When You Really Blow It

When you really blow it is the title of the message tonight and sometimes we blow it in life and don't even recognize we're on the verge of doing that. Like this little baby who has a cat by the tail and doesn't realize the cat's not going to be happy about that and sometimes we get ourselves in scrapes like that. Don't we where we find ourselves in situations in life that we're not even sure what's going to happen. Don't even see what's coming until it's already happened. One such man was Frederick Smith. Frederick Smith was captivated back in the 1960s by the idea of overnight male delivery. He was a student at Yale University and so he wrote a paper on his idea, turned it into his business professor. The professor marked it all up with red ink said it was a wonderful idea but would never work and gave him a bad grade. He gave it back to him. Well he kind of dismissed the idea for Frederick Smith did a tour in Vietnam but after he got done with Vietnam he came back and decided he wanted to try it. He wanted to start that company so he did. He got some investors around him, got them interested in the idea and they bankrolled this wild idea and in March of 1973 he started his company. His idea was to bring packages to a central hub, to fly them to other hubs and then mail them the next morning by trucks or whatever. The first night he had six packages come into the hub in Memphis, Tennessee and within six weeks he was $4.4 million in debt. Within six months all of his loans had defaulted, he was $30 million in debt and the investors decided it was not going to work and they kicked him out. The guy who had the idea for the company, they kicked him out. It was a total failure. Total failure. Now all of us have blown it in one sense or another at some point or in some way in our lives. Maybe on your job you've made a terrible mistake or you've just blown it to where it seems as though you'll never recover from that or maybe with your words maybe something you wish you could take back but you just can't do it. Maybe you blew your diet this week with a bag of cookies. Just couldn't take it any longer and just blew the whole thing wide open. We've all blown it whether in major areas or minor areas some people blow it much worse than those things that I've just mentioned. A job failure, a financial catastrophe, a terrible decision that sends them down a wrong path in life, a sin that they fall into that just destroys their testimony and family and everything else. A lot of people have really blown their lives wide open. Abram and Sarah did that. We're tracing their lives through the book of Genesis. Tonight we come to chapter 16 where we find that Abram and Sarah made a foolish decision. You could say they really blew it and the results of that decision are still with us today. Still affecting the world today. It was a decision that had tremendous implications. They didn't see it at the time but because it was a foolish decision it would have implications that would affect the world's politics and warfare even up to this day. Well let's see what happened the story in Genesis 16 unfolds in three stages. The first we could say would be the cause of the problem. What caused this problem? You could sum it up in one word and it's a word we talked about this morning, oddly enough. Sometimes it's strange. I've tried to figure out how to get around this all afternoon, this afternoon, two messages on the same theme but then I realize maybe God intended us. Maybe some of you were asleep this morning and so we want you to hear it tonight so we'll see how that goes. But you could put it in one word. The cause of this problem was impatience. I want you to look at Abram and Sarah's impatience scheme in verses one through four. Now Sarah Abram's wife had born him no children but she had an Egyptian maid servant named Hagar so she said to Abram the Lord has kept me from having children, go sleep with my maid servant. Perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sarah said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years Sarah his wife took her Egyptian maid servant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived. Let's stop right there in the middle of verse four because this really is the cause of the problem. They're impatient scheme. You can just see as you begin reading this passage you can just see the wheels turning. You can see their thoughts moving in this direction. Both of us are getting older. It's been ten years since God sent us to this land. Abraham is 85 years old. Sarah is 75. We're not getting any younger. We're getting older. So God promised us we would have children that hasn't happened yet. Maybe he wants it to happen some other way. And so Sarah does think about this younger handmaiden, this younger servant in her home. That is her personal servant. She's younger. The lights go on, surrogate mother. Why don't we try that? Abram believes maybe it is the right thing to do and that sounds shocking to us. How could this man of faith allow such a scheme to take place? How could he even think that this would be the right thing? Now it helps a little bit to understand that this was a very common cultural custom in that day. Practically everyone in the ancient Near East practiced this. We know from ancient Near Eastern texts of other countries and so forth. This was a very common thing where a personal maid would be given to a husband as a second wife to obtain offspring that would then be adopted by the first wife. And you can almost see them rationalizing that this could be God's will. Because back in chapter 15, you remember Abram is really thinking about