Your Set Apart Season - Coffee With Chrystal #alittleQC

Good morning, good morning, good morning. All right, so I think— give me a second. Okay, Instagram, give me one second, give me one second. All right. Now what I need to know, everybody, is anybody seeing or hearing an echo? That's the thing right now I'm trying to figure out. So y'all can let me know if y'all are hearing an echo. Let's see here. No echo. Okay, so if I'm the only person that's hearing it now, I'm trying to— oh, silly girl, what's wrong with you? All right, let's see here. Yay! I mean, I'm doing my best here, y'all, to figure things out in life. All right, so now Instagram, you should have better sounds, and in just a second you should have a better picture. Okay, yay! Now if I could get my life together and not have the word testing above the video, then we'd be in business now, wouldn't we? Hey, Joel, go back to sleep.

Go back to sleep.

Time for you to be sleep. Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when you need to get up. Close the door.

Okay, good morning.

Yeah, so let me move the, um, okay, y'all, so I'm trying new things and I don't know how to get rid of the testing. The white noise is my poor computer that's, that's struggling to function. I put a computer, y'all, in the, uh, I actually put it, um, in the cart last night and then I couldn't do it. All right, good morning, good morning, good morning. Okay, so let me focus on y'all right now. My computer. We're gonna see if it can— it's having all kind— it's like having all kind of hiccups. Okay, so y'all, I figured out how to get Instagram better sound, better video quality. Somebody give it up for me! Means times when you get things done in life, you just have to celebrate a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Just a little bit. I was actually trying to figure out what in the world to talk to y'all about today, you know, and just trying to figure out what do I do? Um, cause we're supposed to have a Geeky Girl conversation, but I'm like, I can't have a Geeky Girl conversation without being prepared. Like you have to have all your stuff together. You have to, uh, you know, have it like, you have to have another camera so you can use, so you can show your camera and show your, So I'm preparing for that. We'll do that a little later. I also think that there's one day this week where we will have, um, where we will have a, uh, a workout. Y'all can get up in the morning and work out with me. One of my girlfriends, I called her and I was like, can you, Bobby, can you just lead us in a workout? She's already been doing it on YouTube. So I was like, can you just do it with us? Can you do it with us? So one of these mornings that's coming, but I'm not going to be on long this morning. I actually wanted to share something with you this morning. You said you are crazy and fun. You love the sound effects. Listen, because I don't even know what all these other sounds are. Let's see. That's a birthday party noise, right? So I'm going to put some more sounds in there and figure out how to live my best life on this situation. These are the default sound effects that come with my little situation. Keisha, you're asking me for the banana bread recipe. I put it, I put it online.

I put it online.

Okay, so y'all are letting me play this morning, right? I wonder. Can I do this? Let's see. I put it online yesterday, so make sure you're on my email list because that way you'll get it. Now, I don't know if on this I can put y'all on screen. I don't think that works. I still can't put Instagram on screen. I don't think. I'll play with that another day. All right. Okay, okay, okay. Yay! So then here's the test Instagram to see if you can see the things that typically Facebook, Periscope, and YouTube sees. Alright, so here's my— when I always say make sure you're on my email list, then a little thing pops up. Okay, and there we go. So it's coming, I think. There we go. Y'all can see all the extra things! So that just means that when I go live now, normally Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, they see a screen like this, right? Y'all are seeing a cut of that screen. So I just have to make sure that whatever I share, I put it in the cut. I'll try my best to remember that.

Yay!

So make sure you are on my email list. Better video, better sounds. My computer is struggling, so I'm about to do— I'm about to add something to this layer. Y'all just pray for my computer. So what I wanted to do this morning is to share, share a teaching with you that I actually shared with my Bible study at my church. So it's, it's about a 40-minute teaching that talks about how you can see this season in your life as not a season of being set aside, not a season of being held back, not a season of being, um, um, restricted or constricted, but a season where you're actually being set apart. That all— that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him. So I hadn't, um, taught you in a while on YouTube, and so what I wanted to do is go ahead and share a teaching that I taught with them because I thought that was still timely. Okay, so, so sit back and relax, and I'm gonna hit— because y'all know normally on Tuesdays I got to get on and get off because I got to meet with my team, and I do. I'm gonna sit right here, I'm gonna multi, multi, multi, multitask Facebook, YouTube, Periscope. Yes, Periscope, somebody's still watching on Periscope. And Instagram. And I got my— aw shucks, this is dead. This is my life. So team, I'm gonna charge my phone, my iPad, and be with you in just a second. This is my life. Okay, I thought I charged it. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is play the video Hopefully it plays.

