Latest / MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose / Episode 159: When You’ve Prayed and Prayed . . . and Nothing

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Episode 159: When You’ve Prayed and Prayed . . . and Nothing · MESSmerized - Funny and faith based encouragement in marriage , family , Christian parenting , and finding purpose

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is Cynthia Gannoff and you are listening to the mesmerized podcast.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, friends, hey, I'm glad you are here.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I start by saying round of applause for all of you that filled out the survey I sent out?
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you did not get it, maybe you're not on the email list, it is in the podcast notes.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you can still do it.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But one of my friends said, well, did you offer to inner people into a drawing or give away or anything to try to bribe people to do the survey?
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, I didn't even think about that, but I should have,
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: and apparently I didn't need to because the response was so great and I just want to say thank you.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I learned so much and I was hoping to learn things which I did like how do your kids like are you still parenting or some of you single um why are you coming to the show why do you enjoy it and all those things I did learn I learned a lot about our demographics but I did not expect to be as encouraged as I was.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't get over the comments that the thoughtfulness behind why you listen and over and over again I was reminded that most of you are here because you want to laugh and you want spiritual truth and you want someone that doesn't have it all put together.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I can assure you you will get that over here from me.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is not all put together and so it was just such encouragement and reminder.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wish that I would have had you guys put your contact info with your responses.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do that because I wanted it to be anonymous in case you wanted to hate on me.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted you to feel free to do that without me calling you and saying what's up.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But some of you reached out with some things that now, knowing what I know, I wish I could reach back out.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of you, obviously it's anonymous because I don't know who it is, but one of you mentioned that you lost your husband last year very suddenly and I would love to pray with you.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: and have conversations around that and support you.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Another person reached out and said they have a friend who has a child at one of the same colleges with one of mine that really needs encouragement and they've been praying that my child will run into this one.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's just make that happen and there's many, many more that I would have responded to if I could, but just know that I'm praying over these situations and you are always welcome to DM me.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks everybody for that.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, alongside that, many of you said, I would love to hear you sometimes, just talk to us about where you are in life, what's going on, what are you learning, what are you studying, what are you speaking on?
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what we're gonna do today.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You speak, I listen, right?
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: In terms of you saying you wanna know what's going on in my spiritual life and what I'm focused on, then I'm gonna tell you.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I wanna do today.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am going to give you some insights on what's on my mind and I am gonna also, I'm just giving you fair warning.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to try to tape this straight without editing because I don't want to worry that every word's perfect and save my daughter or editor some grief of trying to piece it all back together.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm going to miss some words and maybe not say things quite as eloquently as I would like to and we're just going to trust that the Lord is mighty and the Holy Spirit's big and can cover all of that and that you'll get the word you need, whatever that is.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so with that in
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: like when he's not speaking, when you're praying for something and you're like, where are you God?
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's start with this.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does anybody struggle with silence?
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have the worst foot in mouth syndrome of anybody you've ever met.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am terrible at silence.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like sometimes I'll be in the car with Mike and he'll have a client call or maybe another lawyer in his law firm.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Mike put these big pauses and as your husband do that, these big pauses.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they'll ask him something or they'll respond to something and it's his turn to talk and there's this long pause.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's usually over the speaker in our car like if we're together.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It takes everything I have not to jump in there and be like,
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, this is Cynthia, um, how's the weather in Chicago?
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's really weird.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot deal with silence.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hear some of you talk about wanting to do a silent retreat.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, stab me.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What?
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't do a silent retreat.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would ruin that for everybody.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the problem with not embracing silences is that you miss some cues, right?
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't always read the room real well.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't give the opportunity for other people to speak or to share maybe people that are more introverted or more standoff as sure whatever it is, they don't get opportunities to make themselves known when you're always filling in the gaps.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: asked me how I know, right?
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the worst debocals that I've had for me not appreciating silence was years ago.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had a Halloween party and there is a couple in our neighborhood and their kids and our kids hung out but I could not get to know this couple.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's driving crazy so I invited them to our Halloween party and so they got there and Mike and I both happen to be at the door and
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We let them in and we're small talking and it gets a little silent and so a lot of the adults Definitely the kids addressed up some of the adults were dressed up, and so in the silence I can't help myself.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just jump out there and I'm like to the husband.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I say, oh, man You're costume.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was pointing to some stuff on his face Man, you dressed up.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty realistic.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's even gross for Halloween Ha ha ha and then as wife let me know that he hadn't dressed up for Halloween.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had had skin cancer surgery that day
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how about that, friends?