this issue of his seed and the promise that God has made to him of a child and it hasn't happened. And so he said, Lord, is it possible that you want this servant of mine, Eliezer, in my household, to be the one that fulfills the promise you've made to me? And God says no. No, it will not be your servant. It will be someone who comes from you. It will be a descendant of yours. And so maybe they're thinking, well, God still hasn't answered that. So maybe he wants you to have a son with another woman and I can adopt that son. You can almost see them rationalizing this could be God's will. But it really is simply an impatient scheme to run ahead of God. It is not God's will. God made his will known very clearly in the second chapter of Genesis. When he laid down the ground rules for marriage, one man, one woman bonded together for life. And that was always God's will. Although it's clear that God tolerated polygamy in the Old Testament where lots of people in the Bible, lots of well-known Bible characters in the Old Testament had many wives. It's clear that God tolerated that. It was never his will. It was never his plan. And it always brought huge problems, huge trouble to families. In every case where you see this taking place, there are tremendous problems. Obviously, this is not God's will. This is an impatient scheme to try to help God out because it looks like in their minds, God is not able to fulfill His promise. And so impatiently, they jump ahead of God. It's interesting to me that in chapter 15, that chapter is full of the voice of God. God is renewing, is covenant with Abraham. You remember if you were here last week, we talked about how God spoke with Abraham. They talked with one another. Back and forth, that chapter is full of the voice of God. You do not hear the voice of God in this conversation. This is purely humanistic reasoning in chapter 16. Purely man-made thinking that this is the way it ought to happen. And Abraham and Sarah were outside the will of God because of their impatience in this particular event in their lives. And I think that speaks to us today because we have an impatience with God's timing. Let's talk a little bit about our impatience with God's timing. We are not very good at waiting. I admit I am not very good at waiting. I talked about impatience this morning. And then I got out on 460 to go home. And I was rebuked by the Lord several times going home because I found myself trying to scheme my way ahead of whatever traffic was ahead of me. I got to the first light and saw that there were probably six cars in the right lane. There were only two cars in the left lane. And I thought, wonderful, God has opened up a path through the wilderness for this car to go. And so I pulled into that left lane. And I got about halfway across the bridge and that lane was moving slower than the right lane. And so I was looking for an opportunity to get back over to the right lane, which I did. And I did get it around the car that was in front of me. I was really cheering. I was really happy about that. Got around that car that was in front of me. And then I must have changed lanes three or four times within the next mile or so. And finally at dawned on me, John, what did you just preach about this morning? Can't you be satisfied with getting home maybe one or two minutes later than what you would of otherwise? Inpatients. We're not very good at patience, are we? I've told you about our experiences with grocery store lines or department store lines before. You know, we always, and I'm sure you do this too, don't you? You make these calculations as you approach which line is the shortest. And then you mentally calculate whether or not the one beside you that you thought about getting in is moving faster than the one you're in. And something always happens to the line we're in. They're always as a price check or something goes wrong with the order in front of us and so forth. And we always end up looking at each other and saying, you know what's wrong with this line? The answer is always obvious to our family, we are in it. That's what's wrong with this line because God is trying to teach us patience. We're not very good at patience, but in greater issues of life, we struggle with this as well. We have trouble waiting for the right mate, waiting on God's timing, thinking that life is passing us by. And so we jump at the first chance. I could tell you horror stories of young ladies through the years that I have seen in churches where I've been where they just took the first chance they could get thinking they would never have another one. And it was a disaster because of impatience. We have a great difficulty in our culture today, understanding the biblical concept of staying pure until marriage because of impatience. There are lots of temptations. I know that people face today, young people face along those lines, but it all boils down to a lack of being patient with God's timing. We have trouble with waiting to buy anything. It's so easy to buy stuff on credit now. You get all these credit card forms in the mail, pre-authorized credit cards, and you can pile up a dozen of them before you realize what you're doing. And anything you want, you can put on that card, or maybe the second or third or fourth one if you've maxed out the others. You see, because we're impatient. Again, I see a lot of young couples who want to start marriage with everything their parents have, not recognizing that it probably took their parents 25 or 30 years to obtain what they have now. But those young couples will go head over heels into debt to get the things that they've been used to having as they're growing