Hopefully my computer can handle a fourth major thing to do.

Jesus, help. Okay, here we go. So this is Encouragement for Your Set Apart Season. Um, all right, here we go.

Good morning, Chrystal Hurst. So good to see you. Morning.

I see you all too.

It's fun to change the view. I can't see everybody when I'm on my phone, but when you're on the computer and then you can see everybody's face, it's fun. And I just scroll through, I got 5 pages of smiling faces to look at. And so I'm glad that you're all here. And of course I see you in the comments too. Some of us I know have been hesitant to learn new things, technology, and then this season has forced us to do it. Yeah, being forced to do things, it may not be as fun as we would like things to be, but it can be good. So it's allowed us to stay connected, which I'm so grateful for that. The good news is at our church in Tamara Hut, we follow detail with the facilitators, but at our church, normally, groups do not meet during the summer. Everybody takes a break. Because of what's happening, we will be encouraging all small groups, including our tables at Life on Life, to continue meeting during the summer every other week to just connect and to discuss the sermon, because that's what the small groups typically do is just discuss the sermon, and there's a sermon study guide every week that we put out, most weeks, and so that opportunity for you to still connect via Zoom or however else you want to do that, phone call, will be available to you. So Tamara will be reaching out to the facilitators with more details about that. I have been, of course, following along and Karen's Teachings have been great as usual. And is such an excellent teacher. And so I've been enjoying that word and that study along with you. But this morning I wanted to just talk about something that I've been thinking a little bit about. And if you have your Bibles and wanna open them up, or you have another screen besides the screen you're looking at this on and wanna open it up, you can turn to Genesis chapter 37. Many of us are very familiar already with the life of Joseph and his hardships, but I wanted to just chat a little bit about what I have been thinking a lot about and reflecting on, just as something for us to close our large group meeting time together for this year out. Let me I know we just prayed, but let me just open up our study of the word together in prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank you that your word does not return void. We thank you that no matter how many times we've studied stories, there's always something new for us to learn. Not because you change, but because we do. And we, as we move through life, get to live with new lenses, new lenses of who we are, of who you are, and of what we need to know and of how we need to grow. We thank you for the lens that life as it is currently happening in our world, the lens that it has given to us, a situation, circumstances that we have never been in before in our lifetime, and how we have to move and operate in ways that we never would have anticipated just a few months before. But even here in this season, you are here. And we just ask, God, that we can take the same word, just like you have been present and in action in every season before this one, You as the person of the Holy Spirit at work in the hearts and lives of believers, you in the form of your word by which we get both the graphe, the logos, and the rhema word for our situations, you have been from the beginning of time and continue on into this time. So while this time is new for us, it is not new for you. While we've never been here before, you have. While we've never had to come up with solutions, you have all the solutions, you have all the answers. And we just thank you that we have the opportunity to be connected to you and to glean from your word one of the essences of who you are, what you want us to know. In Jesus' name, we thank you and we say amen.

Amen.

So I want to read to this passage.

Can y'all see and hear me okay?