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what happens, right?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Foot in mouth when you deal with that.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm in this cohort at my church and we are walking through just theology.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the leaders last week, shout out, Joanne.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's amazing, but she talked to how she's been teaching Habaqa in her Bible study and this idea where Habaqa's crying out to the Lord and he's like, I mean, do you even hear me?
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where are you?
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: How long am I gonna keep praying and not hear from you?
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it feels like God is silent.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that really was apropos, some stuff in my life, where I feel like the Lord's kind of silent right now.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm guessing you felt that too.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we're going to talk about Habaqa.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, can we start with the fact that I don't know how to say Habaqa.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was doing my audio book for How Dimes that, my second book,
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had like the engineer guy that oversees all the reading.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: He kept stopping me.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, hey, you've got to say Habaka right.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I say Habaka.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, Habaka, well, that's not how I say it.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, okay, well, if you're going to say Habaka, then you need to put a K on the end.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, okay, Habaka, Habaka, Habaka, I don't know.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: For today's purposes, I'm going with Habaka, okay, with no K. But we don't know a lot about him.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know how to say his name, but here's what we know.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a prophet.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's really not identifying information other than that.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if that's so that we can all kind of put ourselves in that place where he is of saying, Lord, where are you?
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing?
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do know historically it was about 2,600 years ago.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's in Judah and the people like God's chosen people like nothing's going right.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're they're getting it wrong.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're violent, there's injustice is prevailing, and tobacco, the prophet is like, like, what are we doing here?
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he says, verse 2, how long Lord must I call for help?
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you do not listen or cry out to you violence, that you do not save.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you make me look at injustice?
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you tolerate wrong doing destruction in violence?
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're before me, they're strife in conflict abounds.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he goes on from there.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you ever felt that, not only Lord or you not fixing it, but you're making me watch it happen and play out.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these are the moments that are not on our social media, right?
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are probably the moments that I haven't written in books that much about and that you're not talking about after the PTA meeting and the parking lot, but those moments like I have been praying, Lord, and where are you?
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, are you even hearing me?
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our finances are so hard, Lord.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how we make the next car payment.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where are you?
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: The diagnosis that we've been praying for, Lord, it was cancer.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where are you?
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Lord, why is it that I'm looking around in these parents that aren't even following you?
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their kids are getting all the accolades and mine just seem to be getting everything wrong.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And why is the guy in the next office getting the promotions?
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, Lord, he's not even doing things.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, much less holy.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have you had those moments?
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I definitely have had those.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like Lord not only have you not given me X which I've been praying for but now you've added on Y and Z and this isn't fair and I just want to say to you if you felt that if you're wrestling with pain and suffering and like calamity you are not alone we've all been there.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, I'm kind of in a place right now where I'm like, Lord, what are we doing?
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where are you?
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to go back to maybe nine, 10 years ago when we started our foster care journey, which by the way, so many of you said, tell us more about fostering.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some of you said you started fostering because you've listened to me talk about it.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I just want to say thank you for sharing that.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: When it reminds me, JB came to live in our house, we were not trying to adopt, and he stayed three months, and then six months, and then 18 months, and we loved him, right?
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, he was a part of our family.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the longer we had him, the more we realized that his bio situation was not good.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, really, really not good.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we just kept praying like Lord, like we will adopt him.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We will make him a part of our family.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He already is a part of our family.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like why are you not doing this, Lord?
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't even that the Lord wasn't allowing
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a turn to an adoption case.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was going the other direction.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every day, something new came about where it's like, nope, he's not going to adopt it.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, and in fact, he's going here.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is happening or that.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just that sense of like, I don't understand.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you tell us to care for the orphans and the widows, that true religion is caring for orphans, I am pouring it out, Lord, and where are you?
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Habakkah asked two questions of God.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the two questions, the ponder these for a minute.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: He says, how long will you do nothing, right?