up. Impatience. You see it everywhere in our culture. We are simply impatient with waiting for anything, pushing ahead of God, rushing into decisions before we are really ready to make them. Jumping at a job opportunity that seems good before we've ever really prayed and sought God's direction and peace about something. Impatience. We have trouble with waiting on God's timing. And when we do, we may find ourselves in much the same difficulty that Abram and Sarah did. Because I want you to notice next the consequences of this problem. Let's pick up where we left off in verse four. The consequences are drastic. Middle of verse four. When she, speaking of Hegar, when she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarah, I said to Abram, you are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. Why are you laughing? I didn't say anything. Is it that obvious? I put my servant in your arms and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me. Your servant is in your hands, Abram said, do with her whatever you think best. Then Sarah, I mistreated Hegar so she fled from her. Now just think for a moment of this series of terrible consequences to the decision that was made by Abram and Sarah. I mean a whole line of problems in this family result because of this impatient scheme of Abram and Sarah. Hegar finds out she's pregnant. She now despises Sarah. She is the mother of Abram's child, not Sarah. So you can just feel the tension that is going on between the two of them. Obviously, Sarah is jealous over what has happened even though it was her idea. She never factored in the real human emotional bonding element of sharing her husband with someone else and now that it's happened and now that her handmaiden is pregnant with Abram's child, she is intensely jealous, blames Abram. It's all your fault. Abram is between a rock and a hard place. He doesn't know what to do. In some sense, it is his fault. He responds passively. As the leader in his home, he should have done something. You should have stepped in to take care of this. And although Hegar is legally Sarah's responsibility, Abram should have, as the head of the household, stepped in to try to work this situation out. I am not at all sure what he should have done. But he should have done something. But he just kind of takes his hands off and says, she's your problem. Do whatever you want. And of course, that doesn't work well. You got another problem now. Sarah uses the position she has as the legal caretaker of this servant girl to now treat her harshly and probably put her back into servanthood role and made unreasonable expectations of her and just made life miserable for Hegar. Hegar says, I've had it. I can't take it anymore. I have got to get out of here. I mean, there are huge problems in this family now. Huge problems. And you know those problems have continued to this very day. Hegar will give birth to the father of the Arab nations. Later, Sarah will give birth to Isaac, who will be the father of the Jewish people. And the problems that began in this home with this decision have impacted human history ever since and continue to wreak havoc in the Middle East today. It's difficult for us to see sometimes the implications of wrong decisions, impatient schemes, jumping at things that look good to us, but we know our outside of God's will. It's difficult at times to see the consequences of that, but the consequences of this decision truly are drastic, not just for this family. I mean, they will suffer with this decision the rest of their lives, but they have put on the human race a situation that the human race never recover from. The implications of this decision are huge. All kinds of problems in their relationships, anger, hatred, jealousy, malice, accusations. Nobody's getting along with anybody in this family now because of what's happened. Consequences of the problem. The lesson we should learn is this, watch out for impatient decisions. When we make impatient decisions, we better watch out because the consequences will follow. Anytime we run ahead of God, anytime we go against this will, we are in for big trouble. I told you a moment ago, I could tell you horror stories of young ladies who have jumped at the first chance outside the will of God to marry someone. I remember young lady named Lynn in our first church. Lynn came to Genie and I one day and was just excited about the fact she had met a young man. We asked a little bit more and he wasn't coming with her to church so we were kind of interested to find out who he was and where he was from. Over a period of time, come to find out. This young man was not the kind of young man that any Christian girl should be interested in dating. He was not saved. He was in trouble with the law, all kinds of bad things going on. And we tried to warn Lynn, but Lynn said, I will probably never get another chance. And Lynn was not the most beautiful flower in the field and probably in her eyes, she felt like there would never be another opportunity. The first guy that showed any interest in her, she was going to jump at. She did. We could not dissuade her from that decision. It wasn't, but just a few weeks after that she began coming to church with sunglasses on. It was obvious that there was abuse going on before long that abuse became worse and worse. And it was within, I guess, a year or so that she had to leave that marriage for the sake of her life. And I could tell you story after story like that of people who said, this is my only chance. I'll never get another opportunity like this and they jump outside what they know to be God's will. Never God's will to marry an unbeliever the