Yeah, you can hang up if you want to now. Did you get the Genesis? Uh-huh, yeah, I got it. You can hang up and I'll just— Thank you, darling. I wanted to just read a few scriptures to you starting with chapter 37 in verse— let's start with verse 3. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph, a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn't say a kind word to him. One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. Listen to this dream, he said. We are out in the field tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly, my bundle stood up and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine. His brothers responded, 'So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?' And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. It goes on to say that he had another dream, but let's move on to chapter 37, verse 18. When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. "Here comes the dreamer," they said. "Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns. We can tell our father a wild animal has eaten him, and then we will see what becomes of his dreams." When Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue. "Let's not kill him," he said. "Why should we shed any blood? Let's just throw him into his empty cistern here in the wilderness. Then he'll die without our laying a hand on him." and Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father. So when Joseph arrives, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing, and then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty, there was no water in it. And just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels coming in the distance, coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, "Why should we kill him? What will we gain? We'd have to cover up our crime. So instead of hurting him, let's sell him to the Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." And his brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for 20 pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. If you go forward to chapter Genesis 39, verse 2, it says, "The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did." Naturally, if you read that passage of scripture, you see that over and over again that the Lord was with Joseph. In that same chapter, verse 21, "The Lord was with Joseph in prison and showed him his faithful love." Verse 23, "The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed. And we know, many of us know the story that Joseph, you know, had a rough time. He was 17 years old when all of this happened, and he got thrown into a situation that he knew not of. He was obviously loved. He was his dad's favorite. His dad made sure that he knew it, that everybody else knew it by giving him special treatment. And that did not sit well in Joseph's environment. His brothers didn't like that. For him. Truth is, all of us want to be seen and know that we have value, and when a parent does not treat us with value or compares us with other siblings and makes it clear to us that we're not the favorite or that we don't get the privileges, it doesn't feel good. And there were lots of brothers here, and they ganged up on this one. But basically, Joseph enters a season of being set apart. It's either that, you look at it that way, or he was set aside. And I think that when we look at the season that we're in right now, you have that same choice. It's either a season of being set aside or set apart. Now because we have the story of Joseph in its entirety, we know that it all worked out. We know that his dreams were actually true. They did come down and bow down to him because later he, through a series of circumstances, after being in jail, after being wrongfully accused, after having to worry about his life, he's eventually called into the king's court and asked to interpret dreams, something that he had known he could do since he was a teenager, but he didn't get to do it for a long time. And then he's called upon to do it and celebrated for doing it, but he had this season through his 20s and in the beginning of his 30s of being either, depending on how you look at it, set aside or set apart. Now we know that God sets us apart because of our life experiences. We know that he allows all things, Romans 8:28, to come together to work out for our good. But how many times have we been in set-apart seasons and felt set aside? How many times have we been in circumstances where we have seen no use for what we're going through? We see no point in what we're going through. What we're going through is actually very painful, very lonely, very difficult, where we do experience loss personally, in people or in money, finances, or in dreams, because what we thought we would be doing is not what we see ourselves doing now. But we get stuck in the set-aside season, not recognizing that it's a season of being set apart. Joseph is not the only person in the Bible who had a set-apart or set-aside season. Of course, he ended up on the backside of the desert in Midian because of his wrongful doing. He committed murder, but he didn't realize that until age 40. He had been living the good life, but that was a set-apart season to teach him how to be a leader, to teach him how to be royalty, to teach him what it looked like to do hard things for other people that weren't willing to do them for themselves. Now, he took matters into his own hands when he committed murder, but still, that was a season of learning a skill, learning a being, learning how to be who God had called him to be. And even when he got moved to the backside of the desert because he was running for his life for the next 40 years because God did not visit him in the burning bush until he was almost 80 years old. That that season that he had run into, running away for his life and trying to preserve his life by running away from people who were after him, that even that season, even that side of the desert, even that darkness in his life was not just a season set aside. It was a season of being set apart because he had to learn how to shepherd people. He had to learn humility. He had to learn how to live as a man who would live humble and willing to take instruction. He had to learn— how to do that. And then when from that season forward, God used both his royalty and his ability to knock on Pharaoh's back door and say, hey, can I have a conversation with you to tell you let my people go? He used the next season where he had learned to shepherd sheep, and sheep, all we like sheep have gone astray. He used that season of Moses learning how to shepherd beings who did not remember goodness, who did not remember provision, who did not remember guidance, and who would keep wandering off. He had to learn what is it like to have patience with beings who don't stay put where they're being taken. Taken care of, who need things repeated, who need things done over and over again. That season was a part of his season of learning to lead just as much as the season of royalty was. But he didn't know that it was a set-apart season. He thought it was set aside. When God came to him in the burning bush, Moses had all the questions, Exodus chapter 3 and chapter 4. He said, are you sure it's me? What am I going to say when they don't think it's me? What am I going to say because I don't have the words? What am I going to say when I have to lead these people and I don't have anything? And God said, what do you have in your hand? And I want you to know— then in the set-apart seasons, in the set-aside seasons, often God is using those seasons to develop what you already have in your hand. But if you're not using it, and if you don't see the season as something that God can use later, you'll miss the opportunity for growth and development. I think that's what quarantining for us can be. It can be, depending on how you look at it, a set-aside season or a set-apart season. And how you come out of this season on the other side depends on what you do with what you have in your hand. What did Joseph have in his hand? He had the ability to interpret dreams. It was something that God had given him in his teenage years, and he used it. He used it in his teenage years to be a little high on himself and to say to his brothers, "Let me tell you what's gonna happen to y'all. I know y'all already know I'm the favorite. I know you already know I have position in this household. Do you see this coat of many colors that Our dad has given us, let me tell you what your future holds. Since you already know I'm the favorite, I'm gonna tell you that you're going to bow down to me. Sometimes, y'all, we need to learn how to keep some of the things that God gives us early on. We need to learn how to be quiet, that everything that God gives us is not for us to share right then. That reminds me of a passage in Luke. I can turn to it, making all this noise. Turn it in my Bible here. But if it's in Luke, mm-hmm, might be telling on myself because it may be, it may be in Matthew. I'll tell you what it is, but it's basically when God comes to Mary and he tells her what's about to happen to her.

