HABAKKUK 3 A HYMN OF DELIBERATE FAITH2018 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Habakkuk 3 A Hymn Of Deliberate Faith

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2018. But this evening, we're going to be here in Habakkuk chapter 3 for a little bit here. And so let's read verses 17 through 19 and then talk about what the Lord has for us. Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 17 through 19. It says this,

Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food, though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength.

He will make my feet like deer's feet and he will make me walk on my high hills to the chief musician with my stringed instruments. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you this evening for the opportunity that we had to spend this time with you and worship.

Lord, thank you for Hannah sharing the song. We pray that you would bless her and just continue your work in her life. And Lord, as we spend this time in your word, I pray that you administer to our hearts, that you would encourage us in trusting you and walking with you. And I pray that you would speak to us

to us through one another as we just share the things that you have been ministering to us and the things that you desire to speak to us tonight. We pray, Lord, that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that we might hear your voice and respond. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, the book of Habakkuk is a great book. It's an awesome journey to watch the prophet go through this process where he starts out with, in the first chapter of the book, he's all bothered about Israel and their condition, all this wickedness that he's seeing, all these issues that he's seeing. And he's calling out to God and saying, God, don't you see how crooked people are here in Israel? And don't you see the wickedness that is going on? And why are you allowing this to continue? When are you gonna deal with the sin of Israel?

And as he asked God about this, God says, yeah, I see what you're talking about, but don't worry, I'm going to deal with the sin of Israel through the nation of Babylon. And Babylon is going to come down and execute some discipline, some judgment upon the nation of Israel. And Habakkuk responds to that and says,

What? Like, God, you can't do that because Babylon is a wicked nation. They're more wicked than we are. It doesn't seem right for you to use someone who's more wicked than us to deal with us in our sin. They've got bigger sin issues. And then God responds to Habakkuk and says, well, you can rest assured I'm going to deal with them also.

But I'm going to use them as my instrument. Babylon will be my tool so that Israel can be corrected. And God's goal, of course, in that is the restoration of Israel, that Israel can come back to that place of blessing. And so as God explains this to Habakkuk, he started out telling Habakkuk, you wouldn't believe it even if I told you, you're going to have a hard time understanding this.

But at the end, now in chapter three, Habakkuk is coming to terms with God's plan and he's semi okay with it. He still doesn't quite get it. It's still somewhat difficult for him, but he closes the book with this hymn, which is him making a decision to trust God in the midst of this. He basically says, okay, God, I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna trust your plan. And so he writes this hymn to finish out the book.

In my Bible, the hymn is titled A Hymn of Faith. And it kind of feeds into what I've titled the time of the message this evening. And that is A Hymn of Deliberate Faith. A Hymn of Deliberate Faith. That's what we see here from Habakkuk. It's not just faith, generally speaking, but it is faith.

Habakkuk saying, I'm going to choose to trust you. I'm going to choose to believe that you are good, that you know what's best and that you are in control. And so I just want to share briefly a little bit about what Habakkuk is going through as we work through this and then share a little bit more about what the Lord's been speaking. But looking at verse 17 and 18 for the first point, and that is to choose to rejoice in God.

I want to encourage you this evening to choose, make a choice to rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk describes the potential scenario in verse 17. He says,

And if the fields don't produce any food, and even if my flock is cut off from the herd and so there's no animals in my stalls,

He's describing here kind of the worst case scenario, right? The worst of the worst. The worst times imaginable. What if there's no food in the cupboards? What if there's no car in the garage? What if there's no even bike in the garage to have transportation? What if everything just is kind of falling apart and everything is just lacking severely? And even if all of these things happen, but then he says in verse 18, "'Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.'"

Now, certainly he's not saying I'm going to rejoice because of all of the circumstances, right? No, he's saying in spite of those circumstances, even though, yeah, I don't want to go through that. I don't want to experience that. I don't understand, you know, why we're going to experience that. But even if all of that happens, even then he says, Lord, I will rejoice in you.