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And God answers him pretty immediately.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh, man, it's not going to be nothing.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you may know this first, it's Habakkah 15.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he says, look at the nations.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Watch and be utterly amazed for I'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if I told you.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you think, all right, here we go.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then he proceeds to say, I'm going to use the Battle Onions to wake up the people, to wake up my chosen people like the Battle Onions.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're the worst of the worst.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you know anything about King Nebuchadnezzar, he is the leader, and they are harsh and horrible and unjust.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so then, how back is like, are you kidding me?
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what?
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to use them to somehow wake up your people.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was listening to Louie Giglio, he gave a sermon on this, and I probably will definitely won't articulate it as well as he did.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he basically said, sometimes when you feel like the headwind or the hardship or the obstacles are coming towards you.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the Lord, not sending obstacles your way, but he's coming for you.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's his way of drawing you in.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in this case, the Babylonians, that's a rough way for the Lord to act and to bring injustice, but at the same time, he was drawing his people back to him.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes in the hard finances and in the kids that are making terrible decisions and all of that, the Lord allows some of this to draw us back to him.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was reminded of that and I was thinking about this as, as Vacca says, like, how long are you going to do nothing?
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then he says this, he says, why are you tolerating the Babylonians, by the way?
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, why, when are you going to deal with them?
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the second question.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord doesn't answer that quite yet.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this whole first portion that we've been talking about, and you know, I love a little iteration.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I just want you to know we're gonna have a little iteration.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first part was honesty.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like with all honesty, Habakkas crying out to the Lord, what are you gonna do?
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you just sitting here, are you just watching?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: But here's the second part.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honesty, the second part is higher ground.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, Rebecca asked the question, were, are you going to tolerate the Babylonians?
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, Rebecca and 211, he says, I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I'm going to give to this complaint.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so Habaqa says, I'm going to the rampart.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now, you're like, what's that I was to?
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's like higher ground, right?
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: A rampart was like the elevated defensive part of a city wall.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like you would get a watchman that would stand up there that could see way out of what's coming that way, maybe to warn the city if there's somebody or something or an army coming to invade them.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't help if you're just on street level, but if you're standing on the defensive wall, you can see more.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think about when we were in Italy last year, we had never been out of the country and we went to Rome.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was walking around in the streets are so crowded and narrow and people everywhere, and best buzz everywhere, and I'm like, good grief.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: like you turn one corner like oh there's that famous statue no there's the Spanish steps but like I couldn't get a grasp of what I was looking at and we went on this tour this vespature with side cars which I highly recommend it's maybe the most fun thing we did the entire trip but it took us to what they said was the highest point in Rome and when we got up there I was like oh
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now I see, okay, that's old city.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there's the Colosseum.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, there's Vatican, there's the Spanish steps.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like then I could get out of the ground level, get to higher ground and I could get a bigger picture of what it looked like.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what Rebecca's doing.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's putting himself at a higher vantage point.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a word for us.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're in the middle of really hard, tough stuff, sometimes you've got to get to a higher vantage point.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: My friend, Joanne, that I was just mentioning from my cohort, she had this quote, when she was teaching a backer from David Trip, she said, quoting him, you can't have a stable, hope-giving, life-transforming theology based on your own read of the circumstances.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're getting that, like our own read at the circumstances, like it doesn't work.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to get to higher ground.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what does that mean practically?
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: As I'm studying that and praying about that in my own life, I think it's a couple things.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we got to close the apps on our phones.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got to turn down the Spotify and our car.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've got to shut down the Amazon account, perhaps on our phone.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've got to have a place where we go and we pray and we get on our face before the Lord, right?
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's getting to a different vantage point because you can't trust yourself in the midst of the hard.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's too much going on.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to anchor yourself in Scripture and in time with the Lord.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my tendency when things aren't going well, I'm going to work harder.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try to somehow manipulate a situation or can drive this or that, right?
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my friend Joanna says, and these harder times of great pain, it's calling for tons of gut-level prayer.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what it looks like, right?
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going through all that stuff with JB.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm struggling as I told you.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one day I decided I'm going to go for a walk.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I end up in this part of my neighborhood that's 13 acres of prairie land.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now you have to appreciate that my neighborhood is literally in the middle of the city.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: A mile from a massive freeway.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a country club on the other side.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's all these houses, a big residential neighborhood.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: but there's 13 acres of prairie land that has an old church that's been preserved in a cemetery and then there's just creek with a bridge and so I'm walking and I end up over there and I stand at this bridge and I just start crying and tears are running down my face, I'm like, Lord, I don't get it.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is the time when I need you, aren't you ghosting me?