And it says that she held all these things in her heart.

She got quiet. She got quiet. I'll look for the scripture and I'll find it because it may not be in Luke chapter 1, maybe in Matthew. But basically, all of the things that God told her, she didn't rush out and tell everybody. Because y'all, that's what we want to do sometimes. God shows us some things. He, he's revealed some things to us as we pray. He's revealed some things to us in his word, and we want to rush out and tell everybody. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, because the Bible says when you get saved, you ought not keep it to yourself. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. What I am saying to you is that you got to know when to hold them and when to fold them. Everything God gives to you is not necessarily to share with everybody right then and there. Joseph goes out and he tells everybody all the things, and that actually results in a series of events that put him in his set aside or set apart season. And it was long. I wonder if every time the situation changed— Joseph is in the pit, thank you very much. See, y'all Bible scholars. It's 2:19. Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. Thank you very much, Miss Augusta. The Ishmaelites, traders. And then he's with them thinking, probably like any teenage boy would be thinking, "Okay, I can probably jump off of here and escape and run back, or maybe I'll be able to find my way, but this is it. I'm gonna be traded and be a slave, but eventually I'll be able to work myself out of this and get back home." Then he ends up at Potiphar's house and he thinks, "Okay, this is it." You know, I'll live here, I'll do well, I'm gonna, you know, make my father proud, but eventually I'll have Potiphar's ear and I'll be able to tell him honestly I have a home, I have a family, I want to go back home. And then Potiphar's wife accuses Joseph of mistreating her and then he ends up in jail. And then how long is this gonna last? And sometimes I feel like this quarantine has been a little like that. We're gonna go home for a little bit, then we have a date, and then we get another date, and now we have another date, but now things are starting to open back up, but you're only supposed to come out if you need to because the virus is still running rampant. And how long is this gonna last? Because we are making decisions, you know, about all the things that are happening at church. You know, Pastor Evan's dad, of course, is Thinking about, okay, now when do we come back to church because you can't, you're not just gonna open the church doors and 3,000 people flood back in when we open them up. We're probably gonna open them up slowly and how are we gonna do that and communicate who can come and it's living in the unknown and having the bar constantly moved. And I know I felt that way sometimes where I think I can hang on for this long, and then you have to go a little longer. Being pregnant was kind of like that. You got a due date, and you know, towards the end of your third trimester, you're thinking, "Whew, okay," especially with that first baby, you're thinking, "Okay, I only have to make it, you know, till the due date." And then that's not necessarily the case. One of my children went to 42 and a half weeks, and every day it could be the day. And you're just living with the unknown of when is this going to end. Many of you are in relationship with people who have sickness, and you're always waiting for that next doctor's appointment to know, or even for yourself, when is this gonna be over? Hopefully by this date, the numbers on my blood work will be changed enough for this to change in my life, or that to change in my life, or for this to change for— in the life of my loved one. When can they get back to regular life? When can they get back on their feet? When are they able to walk on that, or to breathe normally? And it's always a moving target. Life often is a moving target. But what we see in the passage with Joseph, when we look in chapter 39, in verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph. In verse 4, the master saw that the Lord was with Joseph. So Joseph in verse 4 found favor in his sight. You see in verse 21, the Lord was with Joseph. The chief jailer did not even bother to supervise Joseph because, verse 23, the Lord was with him and whatever he did the Lord made to prosper. In the middle of his set aside, set apart season, he still prospered. But that had to do with Joseph's willingness to show up the best that he could in each part of his quarantine season with the deadline continuing to move. Listen, y'all, I could— I promise you, I would be able to lose weight and keep it off if it had a deadline associated with it. You know what I mean? Like, if I knew that all I had to do was this one thing for 4 weeks, I'd be good. The problem is those diet timeframes end, you know, the 21 Day Fix or the 30 Day Whole— the Whole30 ends, or the 6-week situation, Sugar fix ends, and then I'm like back to normally scheduled programming. Because we really, really don't want to go in for the long haul. We don't want to commit for the long haul. We don't— we want to know that the thing that we're being asked to do that's hard, that it has an expiration date. We want to know when is it over. But what if The lesson for us in this season of being quarantined is that we're supposed to show up doing whatever God has called us to do, being wherever God has called us to be, infinitum, without an expiration date, without end. Because what if this is a set aside or set apart season for things that God has been attempting to call out of you, or things that he's needed to refine in you? This is the season for that. And if you don't recognize that this is a set apart, set aside season for those things that God wants to develop in you for a date that you don't even know is coming, but because you're constantly only looking for the end, and not looking at what God has put in your hand and what he wants to draw in and out of you in this season, you miss the purpose of the season. Listen, we have Joseph's whole story, so we know when he was called to lead in, in Egypt, when Pharaoh said, hey, you're the next man in charge, you can rule, that everything along the way was training for Joseph. Every stinkin' single thing. Every time. He learned how to influence friends and motivate people in jail. If you can do that in jail, if you can bring people on your team in jail, if you can be remembered from jail, you can be remembered, seen, and connect with people anywhere. That when he was interpreting dreams as a teenager, that he would be called to interpret dreams in his 30s. That when he was learning how to manage