Not, I will rejoice if you get me out of that situation. I would rejoice with that, right? But even then, in that situation, he makes a deliberate choice. He chooses, I'm going to trust God and rejoice. To rejoice, to joy in the God of my salvation, it's a deliberate act. It's a deliberate decision that he's making.

He's talking about making this choice, even though it doesn't make sense, even though he doesn't perhaps feel the feelings of happiness. But joy is not happiness. It's different. And there is a despair that we can choose to have. There is a lack of joy that we can choose to have. But there's also the joy in the Lord that comes from that deliberate choice God made

I'm going to put myself in your hands and I'm going to trust you. And I'm going to believe that you know what's best. And I'm going to believe that you are taking care of me. He says, I will rejoice in the Lord. I want to encourage you this evening to think about that. Even in the worst of the worst of the worst situations, we can make a choice to rejoice in God.

We can rejoice in who God is. We can rejoice in what God has done. And those things don't change no matter what circumstances we go through. There is plenty of reason in the Lord for us to choose to have joy, for us to choose to rejoice. Well, continuing to look at this passage here now in verse 19, we get the second point. And that is to choose to rely on God for strength.

So he chooses to have joy. He chooses to rejoice, but he also chooses to trust in God to supply his needs. How can I handle if the worst of the worst of these situations happen? How can I handle this? He says in verse 19, the Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet and he will make me walk on my high hills and

I have a really hard time reading this verse without trying to say high heels. He says, God will make me walk in my high heels. But that's not what Habakkuk is trying to say. No, he's trying to say, God's going to make me walk on high. There's going to be a victory when I trust God and rely upon him for strength.

What he's saying is, look, I don't have it in me to have joy in the midst of this situation. I don't have it in me to have, you know, what I need to be able to survive the situation. I don't know how I'm going to handle this. God, what you've described, it sounds pretty difficult and terrible, actually. I don't know what I'm going to do, how I'm going to survive, except for, Lord, you're my strength.

I'm not going to try to do this in my own strength, my own resources. I don't have the courage. I don't have the discipline. I don't have what it takes. But Lord, you're my strength. And you're going to provide what I need. You're going to make my feet like deer's feet. And so he's choosing to rely upon God for strength. He sees what's coming.

tendency is let's run. Let's get out of here. Let's try to take care of these things, you know, but, but instead of trying to rely upon his own wisdom or resources, he's saying, God, I'm going to stay where you've called me to be and trust you to provide the strength that I need for the situation at hand. And that leads into the final point for this evening. And that's also here in verse 19. And that is choose to trust the future to God.

Choose to trust the future to God. It's the same verse, but kind of considering the end results a little bit. Notice he says, the Lord God is my strength, and then he will make my feet like deer's feet. Habakkuk is saying, my feet aren't like deer's feet right now. I don't have this experience right now, but he will in the future trust

God is going to do this kind of work in my life where I will have a sure footing because this is what the Lord will do in my life. The idea of deer's feet, that's that light-footedness, but also that sure-footedness that I'm going to be stable. I'm going to be okay. And then he says he's going to make me walk on my high hills.

The six inch stilettos. No, no, the high hills, right? I'm going to have victory. I don't even know if that's a real thing. I maybe just made that up, but I'm going to have victory. But notice why he's going to have this victory. God is going to do it. He will make me walk in this way. It's a look at the future. He doesn't have this victory right now. He doesn't know how this victory is going to come about.

He doesn't know how, you know, all of this is going to work out and how he's going to be okay. But God has told him that he will be. God has told him he will take care of him. God has told him he can trust in him. And so Habakkuk comes to this deliberate decision, this deliberate choice. It's a deliberate faith. God, I'm going to trust you with my future. I don't know about you, but I can look at the future differently.