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we are begging you to do something mighty for this little boy.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yet, nothing seems to be going our way.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's going the way of everything evil is what it feels like.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And why is the evil in this prospering Lord?
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, why would you let this be?
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there I stood with tears running down my face.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'd gone to the rampart, right?
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I went somewhere else.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I went to a different place to get before the Lord.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Habaka gets his answer from the Lord, okay?
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it's kind of the five woes.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think anybody calls it that, but me, but basically when he says Lord, when you're gonna deal with the Babylonians, and in the Lord says, like, well, these five woes, word of the one who piles up stolen goods and word of the one who builds his house by unjust gain, and word of the one who builds his city with bloodshed, word to him who uses power to shame people, word of those who practice adultery, could have been six woes actually, I don't know.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But are you following that the Lord is saying like, whoa, to the Babylonians, whoa, to anyone that is doing things that aren't from the Lord?
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even though he was allowing the Babylonians to push the people back to their God, he was still saying like, that doesn't prosper.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: right, justice will come.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder if the woes for us like I don't know what your situation is, but I wonder if the woe would be like, woe to the one who gets ahead by taking advantage of others or misrepresenting us, woe to the one who makes their child success the measure of their own worth, woe to the one who is physically healthy but spiritually dead, woe to the one who lives their life trying to control outcomes that only God can control, like are you following like the Lord is saying justice will come, maybe not yet.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there will be ultimate justice.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is a word for you and for me that like listen, that legal matter may not go your way right now, but there will be justice one day.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in your workplace, maybe in the court of public opinion, I don't know where it is, but the the Lord is just.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Habaqah says this in 220, the Lord is in his holy temple, let the earth be silent before him.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you hearing that?
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Habakkah, like, has gotten to the rampart, gotten above the the minutiae of all that's going on and said, like, yeah, like the Lord is in his holy temple and may all the earth be silent in front of him.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's honest, though.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is sovereign.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is everlasting.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no end.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And right now, in heaven, in a real place, he will do what is right and just for his kingdom purposes.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only hitches, and him back to learn this, have back a two, three, it will happen at the appointed time.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Hebrew word for this appointed time is Moad.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It means the unstoppable time of God.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And God's Moad is not always our Moad, right?
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not always the timing we want.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But during that time, when you get to higher ground, it's a reminder that even when it's bleak, when things are so hard, we remind of that Jesus writes all wrongs.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's the same yesterday today and forever.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: He does not change.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he will, ultimately, he reigns and he wins.
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we ultimately win because we're his.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there I am on the bridge, I'm crying, right?
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I keep getting this imagery in my head of the Israelites, how they would always build an altar after, you know, they had a big success, think of them like crossing the Jordan and they got the 12 stones and built an altar.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that imagery is in my mind.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I just have the sense that the Lord is telling me, you need to like stack some stones, girl.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, as weird as it was, I'm like, all right.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I go down to that creek bed, and I start stacking stones.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I put one stone down for a godly husband, and another one for a time that he nearly died of meningitis, but the Lord spared him.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I put another stone down for the children he's given us, two bio-kids that are healthy, and another one down for a job.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: He gave me at a time when I desperately needed the financial provision
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll be clear on this.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that I stacked stones for all the places he shielded me from the struggle But it's where he was with me in the midst of it And that's what happens when you get to a different vantage point
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then you see different side of the Lord.
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see his goodness, right?
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where you get hope.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's our third age, right?
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So remember everybody, we start out with just this honesty with the Lord, where are you been?
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: What you doing?
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then we moved to higher ground, like shake it up man, find a way to get outside of your current circumstances, get on your rampart.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly you start being reminded of his goodness.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's been good before he'll do it again and you have this new hope.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what it does when you go to higher ground.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You realize like, God's timing is divine.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will trust him and he will deal justly in all situations, right?
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing about Habaka.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a prophet, right?
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm oversimplifying this, but the purpose of a prophet is to line up the future promises with the current present circumstances, right?
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we need is we need to be reminded that there are promises all throughout Scripture, that these promises are true, but how do they line up with our present circumstances?
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the hope is, right?