a household for Potiphar, that he was learning how to manage a nation later with Pharaoh. It was all training. But we'd be amiss if we thought that every time Joseph changed seasons, that he was thinking, "This is my chance to get out." Most of us miss the beauty of our set-apart seasons because we're only thinking about getting out, holding our breath until things change. But what if you decided to inhale and fully exhale in the season that you're in? My question to you this morning is, what do you have in your hand? What has God put in in you, literally inside of you, your gifts, your talents, abilities, your personality? What has he put in you that you've been walking with this whole time, and now you actually have the bandwidth or the opportunity to live it out? So I've been talking a long time about being a good neighbor. And I have to tell you that we know that where we are right now is temporary. It's a whole situation of musical houses. We had our home. We moved to be next to Priscilla. She had a situation, a home was available near her that we could rent, and I thought, "How cool. I'll move and be next door to my sister. Our sons can be next door to each other." And isn't that a great childhood, to have your children live next door to their cousins, and they can, you know, live life together. So we rented our house out, and we moved in next door to Priscilla. And we knew that would be temporary because eventually, we both knew that, you know, we'd move, we'd go back home, or we just thought for a good 5 years, let's live next to each other. When it came time to move, that time came a little unexpectedly and it was unplanned. We had our home to move back to, but we had rented it out. And not only that, we had rented it out to people we knew. So we didn't want to kick them out. And right about the time that happened, a friend of ours were renting a home And they found a home they wanted to buy. And they said, but we're about to move out. We'll tell the owners you can move in. So we moved a mile from the home that we own into a home that we're renting. We said, we're only going to stay here for 2 to 3 years. It's been 3 and a half. So starting with year 2, we started looking and we've been looking and looking and looking and looking, trying to find a home that we feel like is the forever home. And y'all, this whole time I've been living though on this street. With these neighbors, not being a good neighbor, because I was like, I'm actually not gonna be here very long, so I don't want to invest and get to know y'all because I'm gonna leave y'all. So here I am, 3 and a half years later, having not been a good neighbor. And one of the things I've always said is that I can't wait until I settle into a neighborhood where I can get to know my neighbors and they can get to know me. And literally, if they need a cup of sugar, they can come get it. Like, I've kind of always wanted to live in that scenario. And it occurred to me as we were looking again and as quarantine season settled in and people aren't selling their homes and can't find anything and there's nothing to look at, that I'm here in a season where I need to be a good neighbor. And after 3 years of being here, I don't even know who the neighbors I have, who they are. So I told my husband, go get a, um, Go get a picnic table, have the boys put a picnic table together, and we'll put a picnic table in our front yard so I can sit outside as neighbors are coming and going and just be friendly and just be neighborly. And this whole time, the thing that I've wanted, I haven't participated in because I didn't recognize this as a season to engage in the thing that God had put in my hand, which is I've always wanted to have and be a good neighbor. But I thought that was for the next season. I thought that was for the next season. So I was saving all of it for another time. For some of us, the question is, what are you waiting on? Because did I know that I'd be in a quarantine season where really, really knowing and being able to serve and minister to my neighbors and have them even minister to me, that we would be here? Nope. I didn't know that. And this whole time, this whole time, I've been right here with an opportunity to get to know the people who I'd be quarantining with. I didn't expect to be, but is there really much in life that we can truly expect? So much of life to me is about 20% what we expect and 80% what we run into. So the question is, are you practicing what God has put in you to do, or in your hand to do, in the season that you're in right now? Because what if this is the season that he's given to you, set apart, set aside, for you to grow? I'm a fan of 20/20. Hindsight giving you 20/20. But I'm convinced if when God puts us in seasons that seem hard, that are difficult, that are unexpected, that are challenging, if we would just say, okay, based on what you've given me, in me or in my hand, I'm gonna fully engage and trust that if you're with me, that's all I need. That you will work it all together for my good. Yes, because the Bible says that in Romans 8, but because I can see that in the life of Joseph, and I can see how you used everything, and he engaged with all that you brought his way. You used everything to prepare him for the coming seasons. So this season, my question is, what do you have in your hand and in your heart? In chapter 40, verse 8, Pharaoh's officials who were with him in confinement in his master's house said, why are your— or he asked Pharaoh's officials, why are your faces so sad today? And they said, "We have had a dream and there's no one to interpret it." And then Joseph said, "Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me." So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said, "In my dream, here's all of the things." And then Joseph said in verse 12, "This is the interpretation." He said, "But just remember me because when it goes well with you," verse 14, "mention me to Pharaoh." And then he told his whole story. That's how we know he hadn't forgotten what he really wanted to do. He said, "I was kidnapped and I've been put in a dungeon. This is not supposed to be my story. So don't forget about me 'cause I actually still don't wanna be here. I don't wanna be in Egypt. I don't wanna be in a dungeon. I don't wanna be working for other people far away from my home. Don't forget that this is not supposed to be my story. I want out." I want out. And you know they forgot about him. 2 whole years go by, and then he's called upon later on to interpret a dream again. The season kept stretching out. We don't know how long we're gonna be quarantined, and even when we are getting back to regular life. What does regular life even look like?