And not see what's, you know, I'm not trying to say I can see the future. I'm trying to say I can like imagine what the future is going to be like and then be freaked out about it.

especially if there's all these worst case scenarios in my head, right? Oh man, we're out of food and all the animals are gone and all the fields are not producing anymore. And wow, what if this happens or that happens or this job falls through or that? We can imagine all of these things and get pretty freaked out. But even if we know all of those things are coming,

We can have a deliberate faith like Habakkuk and choose to trust the future to God. I don't know how it's all gonna work out. I don't know how we're gonna get there in the end. I don't know how it's going to have victory at the end, but I can choose right now, even though I don't know all of that, to trust the future to God because God has made some incredible promises to us. He's worthy of our trust.

And so here Habakkuk writes this hymn of faith, but it's a deliberate faith. There's great difficulty coming, he says, he knows from the Lord, but I'm gonna trust God no matter what. I'm gonna rejoice in him. I'm going to rely upon him for strength and I'm gonna trust my future to him. He's gonna take care of me. That's what he's promised to do.

And generally speaking, as I look at these verses, this is an encouraging portion of scripture for me. This is something that is encouraging to consider, the faith that Habakkuk had and the example that he is to make these kinds of deliberate choices and to choose to trust in God and rejoice in the Lord in this way.

But also as I look at these and as I was reading through this this morning, I was thinking about the things that God has just been stirring up for me recently. Again, generally speaking, faith, joy, trusting in God, this is great stuff. But as I was beginning to pray over what to share tonight, I began to come back to this passage a little bit because, well, you might remember before we, Kim and I left on our trip, we finished 2 Samuel and finished that series of pursuing God's heart.

And so we don't have to pursue God's heart anymore, no.

That was the focus for 1 and 2 Samuel. We spent a lot of time considering that from all the different angles and been praying about where the Lord wants us to go next. And I believe I have some direction, but we're not quite ready. I didn't want to start something new tonight. And it's Christmas and all this stuff going on. And so I was just praying, Lord, what do you want to do tonight? What do I share tonight? And as I was praying over that today, the Lord began to apply these things

things, these points to some of the things that I've been praying through and some of the things that God has been speaking to me about. And so just to share a little bit with you. So I think it's probably been a couple months now. I asked you to pray maybe on a Wednesday night and on Sunday evenings as we've gathered for prayer. I've asked the congregation and you to pray about our Wednesday evening services. And

And to pray specifically about, well, we're heading into a transition, so what does the Lord wanna do? And I wondered, I pondered, and I asked you to pray, does the Lord want to close down Wednesday night services for a season? And there was a variety of reasons that we could consider for that. But anytime I go through a transition,

I always like to give God opportunity to redirect. You know, it's easy to just kind of go into the next thing. It's a new season, but I'm just doing the same things I've always done, you know, and not giving God an opportunity to maybe give some new direction and new insight. And so it's appropriate for, you know, we're finishing 2 Samuel. Okay, Lord, what do you want to do next?

And to kind of leave the door wide open, like, Lord, do you want to do something that we would have never thought? You know, do you want to do something radically different? And I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not going to announce anything radically different, okay? But I just like to give God that opportunity because I don't know what God has in store. And there are things that perhaps God wants to do. And so in this time of transition, I invited you to pray along with me.

And one of the things that we were praying over is should Wednesday nights be shut down?

And there's a few reasons for us to pray over that and for my mind to go there. And I think you can kind of look back at verse 17 for some insight. Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no fruit, and the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. One of the reasons why...