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what Habakkad did as a prophet.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we need, and so it's interesting because you have this guy that starts off at the very beginning of the book and he's like, where are you God?
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not listening.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: How long am I going to be doing?
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then he ends the whole book back at 319.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: He says, the sovereign Lord is my strength.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: He makes my feet like the feet of a deer.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: He enables me to tread on the heights.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Start with what he says, the sovereign Lord is my strength.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: like he's realizing, you know what, like he is the supreme power and authority.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he doesn't need my wisdom or my manipulating or my finances or my making myself look better or justifying myself, he doesn't need any of that.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because he is sovereign, right?
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you see that, he'll back and real time is going from this worry to this place of rest.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then he says,
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: He makes my feet like the feet of a deer.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have to pause there and be like, well, okay.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm no longer following you.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've got feet of a deer.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you guys just between you and me, I have really ugly toes.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's Dorothy's fault, my mom.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: She has heinous feet, and she's passed him over to us, and it's unkind and ungodly, but that's where we are, everybody.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I vaguely feet.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, as he's saying, like, the Lord has given us feet like a deer, I'm like, well, I already have them, so that's the good news, right?
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But no, this is what he's talking about.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could show you this picture.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I was with you guys in a room, I would show you this on the screen.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm looking at it on my computer, and it's like a mountain goat, and you can picture deer, too.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like on the edge of a total like mountain a sheer cliff type thing and just be standing there like oh, we're good Like it's this picture I'm looking at is a mountain coat standing on wood looks like an almost completely vertical rock wall And there's this tiny tiny ledge barely big enough for his little feet and somehow he's just standing there.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like oh, good.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're good.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah And that's kind of the picture you guys
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard out there, our world is hard.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we are standing, it feels like a lot of times on the edge of a sheer cliff with calamity all around us.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, the deer isn't taken out of that situation.
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not looking for someone to rescue him.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's his terrain.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's his life.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in the midst of it, he is sure-footed.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense?
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's sure footed because he has the appropriate feet.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has what he needs to be safe in the midst of the hard.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the deal, Lou Giglill, when I was listening to him, he gave us this little insight.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to share with you.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said that deer and mountain goats, they have split hooves.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't know how to say hooves.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kind of like I can't say Habaka.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it hooves?
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but they have split hooves.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because they're split, it's like a claw, and that helps them grasp onto the unknown terrain, okay?
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why they are sure footage.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can be in any situation, and they are sure footage.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought this was such a brilliant way to look at it.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Legigol is saying, like, listen, we are split hooves too.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have for us what's keeping us surefooted is God's word and the Holy Spirit.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those two things together.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: God's word is what you are going to and you're digging in and then the Holy Spirit is applying that to your circumstances.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly you have this new hope because you realize, listen, I don't need to be taken out of this terrain.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to be taken out of it.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure wish God would, but oftentimes he won't.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can be surefooted no matter where I am
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know there is hope in the Lord.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is my hope.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so then, suddenly, you're like, okay, well, money's really tight, but I know the Philippians 419, God will meet you all your needs according to the riches of His glory and Christ Jesus.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you're parenting, it just seems impossible right now.
• 25:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You go to James 15.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, it'll be given to you.
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: someone you love is sick or has a hard diagnosis or passes away, Psalms thirty four eighteen the Lord is close to broken hearted.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hebrews thirteen five is for those of us who feel abandoned or lonely God says I will never leave for forsake you.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you don't know what God's doing.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just frustrated.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah fifty five talks about how his ways are higher than my ways.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're afraid that whatever you're facing, it's never going to work out.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Romans 8, 20, 8, 28, and all things God works for the good of those who love him.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know what your next step is, like, where do I go from there?
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Proverbs 3, 5, 3, 6, he will make your path straight.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're just tired and weary.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians 12, 9.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: My grace is sufficient for you.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: For my power is made perfect and weakness.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of you are waiting on some things in your tired Isaiah 40 those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're just anxious.
• 26:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been there.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Philippians 4, 6 or 7, the peace of God, He guards your hearts and your minds and Christ Jesus.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, in a world that tells us like we have to stand on our success and our accomplishments and our wealth and we have to stand up for ourselves, the Lord is one of us to be dear.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like find your footing and his sovereignty, right?