You know?

And I would love to be able to say that come July, you know, we'll all be back in the saddle and things will be going along like they were before. But we don't know that. Here's what should not be the same. In 3 months?

You.

You should not be the same.

Why?

Because you have the quiet, the bandwidth, the space, the solitude to hear from God in a way you never have before, to be still in a way you never have before, Even with those of you who your main outing was getting out weekly to Life on Life or to doctor's appointments, those have changed. We have changed. And I always say with people who've still been working, okay, you're still working, but you can't go to church. Your kids don't have baseball games. There's no summer track. The malls have been closed. Can't shop. You wanna go to the movies and waste some time, can't do that. So all of us, to a certain degree, are in a season of solitude and Sabbath rest. And if Joseph, for basically the majority of his adult life, main season of his adult life at least, was able to be refined and refreshed during iterations of the same season— first it's his sister, then it's sold into a slave trade, then it's pot of— I mean, it just kept going. I want you to know that in a season where we don't know when it ends and when things do normalize, we don't know what our new normal will totally be. In a season where yes, there is loss of loved ones, in a season where there's struggles with your own health, in a season where there's loss of income, in a season where there's the grief of not being able to gather together like we normally do in the body of Christ. What is this season being a set-apart season for you going to unveil about you? What Joseph's season unveiled about him are all the things that God was able to use when the season of unveiling and difficulty and set aside, when that season ended. Joseph was able to take his gifts before Pharaoh, before a king. It's the same gifts he always had. He always could interpret dreams. But now he had the humility, the stability, He had his connection with God that he had made over years of God being with him through the difficult times. He had that peace. He had that wisdom. He had the ability to lead. He had the ability to manage people. He had the ability to be a gracious leader. When his brothers came to him, they assumed that he was stuck in the season that they left him in. They assumed he was still gonna be angry with them for selling him into slavery. They assumed that they were gonna have to pay. They assumed that what they had put in Joseph was the same thing that had stewed and just gotten infected and infested for 30 years. When they met Joseph, God— Joseph had allowed God to do something new. There are people right now who are struggling because they are single, and this is magnifying the infection that already existed. I can't be alone by myself. There's nobody for me to be with. Why isn't there anybody for me to be with? There are jokes right now going around on social media. There are memes, pictures that are designed maybe with words to make you laugh, because they're saying, this is the line coming out of court the day after the courts open and the quarantine ends. Because if people were not sure before that they shouldn't be married, this quarantine is going to teach them, oh, that divorce that I was thinking about, this is about to happen now. They're talking about how long the lines for divorce are going to be after this is over. Because seasons like this will magnify what's already wrong. Or there are people that are addicted to busyness.— in this season will magnify that you're not whole unless there's something to do. This season will be a magnification of things that God wants to deal with in you. If the season of being set aside and set apart for Joseph had magnified anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, he would have not had the end to the story that he did. He would have never been able to lead people and certainly not been able to welcome and forgive his siblings. But because he submitted himself to this season, to the change, to the release, to the new lens, he was able to be in a future season what God always knew he could be. Lead a nation and his family. Forgive, forgive the people that had wronged him, not just his brothers, but all the people along the way, 'cause there were many. His need to be a gracious leader in one season started with him being set apart in another and being willing to deal with the stuff that if it stayed and infected him, would not have allowed him to be who he needed to be in the next season. Some of us are dealing with infections. Infections because the people we live with, because of the sorrows we live with, because of the questions we live with. This season is only magnifying those things. But can I just tell you that if you will look at this season as a season not of being set aside, pushed to flounder on your own, to