

All he does is accuse and lie since the beginning. So in these times, okay, these waiting seasons, times of confusion, I want you to remember these two things about God's method and his timing, okay?

One is this. Hey, I'm still in God's favor. I'm still in God's favor. David might have been a little confused through some of these seasons, like what's happening here, God, but he's still in God's favor to see what's happening in the spiritual realm and on the ground.

Look at the story. He could have just been confused through that story. All of a sudden, he's playing for the king. But when you backtrack and look at it, which is very odd to us, look at what God uses. He uses some divine brainstorming, what I call some holy gossip, okay?

Like the servants. The servants start talking like, oh, we should come up with a plan. Here's the plan. Listen, the king is tormented. We need someone who plays the harp. Okay, that's some divine brainstorming.

And then they start talking together. And they're talking, oh, and by the way, I know a guy. And he's like, before David was like this kid out, he wasn't even invited to the party. Now he's being invited in.

Look what they're saying about him. Look at how other people's perception has switched about David. Like he's like this, yeah, whatever, dirty kid out there by him. So he's the youngest baby of the family. Now he's a warrior, apparently.

He's a musician. He's good looking. He speaks well. That's favor. That doesn't make sense. So if you're in that place, and you're like, I'm not sure if I see it.

Even the things around you, I'm like, there might be favor in it, but I can't see it. Invite others into that place with you. Start praying. And you can ask God to show you that. God, show me where there's favor here. Like, it just looks confusing to me.

Show me favor in this situation. Show me what it is that you're doing. And invite others with you. You may end up praying and fight and speak that truth over you. I had a friend do that for me last week. I'm just like, I've been going through a little season of anxiety and some like, I don't know what's going on.

And some friend was like, hey, remember last, a few months ago, we were praying. I was like, oh yeah. The fog lifted, right? Prayed together. Invite others in it until you see it. Like, if all you see is confusion, say, God, show me where the favor's at until I can see it, Father.

Second thing. Remember, you're still in favor. Second thing is when I'm waiting, remember I'm in training. Okay, you feel like you're waiting. Hey, you're actually in training. Not always.

Sometimes we're just doing life. A lot of life is mundane. That's okay. Well, sometimes there are definite seasons of waiting, and I'm going to just call it action. I don't know what better word to use when you definitely feel like God's presence.

You can see God moving. You're like, wow, I've been waiting for this. I've been praying for this, and I'm praying for Joe, and he just asked me to go to church. That's okay. When we're waiting is when we can't see it.

We don't feel God's anointing. We can't see what's happening. It feels like we're wasting time. In those moments of action, we can clearly see God's presence moving, the Spirit moving. It's like the confusion didn't make sense, and now the blessing doesn't make sense.

That's favor when it's like this doesn't make sense. This is hard for everyone else, but that's favor. There's ways to be faithful in both these times, but particularly in the waiting, let me say this.

David, look at his life. Again, he's a shepherd. He's waiting a long time, but he's not wasting time. He's in training. He's in training. He was faithful as a shepherd. He's out there slinging rocks.

He's playing his harp. He's worshiping the Lord, just him and God, doing their thing. He's protecting his sheep from predators, worshiping his God. Now he's a servant of the king.

He's moving into action, right? But he's still faithful. He's not like, now I arrived. Look, he's still faithful. Now his instrument of worship has become a weapon of worship. All those hours as a shepherd alone with his harp, worshiping his God.

He's in training. Let me just give you this, okay? Especially if you're in this time of waiting. The tools and knowledge God gives you in waiting become spiritual weapons in times of action. Like, God's going to give you something in this time that later you're going to be able to see someone else in that situation like, oh, God gave me this.

I want to give this to you. I want to pray this right now because I learned this. For David, his instrument of worship has become a weapon of worship. And now instead of protecting sheep, he's protecting his king from spiritual predators.

And soon his skill with this simple sling, right? All those hours he used to strike those enemies in the field. God's going to use that simple weapon to strike an enemy of his people.

It was in training. Maybe you're in training today. Hey, I want to invite up a couple friends of mine, Stephanie and Lisa. I just heard their stories in the last couple weeks. Every now and then you hear a story, I'm like, oh, I want other people to hear that.