I would consider and pray over the idea of shutting down Wednesday nights is, look, this is like five times the normal amount of people on a Wednesday night. Everybody showed up tonight and thank you for that. That's awesome. You know, but very often it's just a handful. It's four or five of us. And that's not a problem. I mean, it's not a problem in the sense that like, you know, it's all about the numbers, but I consider the burden, you know? Okay, so is it worth it?

committing, Pastor George and Patty, you have to be here every Wednesday for children's ministry when there's only a couple of us who are wanting to meet on Wednesday nights. There's commitments that are applied and burdens that perhaps should be relieved or we should consider relieving. And so that's one aspect. That's just one thing. Now, hey, it's worth it

If the Lord wants just two of us to meet, where two or three are gathered together, he's in our midst. And so it's not just about that, but sometimes the Lord shuts things down and he winds things down. And so we were in a place to say, is that appropriate, God? Is that what you want to do on Wednesday nights? Along with that, I was praying over this for financial reasons.

and not that any big decisions have been made, but looking down the road, even though I can't see the future, looking down the road, I'm looking and saying, you know, there's a potential for some additional budget adjustments for the church, and that would likely affect, you know, what I'm able to receive from the church, and that means then, okay, so how does the Lord want to deal with that in my life? And so I began to contemplate, well,

what if I worked all day Wednesday instead of working just part of the day Wednesday? And maybe that would kind of help cover that.

And then not to like take away ministry time, like, well, okay, Lord, what if I just gave Sundays and maybe just something new on Sunday evenings. And so my Sunday would be devoted, you know, to service in the morning and service in the evening. And then Wednesday would just be a normal work day. I could work, you know, as much, as many hours as I needed to, to try to, you know, help cover those kinds of things.

I'm just sharing you where my head was at, okay? I'm just sharing you why we were praying through those things, not that these are the decisions that have been made. But we've been praying, and so that's one of the reasons why I asked you to pray. The board has been praying. And as we've been praying, and I

as I am here sharing with you this evening, I believe I have direction from the Lord and that is to continue Wednesdays as usual. And you're like, you took me on this whole like roller coaster, but I think it's good for you to kind of understand, you know, the progression and why the thought process and the reasonings and what we're praying through. And what the Lord has on my heart for Wednesday nights is to work our way through the books, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians,

that'll take us through, you know, about the year for 2019. And so for 2019 on Wednesdays, we'll be in the New Testament looking through these foundational books, these letters from the Apostle Paul. And then it's appropriate as we're in the Old Testament on Sundays, going through the Bible in three years, we'll be there in the Old Testament on Sundays and the New Testament on Wednesdays.

And so that's what I believe, you know, the Lord has put on my heart. He's, you know, stirred up and that's what I'm preparing to do. And so we'll be looking to start the book of Galatians probably starting in January. Now, as we do that, and as I shared kind of the process, so you might be thinking, okay, so you have some direction. We're going to continue on Wednesday nights. Well, what about the finances? Okay.

So is that all worked out? Is that all resolved? No, I don't know. But this is where the Lord began to minister to me on the faith of Habakkuk, this deliberate faith. Same potential for change is there. Nothing has changed in the sense of, you know, there's no immediate change to the finances at the moment. But the Lord was just ministering to me that that doesn't really matter, that it's

as I follow what he's put upon my heart, as I follow the direction that he is giving, that it's gonna be now up to me to choose to rejoice in God. Now I can stress and I can worry and I can do all of that, where I can choose to rejoice in the Lord and specifically on Wednesday nights. I can choose to rely upon God for strength

You know, I've shared a few times, and maybe not publicly, but with people, and maybe with you, not in a secretive way or anything, but just Wednesdays are my hardest day, man, because working the first half of the day and then switching gears to try to study and prepare for Wednesday night, and

it's really challenging on my mind. It's really challenging to do that and to kind of maintain that kind of focus throughout the day. And that's been one of the reasons why, well, Lord, maybe it's too hard. Maybe it's too hard for a reason and you want to change that up. Or God says, or maybe you just need to rely on me for strength.

And so maybe I do, maybe I need to choose to rely upon the Lord in that way, specifically for Wednesday evenings and then choosing to trust the future to God. I don't know, you know, what the, what the future holds for us, but I can trust God. I can trust God, even though I don't know the future. And then even if it results in, you know, the cupboards being bare and the car is not being in the garage and you know, you get the point. I'm,

not trying to just be dramatic, you know, but I'm just trying to paint the picture that Habakkuk painted. There's no severe, please stop, put your money away. I'm not asking for money. You know what I mean? Like, no, no, it's not like that. I'm just sharing you, like, this is the process and the things that we go through, these kinds of things that have to pray through and make these deliberate choices to trust God as he leads us and guides us.

