Motherhood: Fulfilling and Futile?

Big idea: Three descriptions of life "under the sun" that help us endure when life feels fulfilling or futile, when our hearts may be delighting or despairing.

1. God appoints the seasons. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4, 11)
2. God brings joy and adversity (Ecclesiastes 7:13-14)
3. God is working when you cannot see it (Ecclesiastes 11:5-6)

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  Well, if you'll stand with me for the reading of God's word, I'm Brian Sayers, one of our pastors oversee the Counseling Center. We're going to look at a few different passages today and make some application to motherhood, but we're not going to limit it to that. So three different passages from the book of Ecclesiastes. You can follow along on the screen, or if you got a paper Bible, you might be able to keep up. So starting in Ecclesiastes, chapter three, I'm going to read verses one through four, and I'm going to jump down and read verse 11. There, the writer says, There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every event under heaven, a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance down. In verse 11, He that is God, has made everything beautiful or appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart yet, so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end, turning over to chapter seven, reading verses 13 and 14. Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what he has bent. In the day of prosperity, be happy, but in the day of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other, so that man will not discover anything that will be after him. And then turn another page to chapter 11, verses five and six, just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman. So you do not know the activity of God, who makes all things. Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. This is God's Word, God, we would ask your help this morning as we open Your Word to be encouraged, to be lifted up, to be pointed to you and your greatness, your goodness, your power in all ways, and especially in how you work in and through and for mothers, we ask it through Christ amen, you may be seated. Romans, 13, seven says, give honor to whom honor is due. This is the day in our society that's been set aside for the honor of mothers. My sources tell me that this honoring of mothers results in this being the second most attended church service of the year. How about that second only to Easter? So they say came from a reliable source. It sort of makes sense, right? Who could tell their mother no when she asks you to come to church on Mother's Day. I suppose there are some that could do that, but if you are here this morning at the request of your mother, I commend you that is noble and kind making your mama happy on Mother's Day, it won't get you to heaven, and it might cost you lunch at her favorite restaurant now that you're here, but it is still noble and kind. A lifetime of lunches, no matter how noble and kind, will never repay what it has cost the average mother to both enjoy and endure motherhood. You've heard me read three somewhat obscure passages about joys and sorrows and about the mystery that is life, both the good and the bad about life, the ups and the downs. That's part of what the writer of Ecclesiastes is, is helping us understand the book wasn't written specifically to women or to mothers, but given the occasion, we're going to ask ourselves how these passages apply to mothers specifically. But I don't want you in. Your heart and mind to limit it to that, I've been praying that God's Spirit would help us all to see that these concepts of joy and futility apply to all of us, assuming you've all experienced joys and sorrows, ups and downs in some area of your life. So in order, for to be sure, all of us apply this message, just ask yourself some questions about maybe your relationships. It could be your relationship with your your parents. It could be your relationship with with your children. It could be your relationship with with siblings or a co worker or someone else in your life, ask questions about the ups and downs of your vocation. We've all had good days and bad days at work, have we? Not even I have and I work at a pretty cool place, ask questions about your profession or your lack of profession. Have you had a dream in the past that you've never been able to pursue for some reason, ask yourself, what are these passages going to teach me about how to think about the Lord, how to think about my my life. Ecclesiastes is all about living life under the sun. The writer uses that phrase a number of times under the sun, and he uses that phrase to reference a world cursed by sin, this created world in its current condition, and a world cursed by sin can be confusing and unsettling. It's wonderful one day, and we begin to think maybe I've found the secret to happiness, but it turns on us the next day, and we become anxious for anything else than what I'm going through right now. Motherhood is one of those many experiences that can feel that way, wonderful one day and painful the next, and that's why I've titled our study motherhood, fulfilling and futile with a question mark. It's kind of a rhetorical way to say, well, yes, this is one of those experiences in life that we find extremely fulfilling in some ways, but at other times it seems futile, discouraging. Now I think you can take that title, take out motherhood, plug in any of the other things I mentioned, assuming that's a legitimate pursuit, a legitimate desire that you could pursue