So, yeah, come on up. Don't be shy. I didn't have to twist their arm. I was like, hey, please. And they're like, we'll pray about it. No, they just had really clear stories. And I just invited them to share.

We might need that mic right there. And I want you to listen in their stories. Like, this is so good. But I want you to hear both God's faithfulness in times of waiting. Like, there are seasons when I'm like, I don't see what's happening here.

But also we see God move and anoint. They're both in times of anointing. But listen for that favor as these ladies share what God has done in their families and particularly with their daughters in the last few weeks.

And thank you guys for sharing. I really appreciate this. First of all, good morning. Good morning. Yes, we're sisters. We're not.

We're not. My name is Stephanie Pear. And I'm Elizabeth Brown's mama. I want to share with you a testimony of how God is working in my life, how he recently worked in her life, and how those two things relate.

I have been struggling with back problems for a little over a year. And I want to be healed. I waited for many months before I went to the altar to ask Elliot to pray over me.

And he prayed, be healed in Jesus' name. That simple. I walked away in half-hearted belief that I would be healed. It's like I know God can heal, but will he heal me?

I struggle to believe this. I've been asking him to increase my faith. I want the faith like the woman who crawled through the crowd and touched the hem of his garment.

That is the faith I am asking for. So a couple Saturdays ago, I received a call that my daughter was being rushed to the ER with stroke-like symptoms.

She's 34 years old and having a stroke. I jumped up, gathered my things, finding shoes, letting my husband know, and we're out the door within just a couple of minutes. And we were going to meet the ambulance at the hospital, and I had no clue what to expect.

So you start shooting up the missile prayers. God protect my daughter. Lord comfort her and Dustin. Relieve fears. Work through the EMTs attending to her. All the prayers you know to pray while your mind is fighting worry and uncertainty.

It can become kind of simple, frail prayers, like as simple as, Lord, just come to our situation and help. So we got to the hospital, and I was faced with her coming off the ambulance with right-side paralysis, and it freaked me out.

They rushed her straight back to CT and promised to come and get us when they knew something. And I knew right then I had to get some people behind us in prayer. So I sent a text to Bestie and asked her to let the church elders, our community group, and Elizabeth's community group know what was happening.

As soon as I was able to see Elizabeth, I could see the fear on her face, and she spoke to me through slurred speech. The 101 questions going through your mind as a mom can't show to your child in that moment.

So I did. A little bit I knew to do was hang over her and pray. Dustin was praying, and we began to feel the prayers of our family and church family. A calm and a peace settled over us, and then the text started coming in.

We're praying. Within the hour, Elizabeth was able to raise her right arm, her distorted face began to return to normal, and she was able to walk with assistance.

And today, she's on this stage leading us in worship with her beautiful voice. And she's carrying my grandchild.

So I believe God is using Elizabeth's healing to increase my faith. It's impossible to know God's ways and how he will choose to work in any situation, but what he did for her gives me great hope.

If I can trust him with my daughter, perhaps I can trust him with me. Thank you. Okay.

Our daughters. Wow. This is about Kendall, who is my oldest. She's 26. She just got back from a mission trip in Mexico. This is her testimony.

This is her writing. And so, yeah, I'm willing to push through this to prayerfully glorify God and to help you see what standing in the waiting looks like.

For almost two years, I've been walking through a season of daily pain in my body and believing God for healing. Doctors have suspicions of what might be causing it, but no answers.

We've prayed. We've fasted. I've gone to doctors, had surgery, and tried different things to find answers in relief. There have been many moments and days where I've asked, God, when is this going to end?

Do you even see me? Don't you understand that I cannot live like this? But along the way, God started changing what I was looking for.

I started this journey wanting God to take the pain away, but through it, he has been teaching me how to depend on him instead. He's shown me how easily I can depend on my own strength, my own plans, and my own understanding.

This season has brought me to a place where I can honestly say, God, I need you, not just for healing, but I need you every single day. Now when I look at this scene through spiritual eyes, I can see things I couldn't see at the beginning.