Now, along with that, I gave a little bit of a hint on Sunday, but I wanted to share something else along with our Wednesday night services that the Lord's been stirring up within my heart, and that is in the area of worship. Now, I've often shared, I don't know, you've probably heard me say, but I lead worship only when God tells me I have to or I can't be saved.

That's my typical attitude towards leading worship. I just, it's not something I'm really gifted at and good at and something that I tend to, you know, just volunteer to do. It's just, that's just not where my head's at and my heart's at when it comes to leading worship. And so I share that from time to time. And while we were away, while we were in Japan, actually, I taught a ministry lectures at the Bible College.

And it was during that teaching that the Lord began to stir up something. I was talking about worship. It wasn't even in my notes. It wasn't planned. It was just part of, you know, what we were going through. And I think part of the conversation, I was joking about my skills. I was joking about how, you know, I haven't learned a new chord in 20 years, you know, like I just, you know, it was not planned. It was just part of the time. And as I shared, you know,

I'm, if you've ever spoken, shared a devotion or something, I think you understand, right? Like you're sharing things and words are coming out of your mouth, but there's also a whole other dialogue that's happening in the back of your head, right? And sometimes the Lord uses that to minister to you in really powerful ways. And the Lord began to stir up in the back of my mind while I'm like, Lord, stop trying to distract me. I'm trying to, you know, finish this thought here. I'm speaking this, but the Lord began to stir up something in my mind.

and speak to me a little bit about this idea of leading worship. And I was like, okay, I don't know what's happening. You know, a lot of times for me, when the Lord begins to speak something, it's like, it's just like a vague, I know the Lord's saying something, I just don't know quite what it is, right? Well, then later that day, we had an opportunity to hang out with Andrew and Kayo.

And then we were hanging out with them. We saw their church and then Kim and Kyle were just kind of playing around with some instruments and then

we just had like a spontaneous time of worship. It was just the four of us. It wasn't a service or anything. We were just hanging out and just singing and playing and I was reluctant and Kaya was like forcing me, no, I remember when I was there, you always played this song. You had to play this song for me, Jerry. I was like, okay, I felt bad, you know, to not. And so I was like, okay. And then as I began to do that, again, the back of my head, the Lord's just saying, there's something here. I want to do something here. You need to let me, you know, lead you in this. And

And so I shared that on Sunday a little bit. And here's what I believe that the Lord is stirring up. And that is for a season, not for forever, but for a season. Ronnie, I haven't had a chance to talk to you. I tried. Our schedules are hard. But I believe God wants me to lead worship on Wednesday nights for a season.

And nothing fancy. I couldn't do that if I tried, you know, but just kind of something simple and just, it's good for me to spend time in worship in that way. And it relates in my mind to verse 18 here in Habakkuk chapter three, where Habakkuk says, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. And what the Lord's ministering to my heart is that he wants to help me rejoice in

And to joy. And even though worship is not my gifting or my favorite thing even to do necessarily, but through that, he wants to help me rejoice and joy in a special way. And so I'm going to be looking to do that again starting in January as we start with the book of Galatians. And I'm

You can come purposely late if you want to. I understand. No problem. But for me, it's good for me. I need to just rejoice in the Lord and spend some time in worship in that way. It's not for forever. I can guarantee you that. But for a season, that's something that the Lord has stirred up.

Well, another thing that the Lord has stirred up along with that for Wednesday nights is a change in the format. And this began to develop a little bit before the time that Kim and I got to go and be away. And the Lord, you know how he does, right? He gives you a verse. Usually it's like some random means, some random avenue, you know, you hear a verse. But then...