before the Lord with a clear conscience, and ask the same question, is this to be fulfilling or futile? Because nothing works perfectly all the time. Now, as we kind of launch into maybe some hard topics. I just want you to know I'm coming at this from a place of raw experiences as it relates to our own family. We have so many new new people at Faith, Bible Church, like half the congregation, basically, who might not know some of the experiences that our family has been through. One, I think Parenting is hard, and I'm super thankful our kids are walking with the Lord, because I think Parenting is hard, and I love our kids so much. But did I mention Parenting is hard, it's hard, it's hard to shepherd souls and teach little monsters who grow up to big monsters who think they know all about monstering. And how do you help them when they get in their mind that I'm capable of independent thought like who would give them such a notion? But they get it. Parenting is hard. Our first child had complications at birth, had cerebral palsy, was blind, deaf, in a wheelchair. This was many years ago, and she sadly died in her sleep shortly after her third birthday. All of our expectations about what it was going to be like to be a parent, what our child was going to be like grow up to do that was really taken away from us in the first six months, and then her life was taken from us three years later, in 2021 our grandson, was diagnosed with a Brain tumor, which, though it was removed, has left him blind and in a wheelchair. Though he's a sweet, sweet little guy, he has his struggles in 2022 our youngest daughter lost her first son, a full term stillbirth. Little Man. Maverick died on his due date, and then Josh just prayed for our daughter, Alicia, who's who has her own battle with a different kind of brain cancer, ironically found on the exact same calendar day as little Wesley's. And this the message isn't about me or our family. I'm pointing those things out briefly to say that when I read those words, in the day of prosperity, be happy, but in the day of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other. This is not theological theory for me, these are not principles and platitudes. I would much rather actually be having this conversation with you in your living room over a cup of coffee, where I perhaps would field questions and we would probably cry together. But this is the task before us to bring us to God's word and ask man, what do we do? How are we to think in areas of our life that one day can be so fulfilling and another day feel so futile and discouraging? Our family is not the only ones. This room is too big. There are too many people who've experienced heartaches and disappointments. It could start with the disappointment of not being a mom because you're single and wish you weren't, or infertile and wish you weren't, or you've suffered loss just like my daughter Addie did. I think these principles have something to say for you. Maybe, maybe it's your children adopting different values and making different choices than the one, the ones you tried to instill in them, and maybe those are profoundly different children walking away from the Lord, embracing alternative lifestyles. Perhaps, I know there are families in our congregation that have dealt with these issues. Maybe children won't talk to you anymore. They've grown up and decided you are the cause of all their problems, and the best thing they can do is to put boundaries in their world and kick you out of their life, or adult kids who, for similar reasons, maybe limit the time and the nature of your visits with with grandchildren. There are so many reasons how we experience disappointment and loss as it comes to motherhood. Now, again, that's a bullet pointed list for moms to consider. You might have to make your own bullet pointed list if you're thinking about vocation and profession or other relationships. I have been praying for days that the Spirit of God would help you as you think through that not wanting to preach a sermon that only applies to a limited percentage of people in the room. But here's what I'm wishing for you current moms, that the worst thing you'll have to experience for the rest of your life is a little lack of sleep and teething. How does that sound? That's what I hope for you. That's highly unlikely, right? So I've thrown in an occasional diaper blow out in the car seat, just to make sure. You know, a real trial is like, no, no. Wouldn't it be great if we could, if we could anticipate and order our lives so that those were the worst case scenarios, but, but they're not. They're not. I'm thankful though, that that bad scenarios aren't the only scenarios that we experience. There are the joys and the blessed experiences of motherhood, if, if God allows it to continue. And so let's talk about both. I'm going to try to talk about both, but I'm I'm reading Ecclesiastes, who some people peg as kind of a pessimist. I haven't pegged more as a realist, because I'm probably a pessimist, and I'd rather be a realist. So it's my it's my favorite book in the scriptures, because I just love the way wisdom is couched in his his language. He notices that life has inequities and inconsistencies, and he works really hard to try to reconcile them in his mind. So and I'm helping people with inequities and inconsistencies and struggles and disappointments and discouragements in their life all the time. In my role here, I think the writer of Ecclesiastes is kind of the original asker of the question, why do bad things happen to good people? He says it in chapter eight, verse 14.
