When You Feel Cut Off

See me as your mom today. You know how your mom tells you the same things over and over again, but this time you're gonna listen. Okay, I'm gonna give you a couple of ways to tap your roots. They all start with the letter R. Are you ready? First one is remember. Can you remember the past faithfulness of God in your life? This is so important. Sometimes we have to recall the goodness. When you're staring at the stump, recall the goodness of God in your life. Can you remember a time that he provided for you? Lamentations 3 says, yet this I will recall to my mind, and therefore I have hope. It is because of the Lord's great mercy that we are not consumed. His compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness God. He's been faithful to you. Focus on his faithfulness. The next one is rejoice. One of my all time favorite Pastor STEPHEN Quotes in 20 years of hearing him preach is when he said, my joy is my job. I'm not waiting on someone to make me smile. I'm not waiting on something good to happen to me. I will rejoice right now. I will take time to be grateful, not only to look back, but to look around and to see the goodness of God Right now in my life. I can focus on my stump what I don't have, or I can choose to rejoice in what I do have. God has been good to you. So put a smile on your face and sing a song and lift up your hands because he's been good to you. Rejoice in the Lord. And then there's requests. My dad taught me when I was a little girl that God's phone number was Jeremiah 33:3. It says this. Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know. I just want to say it might be time for you to stop talking to people about your problems and present your requests to God. He is the one who will show you the things you do not know. Cry out to Him. Tell him what's in your heart. Ask him to show you the way forward. The Bible says, knock and I will answer. Make your request to God. This next one is kind of counterintuitive. Okay. It's a little bit harder to hear. Regard. Philippians 2 tells us that if we are to be like Jesus, we are to not merely look out for ourselves, but also for the interests of others. Paul says we must regard others as more important than than ourselves. I know your situation is difficult. I know Your situation is painful, but I guarantee you that there is someone else close to you who also has a great need. You don't need to compare your stumps, but sometimes the best thing that you can do when you feel like something has been cut off from your life is to do something for someone else. It doesn't make sense, but just trust me, if you will, stop staring at your stump and look around. Christmas is all about perspective. It's about learning to see and value what God sees. A baby in a barn, Shepherds in a field. Can you regard someone else as more important than yourself? Get your mind off of yourself. Then there's the root of routine. Now, last week, if you were not here last week, you've got to go back and listen. I know I say that every time I preach, too, but that's because if you're missing church, I feel so bad for you. So Stephen talked about getting his hair cut. Does anybody remember that? It was a really small part of his message, but it spoke very deeply to me. And he said that when someone asked him one time, what do you do when you don't feel like preaching? And he said, well, I get my hair cut. And he talked about just doing the next thing that he does, the thing that he does every week before he preaches. And he told us that we have to learn to send a signal to ourselves that it's time to do the work that we've been called to do. No matter how you feel, no matter what's been taken from you, keep your routine. Get up, get going, exercise, take a walk, take your kids to school, show up for work on time. Do the things of life. Have your song. A guy came up to us at a restaurant a couple weeks ago, and he said to Stephen, with tears in his eyes, he said, I just want to thank you for the song. And I was thinking he was going to, you know, do some, like, you know, come to the altar or, like, a, you know, a slow song. He said, I just have to thank you for the song. Rattle. He said, I've listened to that song at least every day for the past year, and that song has saved my life. Find your song and put it on repeat, because it's gonna tell your body, it's gonna tell your mind, it's gonna tell the devil that you're getting to work now, that you're not gonna be stopped, you're not gonna be stumped. Find your verse. Keep doing the things that you know you're supposed to do. It's simple. But sometimes we Forget life cannot stop because something didn't turn out the way you thought it would. And when you keep your routine, you're sending a message to yourself, and you're sending a message to the devil and everyone around you that a shoot is gonna come up from this stump. By God, I'm not stopping just because something got cut off. I've got roofs that. That go deep, and I'm going to keep doing the things that I know to do until I see that shoot come up. The last one is remain. I got to show you Psalm 92. It says, the righteous will flourish like a palm tree. They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green. Are you planted in the house of the Lord? Because I'm just gonna tell you this place is a stream. And every week, our pastor comes out on this stage with water for our thirsty souls. This is fertile soil for your roots. And whether you're watching online or you're joining us at one of our campuses, the people watching, the people sitting next to you, the people in your egroup, the people you volunteer with, they are the ones who will walk with you through your pain, through your divorce, through your surgery, through your recovery. This is the place where your roots find a direct source of water. Draw from the root. Look for the shoot. 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 time.