struggle, to swim, but as a season where, wow, I have the space and the bandwidth to see what God sees in me, to practice what he's put in my hands, to be a conduit of grace and honor and kindness to other people. What can God do in me in this season, and what can he do through me in this season? What if the season, however long it is, and no matter how many times it shifts and changes, what if the goal that God has for you is some stuff that he would have never been able to develop if you would have stayed put where you are? God uses people. He uses people. And while he doesn't cause people to be bad, He can allow the badness of people or circumstances to bring good out of you. Quarantine, y'all, is here. COVID-19 is doing its thing. There's a lot that you can't control about that, but there is something that you do have a say in, and that's will you or will you not be a yielded vessel for God's purposes in this season? Will you or will you not use the extra time that you have to dig deeper? Will you or will you not deal with the issues in your marriage Will you or will you not have that hard conversation with that child? Will you or will you not make some changes in your eating habits? Finally pay attention to your finances? Will you or will you not clean out some of that clutter that has been needing your attention for years? Will you or will you not prepare, fill out that application to go back to school? Will you or will you not use this season to allow God to break you wide open to see you so that he can prepare you for what comes next. In chapter 42, verse 7— 6, it says, now Joseph was the ruler over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he disguised himself to them and spoke to them harshly. And he said to them, where are you from? It says again in verse 8, but Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him. Verse 9, he remembered the dreams which he had had about them. But y'all, he recognized them, they did not recognize him. Will you be willing to be so engaged in what God wants for you in this season, what is in your hand or in your heart, that when you come out of this season, people will not recognize you. Girl, were you by yourself too long? You must have spent an inordinate amount of time with Jesus because I know this would have made you mad. You're learning, for some of you young moms, how to be with your kids. Will they recognize you when this is over? Because we cannot have the world come to a screeching halt and not be changed. This is, for many of us, a once in a lifetime opportunity. There's so many things that could be stealing your attention right now. But will you attend to what God wants to do in you so that in a new season, in the fall, in the spring, at the end of the summer, in the middle of the summer, that when people are running into you, they don't even recognize you because you allowed the waves of this quarantine season. You can't go out. You can go out a little bit. Wait a minute. We're not sure. Go back in. I mean, it's just very confusing. Y'all watch the news. You know it. It's always very confusing. Who's Who can catch it, who can't. The kids can't get it. Now we got kids in New York that have it. I mean, the news is constantly changing. Everything is constantly changing. But there, in these waves, in the waves of this new season, do you realize that this could be your season of change? Real, long, extended, lasting change. But that only happens when you choose to continue to look for God in the, in the difficulty and to look for him with a new lens. Joseph got that, and then he was positioned next time difficulty came. The worst thing that would happen in my mind is that the next season of difficulty that comes my way, that I realize that I was supposed to use this season of difficulty to prepare for. This is preparation. I don't know for what, for you, but I believe if you will ask God, God, in this season, I thought it was going to last a few weeks and that's been a couple of months. What do you want from me in this season? What do you want that I have in my hand or in my heart that you want me to yield to you in this season? Maybe it's being a good neighbor. Maybe it's working on that relationship with that adult child, calling them even though they don't call you back and saying, "I'm here and I'm praying for you." Maybe it is studying your word on your own without now the crutch of the— and it's a wonderful crutch, but the crutch of Life On Life and a teacher to teach you, for you to go deep on your own in the word. What if this is a season for you to prepare for the next difficult one or the next good one? I don't want you to miss it. And what I want you to know is that just like God was with Joseph, it says the Lord was with Joseph, the Lord was with Joseph, that he was with him during the difficult seasons and that it was all preparation. And just like God can do that for Joseph, he can do that for you. Quarantined?

Yes.