  
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  there's a futility which is done on the earth. That is that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this, too is futility. He's like, this doesn't seem right. This is like the original Why do bad things happen to good people? Question, and part of his response to that seeming inequity that he sees in the world is verse 15. So I commended pleasure, for There's nothing good for a man under the sun, except to eat and to drink and to be merry, and this will stand by him in his toils, throughout the days of his life, which God has given him under the sun, in this sin, cursed world, I think he is saying, friend, if the opportunity is there to enjoy life and create good memories. Then take it, enjoy it, those joys, those pleasures, those good memories, they will serve you well in the darker days. That's what I think he's saying. When it seems like life is treating you unfairly, you can look back on how God has blessed and how you have enjoyed and and you can take comfort in those memories knowing point number one that God appoints the seasons. God appoints the seasons. We're going to look at three descriptions of life under the sun, life, life life in a world that's cursed by sin, that has good days and bad days, and we're going to try to apply that to motherhood. The first description of life under the sun is that God appoints the seasons. That's what we read in chapter three. There is a time, there is a season for everything under heaven. And this section in Ecclesiastes is a reminder that life naturally comes with ups and downs, with good and bad things, seasons that are pleasant and seasons that are painful. We read just a few of them in verses two through four. Time to give birth, time to die, time to plant, time to uproot, time to kill and a time to heal, time to tear down, a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. God ordains. He appoints times and seasons for everything under the sun.
  
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  I taught this passage in more detail. I'm not going to work on the details of verses two through four. I taught it in a little more detail back in April of 2020 anybody remember what was going on in April of 2020 Yeah. I titled it the certainty of uncertainty. That was the title of the message, and I recorded it sitting in front of our fireplace barefoot. Nobody knew that my shoes weren't on until right now. They were so cozy by the fire, and I just kicked my slippers off and preach to the camera. We were all quarantined during that time because of covid fears, and the only thing we knew for sure at that time was that we didn't know what was coming next. That was all we knew for sure, is that we have no idea. That's why I taught the certainty of uncertainty. I think the preacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes, is saying, even though you don't want the unwanted, even though you don't expect the unexpected, know that God is appointing your seasons the good ones and the bad ones. The basic thrust of this section is that in everything in life, from the best things in life to the worst things in life, God's appointing and ordering things for his purposes. Verse 11, which we read, is the verse that makes clear that God's ends are fitting or appropriate or beautiful. He has made everything beautiful or appropriate or fitting in its time. Now notice he also says, God has set eternity in their heart, in your heart, in my heart. He has set eternity in our heart, meaning when I can't figure out what the point is, at least I know there's a point, and that the point is lasting. It's eternal. It has purpose beyond my world and beyond my my life. It is eternal. Eternal. God has put that, I think, in our. Hearts to recognize that there is always something more lasting yet, so that he says, Man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning to the end. In other words, you can say, I know there are eternal purposes, but very often, very more often than not, you look at it from every angle, from beginning to end, and you can't figure out exactly what God is doing. Have we all felt this way, like Man, I've experienced great things. Why would God bless me like that. I don't know, man, I am going through the toils and the discouragements of life in the crucible. Why would God do this to me? I can't figure that out either. We I think we've all been there. This text reminds us God's at work. His purposes are sure when you are unclear and you are uncertain. God's power and wisdom is working, and it's working for clear and certain and beautiful ends. The writer says, even if we we can't see it, there's a season for this too. God appoints the seasons. Motherhood has seasons, doesn't it? Motherhood has seasons. It may be a short season, as it was for my daughter Addie. Year and half later, she has another little boy, and she experiences totally different kinds of seasons. Smiles, I know it's just gas, but it's so cute, crawling first steps, his first time in a race car. His dad's a race car fan. First day of school. Kids grow up so fast. Sometimes