I can see how God has used this to deepen my prayer life, teach me to surrender, and show me that his presence is more than getting the answers I'm looking for. The Lord has laid Matthew 7, 7 on my heart, and it says, ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. Jesus doesn't just say ask. He says, ask, seek, and knock. There is persistence in those words.

Ask again, seek again, knock again. I'm believing God for complete healing, but I don't want to be so focused on what God hasn't done, yet that I miss what he has already done in me.

If you're waiting on God for something today, please don't give up. Keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking. While you're waiting, ask him, God, where are you wanting to teach me here?

How can I know you more? Because maybe the thing you're asking God to change is also the place where he's changing you. I don't know when my complete healing will come.

I am asking, I am seeking, and I'm knocking on the doors of heaven every day. But I know this, I don't want to go back to the person I was before the season of pain. Because I've learned that God is enough, even if the healing never comes on this side of heaven.

So whatever you're waiting for, don't lose hope. Keep your eyes on him. Keep pursuing him. And trust that even in the waiting, God is doing something in you. Yeah, that's right.

So good. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing that. Man, that's good, right? So good. Let me just, one last thing before we move into communion here.

These seasons of action, we can see God moving and waiting. Sometimes we're confused at his methods or his timing, and we're like, the truth is we need to remember God's favor in both those seasons, right?

We're favored in both of them. It's not like he removes his favor. And we're still in training. We're still in process. Like, we never arrive. Okay, so it's not like, oh, we arrived. And David's about to go through a lot of years of waiting.

And so if you're in that place today, I want you to remember the spiritual victories that the anointing that God has given. One way to say it is this. Remember in the dark what God showed you in the light.

You probably heard that before, right? I have a journal that I write in. When God does something so God-like, that was a God moment. I try to remember to be faithful. Listen, if God gives you a word or gives someone else a word to give you, write it down.

Because we're so forgetful. Write it down. Maybe you have friends in your life, right, who they just remind you. I talked to a guy recently who has a spiritual memory shelf. All these little knick-knacks and pictures and things that remind him of people in his life who's been changed.

Things that he's said, like just all the ways God's moved. Whatever it is, remember those things. Have a way of remembering those spiritual victories. Because we can forget it in the dark, right? So remember what he showed us in the light.

But also David's going to be king one day, right? Like Saul. And success can be dangerous. Both of them sort of slipped up in this place. When God's favor is so obvious, we have to remember, hey, we're still training.

Again, we haven't arrived. So just hold on to this too. Wield in the light what God gave you in the dark. Okay, when you get in that place of like, oh man, I can see God's favor.

Remember the dependence, right? Stay humble. Be faithfully courageous. Use those weapons God gave you to defeat the enemy. Now keep moving. Use those to defeat the enemy in others' lives.

And stay open to God's adventures. Unpredictable ways. The ways he's working. As we move into communion here, I just want to give you this one verse.

In a couple different versions. Psalm 138, 8 says this. The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. That's how one version says it. The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.

I think NIV says this. The Lord will fulfill his purpose for my life. The Lord will do it. As we move into confusion, not confusion, hopefully out of confusion, into communion.

As we move into communion, I just want to invite you again, just like Hannah, going for the Lord, let God look through you. Be like, hey, here's where I'm at. Here's where I'm at, God. Let him see through your heart.

And ask him to show you what he sees. God, what do you see here? Show me what you see. If you're not yet a believer, that's, man, that's okay. You're like, I don't know about this one in life. I'm not there yet. There's a prayer on the screen.

You can pray. You can pray with someone up front. Come find someone after if you want. But yeah, let's just give this time. Remember, Jesus has already done this for us.

He's achieved victory. What's happening in the spiritual realm is happening in the physical realm. Let's join those two. And let's go before him. Let me pray before as we go to get the bread and the cup.

And then you can bring it back to your seat and pray when you're ready. And just give that to the Lord. Let me pray for you. Church, Father has chosen you. Through Jesus, he has anointed you with the Holy Spirit. In your season of waiting or action, confusion or blessing, keep asking for favor.

Be patient with yourself in the process. You're still in training. Lord, keep looking into our life. Keep searching our hearts. Help us to see others like you see them.

And see with the love of Jesus. Both for ourselves and for others. Praise in your name, Jesus. Amen.