Bible says. And yet jumping outside of that, reeked havoc upon herself and her family that she still struggles with today. So many other examples, even in the scriptures, compromising sexual purity because temptation is so strong. If you want the consequences of that one, just read David's story. The consequences in his life and his family in the nation of Israel, he would never be the same after that happened. Pushing ahead of God, not being patient with him, read the story of Saul. Saul is told to wait on Samuel to come before he offers a sacrifice and leads Israel into battle. Samuel doesn't show up. Seven days go by and rather than wait, Saul decides he himself will offer the sacrifice, which is not within the mosaic law for a king to do. It's the role of the prophet or the priest to do that. And so just about the time he's offering the sacrifice, Samuel does show up. And those that incident along with others like it where Saul showed a tendency to impatiently run ahead of God and disregard God's word caused him to lose his kingdom, consequences to going against what God has said are always, always terrible in our lives, the consequences of the problem. But what do you do now when you've got yourself in a mess like this, when you've really blown it, when you've made a decision that creates great difficulty in problem, what do you do? What is the correction to the problem? Well, in the last few verses, last half or so of this chapter, you find the correction. And what about you? You've blown it? What do you do now? How do you correct it? Three steps. The first lesson really has to do with responding to other people who have blown it. Because sometimes we need a lesson along those lines too. How do we respond to other people, family members, church members, others, friends who have blown it, who've made bad decisions that have impacted their lives? How do we respond? Well, I think the first lesson addresses that, respond with compassion to those who blow it. I want you to see how God responded to Hegar. End of Abraham and Sarah as well, but particularly Hegar in this situation, verse 7, the angel of the Lord found Hegar near a spring in the desert. It was the spring that is beside the road to shore. And He said, Hegar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from? And where are you going? I'm running away from my mistress, Sarah, she answered. Now, who is this angel of the Lord? The angel of the Lord, whenever that person is referred to in the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord, not just an angel of the Lord, not just any angel, the angel of the Lord, that is a reference to Jesus Christ. It's a reference to God, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, taking on a form that others could see coming down to talk, to communicate information, to encourage, to bless, to help. He appears several times in the Old Testament. The angel of the Lord, God Himself, and we'll see later on, Hegar recognizes that this must have been God. It was God the Son, Jesus Christ. But it's interesting to me how He approaches her. He basically asks her a question that allows her to open up and talk about what's going on in her life. He says, hey, Gar, where have you come from? Where are you going? Now, He knows that. The Son of God knows where she's come from. He knows where she's going. He knows everything that's happened. As always in the Bible, when God asks questions, it's not for information, it's not because He's lacking knowledge, it's because He wants the other person to talk. If you ever take any counseling classes, you'll learn that one of the most important techniques they will teach you is to learn to ask questions, to draw people out, to get them to talk about what's on their heart, to get them to open up about whatever is on their mind. It's really something that God often does in the Bible. He said to Adam and Eve, where are you? Well, God knew where they were, hiding in the garden, but He wanted them to recognize and admit where they were. Over and over again, God does this. So how is He approaching Heygar? Giving her an opportunity to unburden her heart, to explain where she is, what she's feeling, and he will go on to encourage her when she does explain what's happening in her life. Now, please think through this, in a sense, she's an unwed mother. Not exact parallel to what we would think of today, but in a sense, she is an unwed mother. What is your first response to an unwed mother? For many Christians, the first response is condemnation. And while I would never suggest we sweep sin under the rug and deal lightly with sin, at some point, when a person has sinned, they need to be confronted with that, but they will never listen to that confrontation unless they know it comes out of love. And so the first response, just as Christ's first response to Heygar is, now, He's going to challenge her with abandoning her responsibility in a little bit here, but His first response is, tell me what's wrong. Tell me how you feel. Tell me where you've come from, where you're going. Tell me your story. And I think the way we should respond to people who've made terrible decisions, who've made decisions that carry consequences that can be drastic at times. I think the way we should respond is, first of all, respond with compassion. They need to understand that we love them, that we want to help them, and we will help them by pointing out where they've gotten off the path of obedience. What has happened that was wrong and how to get their lives back together and live in obedience to God? But we need to respond to people who have sinned with compassion. Compassion. Second thing