we're glad they're just seasons, though, right? Sometimes we're glad they're seasons. And the difficulties of our life are seasons. And the difficulties of if I just go through the bullet points for motherhood, that they're seasoned, that could be the the infertile season that seems and may not have an end. It could be the loss of a child, it could be postpartum sleeplessness, it could be the teething or the sickness or an injury, or it could be something more tragic, an accident, and again, as they get older. It could be rebelliousness. It could be rejecting the Lord. It could be estrangement from your adult children, which, again, I know people in our church family who have that to deal with, day in and day out, even death itself. If we were to lose a family member and lose a child. We don't think that death itself is also just a season. It's just an appointed time with an end there. There will be a day, a million years from now, when I have enjoyed sitting with my daughter and my grandson around the throne room of God, feasting in the heavens. And the grief I'm experiencing right now over that will be the blink of an eye in my memory, if it's even remembered, right? So even the grief of loss is a season that, according to God, can teach us. Those aren't the lessons we choose. Those aren't the lessons we want. But God makes them beautiful. I think that's the promise of chapter three. We tell ourself, we ask ourself, in our hearts, as we write laments like Psalm 13, we say, well, my experience doesn't feel like just a season this. This is permanent. This is forever. And it's forever in terms of your earthly life, but it is a blink of an eye in terms of your eternal life, which is where the Scriptures tell us to set our hearts right. That's why the Apostle Paul encouraging us to discipline our heart and discipline our mind, to believe and to settle our hearts on eternal realities as they are compared to our earthly affliction. Second Corinthians, four, he says, this momentary light affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are. Are unseen. The things that are seen are temporary, the pain, the experiences of this earthly life are temporary, but the things that are unseen, the joys and glories of Heaven, are eternal. Can we trust him now? That's what Paul is encouraging us to do, is to discipline our heart and our mind to know these things, to believe them and to trust him in the season that feels so real and permanent, knowing that seasons pass, and for the believer that includes seasons that might last your entire lifetime on Earth, but only this lifetime, not the life to come. Do we believe he's faithful, and can we yield to his purposes and know His grace in both the pleasant and the painful, knowing that it's for our good and for His glory? That's the challenging question God appoints the seasons. Can we trust him?
  
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  Second, the second description of life under the sun from chapter seven, that God brings joy and adversity, prosperity and adversity, if we want to put it that way, there are times when the details and the circumstances are of our life. Josh said it earlier, feel broken and crooked. The preacher, the writer here suggests the design of even the crookedness of the work of of God. We just, we just saw last week, the life of Joseph, right, a man who was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, lied about, cast into prison, forgotten in prison, but eventually rises to be the prime minister of Egypt. We study that Genesis, 37 through 50, if you weren't with us, those are great messages. And he concludes, at the end of his life, what what man meant for evil, what his brothers meant for evil, and selling him into slavery, God meant for good. He he got this point, that God brings both the adversity and the prosperity and the joy God's wisdom and power is never suspended, even when it looks like bad things are happening to you, even when bad actors are engaging you, or Your children influencing your children, or even if your bad children are ruling your home, you've, if you're a parent, you've, you've had days where that's what it felt like, I'm sure. So my daughter comes to church here now, so I can't go into detail, but invite us over. She was in first service, so she won't know I said that. I'm totally kidding. By the way. I think it would be honest and accurate to say that many of the most humbling, most difficult, but most life changing events of my life, Michelle and I's life, were the outcomes of difficult events with our children. Some of the most humbling and most difficult but most life changing events the product of situations with our children. Some of those were my fault, lack of wisdom, bad parenting, poor judgment, just not paying attention, like people are prone to do, which reminds me, parents, you need the gospel. Moms, you need the gospel. Parenting is hard, right? We've established that Parenting is hard. We need the gospel. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. Please. If you're beating yourself up about your imperfections, we're going to talk about faithfulness later. That's a good thing to consider. But if you're beating yourself up over your imperfections as a parent, please understand your children have a responsibility before God to to respond and to interpret your efforts in the best of light, to love believing all things for you, and often the conflicts that result are as much a problem with the response as the initiation of the problem. But parents need the gospel, and our children need the gospel because some of those difficult, humbling, life changing events in our life were actually the product of poor choices by our children. So humbling when your children make poor choices, they wouldn't deny that they've made poor choices, poor choices when I know they know better, I. Right, Michelle. Michelle used to tell me, you're very hard on your children. You're much gentler with the people you counsel at the church, but you're very hard on your children. And in my pride, so here's one of those ways I got humbled in my pride. I used to say to her, that's because I know what they know, because I taught it to them. So proud to just be devoid of the obvious understanding that they have a human heart and that my life changing principle is not going to govern them perfectly. They need the gospel. They need the gospel. Maybe most of the difficult events that happen to us and many that have we've dealt with, as you've just heard, are things that are just beyond our control. They were the actions of others, you know, fellow peers and friends that betrayed them, or providential happenings that were difficult, like the illnesses that have seemed to ravage our family for some reason, and sometimes accidents or actions of people outside our our home, in all of these humbling things, whether it's my mistakes or my children's mistakes, or just the problems we face because we live in a world full of sinners. God is still our hope. God is still our help. God is still our sovereign benefactor. I think Dan has mentioned David Gibson's book Living Life backward where he it's a it's a book about Ecclesiastes, and he summarizes it as God rules and God gives, but man, when we think about the joys and the sorrows of life, having to fit God rules and God gives all of these things, that's hard, but that's what that's what he says in the day of prosperity, be happy in the day of adversity, consider God has made the one as well as the other, but again so that man will not discover anything that will be after him. It still comes with mystery. It still comes with with unanswered questions. But what does he What does he tell us we should do in the day of prosperity? Got to get out of my pessimist mode. Here. You ready? Ready for some happy stuff? What does he tell us to do in the day of prosperity? Because this is our God as well. He says, Be happy in those days. Enjoy them. Now. Don't make them an idolatrous pursuit, but enjoy every minute of those moments that God, in His grace, gives you as a mother, as a parent, or in other areas of life and as it relates to children, enjoy those smiles, enjoy those steps, enjoy Little League. Don't yell at the umps. Enjoy the music recitals. Don't compare your children to the other kids enjoy the camping, the hiking, the vacations, the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings. Again, I'm not I'm not advocating cultural hedonism, but simply saying, enjoy every moment of life that God gives you to enjoy. I think the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying that to us, make the most of the good days, because what he gives us in the good days is so useful to reflect back on on a hard day, those days of joy and prosperity are designed to yield gratitude and praise and worship of the giver of all good things. It's designed to cultivate humility and a recognition that a recognition that you are not the sovereign of your own life, and that actually you could never thrive and prosper and have joy apart from him, but adversity comes. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. Psalm 126, five, says, and I like again the contrast there that there are going to be days of tears, but eventually they will issue forth in in joy. Paul says our adversity has an aim. In Romans chapter five, we have obtained access, by faith into God's grace, into this favor of God, in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We stand in God's favor. That is still true in the day of adversity. And he goes on to say, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope, and hope doesn't put us to shame, because God's love is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit in the day of. Diversity. God is growing us, and God is drawing near to us. He is causing us to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and to and to rejoice in our suffering. And he's at work producing endurance and character and hope. James one says that the faith that produces endurance can make us mature and complete, lacking in nothing. That's James's summary of how God uses trials in our life. Ultimately, this is God's aim in our hardships, whether that is the unexpected pains of motherhood or any other