Hope for When You Feel Stumped | Holly Furtick

Christmas is about having hope for the places where you feel stumped. Your mistakes, your disappointments, the areas where you feel like you're failing. Sure, we all have wonderful accomplishments that deserve to be celebrated. In fact, I love reading people's Christmas cards and their messages on social media. When they post a picture of, you know, their family Christmas picture, I love how people give updates. I guess I'm nosy. I like to know what's going on in people's lives. So I like when they talk about this trip that they went on, or they moved to a new neighborhood, or they welcomed a new grandchild into their family, they got a new puppy. All these things are wonderful and we can celebrate them. But just know that nobody talks about their stumps in their Christmas card. And you shouldn't. We don't want you to. But the message of Christmas is not about the shiny areas of your life. The message of Christmas is that there's hope for your stumps. How is this possible? I'm gonna give you a quick science lesson. Thank you, YouTube and this little known channel that I found called Granny's Garden. Okay, so Granny had a tree in her garden, and the tree was not doing well. Most of the branches were dead, and the dead branches were. Were stealing nutrients from the few remaining live ones. But the tree itself was in an important location in her garden, and its root system was keeping a hill from eroding in her yard. So she needed to save the tree. But in order to save the tree, she had to cut it down and grow it back from the roots. So. So she cuts down the tree knowing that what's gonna happen is that the root system is going to spring into action. Because as soon as the root system realizes no leaves, no branches, that means no growth. So it's gonna draw from all the nutrients down underneath the ground from the farthest tips of the roots, and it's gonna push up a tiny baby. Shoot. I have an image of what this looks like. This is our Christmas tree. When the thing that has been tripping you up, the thing that you thought was dead, that actual thing brings forth new life. Baby, baby life. But first we have to identify the stump. So we had some dead trees along our driveway, and we had to have them cut down. And when the guy came out, you know, he gave me some price options and he said, you know, I can cut the tree down for X amount of money, and it's really expensive to have a tree cut down. It's like, I don't want to spend my money on that. Okay. And then he said, well, but if you want me to remove the stump, it's going to cost even more. So, of course, I was like, well, who cares about the stump? I chose the cheaper option to leave the stumps. The problem became that people didn't know that there were stumps along our driveway and they would accidentally run over them. Buck is smiling because I'm pretty sure it was him that one time I came home and he was having to have his car towed. Sorry about that, Buck. An unidentified stump will cause you problems, okay? It will trip you up. So we've got to go ahead and just acknowledge the stumps in our lives. There's big ones, there's little ones, but we all have stumps. You might have a stump because of something that was not your fault, something that was done to you, an accident that happened, maybe an attack from the enemy to keep you from living out the calling that God has placed on your life. You might have a stump in your life that was completely of your own doing. You know, right now I have two teenage boys, and I was talking to a friend the other day about the differences between teenagers and toddlers, because there's actually quite a lot of similarities. They sleep at all the wrong times, they constantly want a snack, and you're always trying to keep them from hurting themselves. The difference is the stakes are so much higher with teenagers. Let me illustrate this. I have a picture. These are my toddler boys. And you can see my face in the background. Like, that was the face that I constantly had because these little boys were constantly climbing and jumping and in danger of getting hurt. And right there, I'm just envisioning us going to the ER to get stitches. This is what I have now. I've got another picture for you. Okay? Elijah has his driver's license. Graham has his driver's permit. When they were toddlers, I was worried about stitches. Stitches are the least of my worries. People's lives are at stake. And I tell my boys, you can take that picture now. I tell them all the time, I say, you have to think. You have to be aware of the decisions that you're making, because one dumb decision in a moment can alter the course of your life. I just trying to keep them from getting some stumps too soon in their life. And you might have a stump in your life today that represents a bad decision that you made in a moment, and you don't know how you're ever gonna recover from it. But there's a third kind of stump, and it's Perhaps the hardest one to understand because it's when God creates a stump in your life. John 15 Jesus is famously talking to the disciples about the vine and the branches. And he tells the disciples that the vine dresser he's talking about God cuts off every branch that does not bear fruit. The same thing that granny was telling us, the diseased branch branches, the dead branches, the suckers. Suckers. That's an actual gardening term and it means that the non fruit bearing branches are sucking the nutrients from the fruit bearing branches. And I know you didn't come to church today for a science lesson, but Jesus said it. He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit. So I came to tell you today perhaps that relationship was a sucker keeping you from bearing fruit. The dream that you had in actuality would be a nightmare and God was keeping it from you so that you could experience the fullness of life in Christ. So we've got to come to terms with our stumps today. And it doesn't matter how they're there. It doesn't matter if the devil caused it or if you caused it, or if God caused it. It's there and it's painful and it's disappointing and it's tripping you up. The good news that I have for you today is out of the stump will come a shoot. This prophecy, it's about Jesus, the Messiah. But it is a truth from God's word for you today. One version of Isaiah 11:1 says, A new branch bearing fruit from an old, old root. I want you to know today that a new fruit is going to come from an old root. Hey, thanks for watching. I hope that that encouraged you today. Make sure that you subscribe so that you don't miss out on other videos like this and I'll see you back here next.