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you want to get off the wall, you want to get off the steep cliff, I do too, I feel you.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It feels insurmountable.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how we're going to resolve this.
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can stop and we can say, I have the feet of deer.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm equipped for this.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have God's word.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have the Holy Spirit in my life.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know the promises of truth.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So back to my adoption story.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get off the bridge and I stack all the stones and things continue to be hard for a long time.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Finally, we hear that the last hearing, the one that determines where our little JB is going to end up, it's going to happen.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's in December and so CPS said you need to have them packed up.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to rule that he goes home and we're in favor of that at this point to his bio-home.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: like how can that possibly be?
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then even court appointed attorneys and costs everyone's like listen, the judge is going to rule this way, just know it, be ready for it.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's the night for the hearing, and we're devastated, and I'm still in that tobacco place of okay, Lord, like how long are you going to let this happen?
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this injustice.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: This man, this pastor from South Dallas, Pastor Pierre, friends of our friends, and he calls and says, can I come and pray over your family?
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been following your journey, and I'd like to come pray before the big hearing tomorrow.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's almost Christmas time, and he's a pastor.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has a lot of things he could be doing, but I'm like, I'm not gonna say no.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so he comes across town, and he parks in front of our house, and he doesn't come in for a little while, and it's kinda awkward, silence.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he finally comes in and he introduces himself, and he said, I didn't wanna come in until the Lord,
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: made it clear to me why he had me come over here and he said the Lord just as awkward as this might be he wants me to tell you that that hearing tomorrow that this baby is not leaving he's not going anywhere he was created for your family and that tonight we don't need to pray over that we just need to celebrate with the Lord has already done.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have that moment of like, woof, hope he's right.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cause this is gonna be hard to explain to our kids if they hear all this and we've celebrating and then the court says no and they come snag this baby from us tomorrow like this is gonna be hard but we just trusted that that was a word from the Lord.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the next day, well the hearing happens, we didn't go but we get a call from CPS and CPS says you're not gonna believe what happened and I thought, yeah, we are and they said,
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The court ruled in favor of adoption, the spabies, yours.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing, at any point, the Lord early on, when we first had him in days, months of us having him, the Lord could have in a moment change the situation.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He could have made all the circumstances line up where that baby could be adopted.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: We wouldn't have had to go through the strain in the stress and the heartache of wondering and praying and begging God for all of it.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But his mo-ed, his timing was perfect because not only did he ultimately do what was just in right for this little guy, but what was right for me and Mike and our family?
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: For us to see how the Lord was working and the Lord to give us the reminder the night before the hearing from a man, from a part of town we never really visited and we didn't
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That, hey, by the way, the lords are ready to terminus and he is not subject to courts and rulings and CPS and principalities like he is on his throne.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the goodness of the Lord in the situation.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even though there's a lot of stress and strain in that, that could have been avoided, the Lord taught us that his Moette is perfect.
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The name Habaka, it means to wrestle or embrace.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would just say that that's a word for us.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are walking through really hard and you're wondering what the Lord is, I think that Habaka, that's it.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You wrestle and you also embrace the goodness of God in what you know to be true about Him.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I have found just through studying Hebacca that a great way to embrace the heart and embrace the Lord even in the midst of the struggle is to come to him honestly.
• 30:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's our first age.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second of all, get to higher ground.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, get on your rampart, go figure out what that means in your life and three to rest in the hope that he is sovereign and just and he is for you and he loves you.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in his perfect timing, he will answer.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, that's what's currently going through the mind of Cynthia Yanoff.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that encouraged you.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that you know that there is a lot of hard that I recognize that we're all facing and there's not tried answers, but I do know that the Lord has a word for all of us.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are dual-hooed, if you will, stay in this word, stay where you can have the Holy Spirit speaking into your life, have community around you that speaks truth every you.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And these hard places, because we all face them.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to wrap up with that.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to say if you have not filled out the survey, please do.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would love to hear from more of you if there's something that you wanted to share with me that you want a response to.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can email me through my website.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the fastest way to do it, I'm just going to give you straight-up.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go to the Go Cynthia at CynthiaGannell.com.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is my email.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That will go straight to me.
• 31:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would love to hear from you and pray for you.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: and we'll keep responding to surveys through this content and how we do things and just thank you for that.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I am very grateful for everyone that listens to you guys.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're very best.