trial that you're experiencing, God is at work sanctifying you and wanting to bring you joy. So what is our responsibility in all of this? I do not think that these principles should lead us to the attitude of, well, I'm not in control, so I'm just gonna hang on and hope that God does that thing he planned that is not the idea. It shouldn't be some settled resignation to the inevitable, just passively enduring hardship with some sort of vague hope that God's going to be at work. No, it should be a thoughtful, prayerful response. And I think later in the book, the writer gets to that we're going to look at chapter 11, five and six. Don't lose sight of the end of the book, the conclusion, chapter 12, verse 13, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments. Because this applies to every person, to have a reverent, worshipful awe for God that motivates you to live your life. For him, Fear God and keep His commandments to have a reverential, worshipful awe of God that motivates you to live your life for him. That's the end of it. I'm going to look at chapter 11, verses five and six, where I think he says something similar. The third description of life under the sun is that God's working even when you can't see it. Verse five, he says, just as you do not know the path of the wind, like, Where does the wind come from? Maybe you're a meteorologist, you can explain it, it looks mysterious to me. Just as you do not know the path of the wind or how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God, who makes all things. I think verse five is pointing out that we don't know the activity of God. It's hard to see his hand as it courses the wind and as it forms bones in the womb. It's hard to see his hand in the adversity that we experience, too. And both of the previous passages we looked at say so. And therefore, because we're poor at seeing God's hand, we often don't notice it in the good times, either, do we. But no matter the situation, prosperity or adversity, the response should be worship. The response should be worship, awe at who God is, and the duty is always faithfulness. The response should always be worship, and the duty is always faithfulness. Verse five points us to consider the worship, the wonder and the amazement of God being God of growing and nurturing life in the womb, of causing the course of the winds and the weather, I would say God's growing and nurturing of life goes beyond the womb. If we're going to take a step back into the motherhood world, his growing and nurturing of life goes right into childhood and onto maturity. Again, our children are who they are, not because of my wisdom and skill as a parent. They can point that out to you. It's because God is gracious. It's humbling and amazing that God uses imperfect parents in this process, but, but it's a good thing he does, right, because we're all imperfect parents. Another parent saying to me this week, we think our kids turned out okay in spite of us, not because of us, and I have often felt the same way. So be thankful. Be thankful that God's work is amazing and powerful and sometimes mysterious, but be thankful that his work so often happens through simple means, the simple means of the Word of God and discipline. In and structure worship means to put the worth of God and the wisdom of God on display by acknowledging that he it's from Him, through Him and to Him all things, acknowledging that he is the source and the goal and accomplisher of everything in your life. And that must mean for those of you who are parents, that He's the source and the goal, the accomplisher of anything good that happens through your parenting. But so much of the good that he accomplishes happens through the simple means that you're responsible for as a as a mother, as a parent, the word of God, discipline, structure. If that's the case, the way I worship God actually, is to embrace that and seek to follow those means faithfully. The response of the response is always worship. The responsibility is faithfulness. Verse six, I think, points us to the work of a of a faithful farmer. Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you don't know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good. Farmers know more than most what it means to work from sun up to sundown. Sow in the morning, so at night, that's the advice. You can't control the growing, just the sowing, right? God has to bring forth the increase, the fruit the farmer can just sow. So take responsibility for what you can do. Be faithful in that. Be diligent in that the writer says, morning to evening, be diligent to do what needs to be done for your life to have a fruitful field, because you don't know when and how God will use those means to bless and sometimes I think we neglect the means because we can't see immediate results. But God's saying like a farmer, don't think you're going to see results today. Just be faithful with the responsibilities that's true of so much of life, our relationships, our jobs, our families, our parenting and motherhood. Be faithful in the responsibilities, the blessing, whatever your desired outcome is, isn't