Everything closed, blocked off? Yes. Wearing a mask? Absolutely. Washing your hands? 100%. But set aside? Mm, maybe it's just set apart. And if you look at it that way, maybe it changes the way you live and engage with the season that you're in. So the picnic table is still not put together because I realized that we didn't have some of the parts, and then I realized that we didn't have the— I didn't want to stain it before we put it together. You know, this is my bright idea. We could have bought a picnic table that was already put together, and just put it out on the yard. But when my husband went to Lowe's, they didn't have any that were put together. So it was either wait until they put some more together or buy the one that's not put together and put it together ourselves. And me, smart person, said, I have boys, they should learn how to put together something. And so I'm going to give them this as a project and they're going to put this together. You know, it's still sitting in the garage because nothing happens around here unless mom makes it happen. But it was good because then I realized if we're going to stain it, we should stain it first. So we're going to go get the stain and put it together. My husband said, well, the boys actually said, why couldn't we have just bought the one that's already put together? And then I said, because then you wouldn't learn. We want the seasons, y'all, that are already put together. But next time they need to put something together, they'll know to gather all their tools in advance, and they'll know to buy their stain in advance, and they'll know And I thought, I could have just bought the picnic table, but then they wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn. They wouldn't have had the opportunity to grow. They wouldn't have had a life-changing experience to work together, to get on each other's nerves, and to probably put it together wrong, and have to take the nail out and do it again. But growth is always biz— better than stagnancy. And fortunately for some of us, This season of being set apart gives us the opportunity to grow. Yeah, you got to get your tools. Yes, you have to assemble. Yes, you got to read your directions. And yes, there may be a couple of things that you got to run to the store for because you don't have it on hand. Okay, you call your sisters, you ask for prayer, you do the Bible study online, you keep going to church so you can get the things you don't currently have. And then You know that when you put your hands on that project, and if the project is you, so be it, then it gives you the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to grow, because that is what always a set-apart season will give you— the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to grow. And I want to encourage you to take on that opportunity while you have. That opportunity in your hand. Lord Jesus, I thank you for the story of Joseph. I thank you for reminding us, first and foremost, because you've been reminding me, everything you tell me, I don't have to share. About me, about other people, about my circumstances, about what's in my future, I don't have to share it. Thank you for that wise reminder in this passage. But also, God, thank you for letting us be reminded about Joseph. And how his quarantine season just kept morphing into another season of quarantining. For so long, he was on his own, by himself, in difficult seasons and difficult times, learning difficult things. And you kept him there for a while. Always he had the hope that this would end, always that he'd be able to go back home, always that he'd be able to see his father again and not be anyone's slave. But you kept him. And in you keeping him through the seasons, that whole series of seasons of being set apart, everything he needed, you were giving to him. Lord, help us to see what we need. Help us to see what you want us to learn. Help us to see how you want us to grow. And Lord, would you cause us not to come out of this sacred season the same as when we came in. And we will give you all the praise and the glory for all the change that you affect in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Chrystal Hurst, so much.

Ah, this is what happens when you try to be extra.

I'm just talking, I'm just talking.

So what I was saying was I should do this all the time. I should get a video going, log, let that go, come over here, do my team meeting, let y'all enjoy something, and then come back. That's what I should do. Because I had it on mute, y'all, so that y'all couldn't hear me talking over the videos.

So anyway, we've had a beautiful team meeting.

Um, and I'm back. I hope you have been encouraged and challenged to believe that this season is not about you being set aside. This is not about you being separated. This is all about you being set apart because God wastes nothing. He wastes nothing. And you have, you have no idea how what you are learning to carry, the weight you are learning to lift in this season, how you need tomorrow what he is giving you today. This is, this is the way it is. And when you live long enough, this is the lesson you learn. So don't fret, don't fear, don't stress. Just continue to be anxious for nothing.

Take everything by prayer and supplication to the Lord, the Bible says, because he cares for you.

So anyway, I'm going to not stay on too much longer.

Because I think y'all have had enough.

I don't want to stir that up, but I will be back tomorrow. And I want to remind you all that if you have not yet signed up for the online event, let's see if I can maneuver this a little bit so that my Instagram people can see it. Let's see here. Move it over here. There we go. Um, if you've not yet checked out the information for the Sister Circle event, simply go to chrystalhurtz.com/tsc, uh, online. Um, and the good news is, is that, uh, we have a few fun things coming for those of you who are like, I just don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can make it work.

I hear you.

I hear you. We've got some things coming, so go, go there to check it out. And then I also want to make sure that I think— I don't remember what I talked about yesterday, but I talked about something.

What I talked about yesterday?

Okay, and then Instagram, I think I ran out of time, so that was perfect. That was perfect. Let's see. I hope Instagram saves it. It may not have saved it.

Oops.

You live and you learn. You live and you learn. Oh well, I'm still live everywhere else. Okay, so Facebook group. After we talked yesterday, I went in the Facebook group and, um, jumped in to, uh, to ask a question based on our discussion yesterday. Oh, it was making friends. And we talked about, um, what, what you can do to make friends and develop your own sister circle. So after we talked, I jumped in the Facebook group and said, hey y'all, um, what are the things that you've learned about making friends, developing friends? And so that's the conversation that's happening. As of yesterday, um, and we'll be having some great connection all week. All right, so I think— yes, we're still live everywhere else.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.

All right, y'all, well, thank you so much for joining me, and I hope that word was a blessing, and then I will see you again tomorrow. Okay, bye-bye.