about correcting what we've done wrong is to face up to what you've done. Look at verse 9, and this is where the Lord begins to challenge her. Face up to what you've done. It's basically what he's saying. The angel of the Lord told her, go back to your mistress and submit to her. Now, what he's doing is he's challenging Heygar with the fact you have done something wrong in this situation. You have abandoned a place where you have obligations and responsibilities. You have run away from that responsibility in self-willed departure from the place where you have responsibility. Now, you need to go back and you need to submit to Sarah's ruling over you, her authority over you need to submit to that because you see God will deal with Abram and Sarah about what they need to do and how to correct what they've done wrong. But Heygar needs to understand what she has done wrong in this whole situation. Her response has been wrong and so she needs to respond by making things right. Go back, put yourself back under Sarah's authority, go back to what you should be doing, your responsibilities, your attitude needs to be one of submission and obedience to what God wants you to do. That's never easy to hear. Oftentimes, when we are caught in situations like this, we feel like we are totally the victims and we are right and we can't stand it anymore. So we take off and we do what we think is the right thing to do. And I believe God would say to us after he's compassionately said, now tell me, tell me what's going on. Just unburden your heart. I think his next step is you need to face up to what you've done wrong. I've never seen a conflict that can be resolved unless both parties are willing to humbly admit to whatever responsibility they have for that conflict. What did I do wrong? I mean, not have been a lot. The other person may be 90% in the wrong, but rarely is a person ever 100% in the wrong in a conflict. Usually there's something I've done, there's usually something I've said or something about the way I've handled things that were not right and we have to take responsibility for that. Face up to what we've done. We can't run from that. We've got to face up to it. So when we've made poor decisions like Heghar did, like Abram did, Sarah did, but the decision of Heghar to run was the wrong decision. When we make those decisions, we must face up to what we've done. Third, principle of correction to this problem is sometimes we have to make the best of a difficult situation. That's about where we have to leave it. Sometimes there are situations that we get ourselves into because of poor decisions, wrong decisions. There are situations that have consequences that will be damaging to us the rest of our lives. God can forgive us, we can restore relationships, but there may be consequences to what has happened that we will live with the rest of our lives and that's exactly what happens with Heghar. Now I want you to see how God blends his compassion and promises to her with a very realistic portrayal of how difficult it's going to be for her. Notice what he says. Verse 10, the angel added, I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count. The angel of the Lord also said to her, you are now with child, you will have a son and you shall name him Ishmael for the Lord has heard of your misery. Now those are wonderful promises. You're going to have many descendants. I mean they'll be too numerous to count. That was something that every woman in that time, in that culture, loved to hear. And so that's a wonderful promise for her. And she's going to have a son and the Lord has heard her misery. All those are wonderful promises. And we must learn to accept and understand and live in the promises that God makes us when we've blown it. But sometimes there are consequences too that we will have to live with and just make the best of. Notice what he says next in verse 12, he will be, he's already said this wonderful, you know, you're going to have a child. He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, everyone's hand against him. He will live in hostility toward all his brothers. Now you know sometimes I wish I could be in these scenes and I wish I could see what happens. I would love to have seen Heghar's response when God told her this. He will be a wild donkey of a man. I mean up till now there's been some great promises and encouragement. He'll be a wild donkey of a man. I just would love to have seen Heghar's face, you know, when God said that. I've never said that about a baby. I've really tried to steer away from those kind of compliments. You know, I've seen some babies that, you know, you really couldn't call beautiful babies and you just have to be very diplomatic. Now, you know, man, that's a great baby. That's a keeper. That is a real baby there. I'll tell you. Things like that. But I have never gone into a hospital room and said, now that one looks like a wild donkey. I've never said that. But I can imagine if I did the response of the mother, I can just imagine the daggers in her eyes. I can just imagine the crest fall in face. You know, you will never hold this baby. I just wonder what happened in Heghar's heart when she heard that. And God was not talking about His looks. He was talking about His character and how He would respond to people. And did you catch what He said about everyone's hand will be against Him. His hand will be against everyone. He will live in hostility toward His brothers. The Hebrew word there translated in hostility literally has to do with the idea of being face to face with. It literally could be translated to face against someone. We would say today, He is in your face