a certain result of you hitting the mark every day in every way, though, just as the adversity that we talked about earlier isn't necessarily a punishment for failure of duty. So don't read me wrong, that I'm trying to I'm not trying to put a burden on your back that neither me or my fathers were able to bear. It's not our perfections that produce outcomes. Isn't that exactly what we saw in Ecclesiastes eight. I've seen it. He said, I see good people do all the right things and have bad results. I see bad people doing all the wrong things and getting good results. That's not how I wish it were, but that is how it is sometimes. And so we can just be faithful, and then we have to trust God for the outcomes right good decisions as a parent, good methods sometimes lead to unintended and difficult results that happened in our life and parenting, where I'm like, Man, I gave that a lot of thought and prayer, I studied the Bible, I sought counsel, I Got this decision wired. And you know what happened? Some monster who thought he was capable of independent thought interpreted my words and actions totally different than how I meant them, and made choices that were just the opposite of what I intended, good process, bad outcome. So that happens. It happens. Can I trust the Lord with that that he's going to use that in my son's life? In this case, he's going to use that in my life, right to humble me. Bad decisions can some sometimes lead to blessed results too, though we'd be foolish to bank on that right instead, be faithful. Sow your seed in your own lives. Sow the seed in the lives of your children. And then, like a trusting farmer, wait and watch and pray. The response is worship. The responsibility is just faithfulness, and then trust in the Lord that he'll use it. I'm hoping that many of you will find time to sit down with someone you know and love, friends, maybe family, and discuss the joys and adversities of your lives together. Make sure you discuss both my apologies for leaning. Be too far into the realism thing. I don't know if that's my counseling experience. I think it's a little bit of my personality. I told Josh Gilchrist for service, he could come and like, kick a little joy into me after the service if he felt it was appropriate, and he did. He tried, he missed. I almost threw out his back, but that's another story. But I think it's so important for us, when we get challenged with hard truths from the scriptures, to sit down and talk it out with people. And talk it out with your experience. Talk it out with your understanding, your both your joys and adversities. I said at the beginning, I would so much rather have a conversation about these things in your home with a cup of coffee than to try to do it up here, where it can so easily sound like platitudes, and where I can't have the kind of compassion for your individual experiences that I wish I could and that I think I could if we were just talking face to face. But take these descriptions. Look at your lives. Recognize God appoints your seasons. Some are great, some are hard, but they are all temporary. Can you trust God in the season? Knowing that God brings joy and adversity, God gives and God rules, right? As David Gibson says, and variety doesn't change that, whether it's good or bad, it proves that he loves us enough to bless us at times and to fill our heart with joy, and that He loves us enough to grow us through adversity at times. I and we know that's true because we know God's working when we cannot see it. So let's respond to him worshipfully. Let's be responsible to be faithful in what he's called us to be let's pray, God, thank you for your goodness and grace. It would be too much to bear to experience life under the sun, not knowing that you are both sovereign and good, but knowing that you're sovereign and good can enable us to trust you. I pray that all of our hearts would know you deeply enough, intimately enough, that we could put our whole hearted trust in you and and bear up under it with our feet firmly planted in your favor, in the strength that you supply, realizing the promise that in our weakness, you will show yourself strong. So help us to do that. Help us not to lose sight in our struggles and hardship of how abundantly you bless us, how you pour out Your grace and favor on us as your beloved children, Help us not to forget that you love us with an everlasting love. You love us to the full extent of your love. You will never love us more than you love us right now, because you are love, and so you allow us to know joy and to know blessing in our lives and we thank you for that may that overshadow and inform the sorrows that you've not designed to overwhelm us, but to sanctify us. Thank you for these promises in your name. Amen.

Brian Sayers

Brian is the Pastor of Counseling & Equipping at Faith Bible Church. He is passionate about the local church, and equipping the saints to effectively serve one another. Before coming to Spokane, he spent 14 years serving God's people as a pastor in rural New England (Vermont & New Hampshire).

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