all the time. Isn't that characteristic of Ishmael? Isn't that characteristic of the Middle East? And, you know, what happens in the Middle East is not all Arab fault. But there is problem in that part of the world today because of this very promise. Ishmael would always be in the face of everybody. Quick finger on the trigger. Unhappy with whatever is happening. And the promise is those who are living with Him will be the same way, will respond in the same way. They'll be in hostility with one another. Now, think about it. These people, Abrams, Sarah, Hagar had to live with this the rest of their lives. Ishmael would be 14 years old when Isaac was born. And from the day Isaac was born, Ishmael terrorized Isaac. To the point that eventually, later on in the story, we'll find Hagar and Ishmael had to be driven away or something really bad was going to happen. So this is set in motion by this terrible decision that Abram and Sarah made. This is not going to be easy to live with. And sometimes, when we make terrible decisions, we put in the motion consequences that we'll have to live with the rest of our lives. And they may not be easy. Will not be easy situations for us. But sometimes, God just simply says to us, I am with you, just like He said to Hagar, I am with you. I will give you my promises, but the consequences of what you've done are going to go with you the rest of your life. It's not going to be easy. Now, I think it's interesting how Hagar chooses to focus on the promises. Look at verse 13. She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her, you are the God who sees me. For she said, I have now seen the one who sees me. And she named the place along those lines. She chose to focus. And I think this is the way we have to respond in these situations. She chose to focus upon the promise. God has seen me. He has seen my misery. He's heard my misery. And I will choose to focus upon the fact that God will be with me, the one who sees me, the one who knows everything I'm going through. He will be with me. I know I'm going to have it hard. I know it's not going to be easy. And these prophecies here are not going to be easy to live with. But God is with me. He sees me. He knows my misery. And he'll go with me. And that my friend is sometimes the best we can do with decisions that have brought trouble into our lives. Decisions that bring consequences that are very difficult to deal with. Sometimes God says, make the best of a difficult situation. I will be with you. I will help you. But you've put into motion some things that are going to be very difficult to live with. And I'm not going to remove those, but I will be with you through them. So I think in closing, maybe we would do well to ask ourselves this question, are we facing the pressure of impatience? Are you facing a situation right now? Whether it be job related or family related or temptation related or whatever it may be, are you facing the pressure of impatience? The pressure to go ahead with your own decision, even though you have a deep seated feeling and a sense, maybe even a clear direction from God that it is not God's will, then I would urge you, I would urge you, please slow down, think and pray about that decision. You're about ready to make. Really give some serious thought to how this is going to affect you the rest of your life. Ask God for patience. Think about, think about how a poor decision at this point may impact you the rest of your life. Ask God to give you wisdom and insight as to what will happen, what the consequences will be of the decision you're about to make. So that you do not fall into the trap of thinking. Life is not happening the way I thought it should. So I'm going to go after this. And when you make that decision, you may destroy a lot that is good in your life. If you've already made that kind of decision, if you've already blown it, let me tell you, your life is not over. Your life is not over. Face up to what you've done like Hagar had to and move on, even though some of the consequences may be difficult to live with, the God who sees you will be with you. He will help you. Do you remember Fred Smith? Let's tell you about in the beginning of the message. Six months after he started his business, he was out on the street because he had failed. Well, he didn't take that. He fought back and he regained his company. Company we know today is FedEx. That company today, Fred Smith is dead now, I believe. But that company today, after what he did in that company is one of the most profitable companies in the world. Does 22.7 billion dollars per year in revenue? They have 143,000 employees. They handle 3.3 million packages a day. 220 countries they have hubs in. They have 669 aircraft, 43,000 of those little trucks that fly around your neighborhood and up and down these streets all day long. They have an incredible business going on because there was a man who would not quit when the consequences of his decisions led to failure. And God doesn't want us to either. Hegar, Hegar, keep going. God doesn't want us to quit. Let's pray together. Father, help us to draw encouragement from your word, from the story of Abram and Sarah and Hegar. And even when we see godly people who are known as people of faith, step into terrible mistakes and decisions that are wrong, help us to learn from that father, help us to learn that none of us are above making terrible decisions that could impact us negatively forever. And I pray, Father, that you'd help us to really be patient, to wait upon you, to pray, to trust you, to seek your will and guidance and all that we do. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.