Not too long after you hear that verse again, and then not too long after you hear that verse again, and then not too long after, and then, you know, sometimes the Lord just like drives that nail home over and over and over again. And the verse for me was 2 John 1, verse 12, where John is writing to these people and he says, I have many things to write to you, but I don't want to do it with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face to face that our joy may be full.

And that idea of there's a difference, we can write letters back and forth, you know, we can rejoice in each other's lives, you know, from a distance. And today we have greater opportunity to do that than ever before, right? But at the same time, understanding that it doesn't replace that face-to-face experience and that it doesn't,

it's not the same kind of experience. It's not the same quality of experience. That, you know, liking my posts on Facebook is not the same as having lunch with me.

And same with you, you know, like sometimes we maybe are kind of tricked into thinking, you know, we're maintaining our relationship in a way that is not the same as if we were spending time face-to-face. And hey, you can't spend time face-to-face with all of your Facebook friends, right? How many do you have? 500, 600, 700? That's a lot of time, right? Give everybody a five-minute time of your day and your day's gone, right? You can't, you can't. But sometimes

But there is that special face-to-face connection. And there's an extra joy. There's a special part of the relationship that can be enjoyed from that. And as Kim and I went from place to place, you know, we went from Virginia to Texas to Okinawa and all the different places in Okinawa.

I mean, we do follow all of those people on Facebook. We do connect to them and email them and text message them and chat back and forth. We do maintain those relationships. And yet at the same time, oh my goodness, the difference to be there in person is

there was a greater joy. There was a rejoicing. There was a sweetness of the fellowship. And it was just highlighting this verse. And so I had heard this verse before we left. And then the verse was something that Kim and I talked about throughout our trip.

And just continues to minister to me. And so specifically regarding Wednesday nights, this verse ministers to me in regards to the format and the structure of the service that we have. Now, we've been keeping kind of like a Sunday morning format in the sense of, you know, I'm usually behind the pulpit and, you know, everybody sits at the farthest back row available. And, you know, there's all this distance between us.

And, you know, the Lord was just speaking to me about is we're making these changes on Wednesday nights that we need to change up the arrangement a little bit to be not so formal and to be face-to-face. Now, there may come a time in the future where, you know,

That kind of structure is appropriate again, and that's fine. But for this season, we're going to be changing things up. And so one of the reasons why we kept this format is for the video and for the live streaming. And it's a lot easier to manage when it's in the same format as a Sunday morning. For this next season, we're going to scratch the video. We're going to scratch the live streaming for Wednesday nights.

We're not gonna make that the priority. That's not important. I know some people can't be here and they can watch online and that's great, yes. But what the Lord's called us to focus on for this season is the face-to-face. And God wants to do something special as we meet face-to-face, as we spend some time together, that there will be a fullness of joy in that. I shared an article on the Fleep channel yesterday

recently. And it was because it was just one of those things, you know, it was after the trip and I was just reading through my newsfeed like I usually do. And all of a sudden, this guy quotes this verse talking about, you know, the difference between, you know, listening to a church podcast versus attending the service. And you can get the same information from

Listen, I grew up, one of the reasons why recording is so important for me is because, man, I was so ministered to. And I, like my formational years as a believer and as someone who's learning to serve was listening to teachings and

And it was always so frustrating, especially in the early years of the internet, okay? Maybe some of you weren't even born yet, but in the early years of the internet and churches, like, they made it so difficult to find their teachings and to download them and to get MP3s. And I'm like, look, I have an MP3 player in my truck. I can listen to hundreds of teachings while I'm driving from place to place to place to place. And, oh man, I just, you know, from anywhere I could.

And so it just left in me, there's an importance there. If I can make that available to somebody else. So anyways, recording is important to me. So we will be recording the service, but video live streaming, it's just not gonna be a priority. It's just not going to be, we're not gonna base the stage on it, but instead we're just gonna,

have more unplugged style and spend some time together in the word of God, working our way through Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. And so we'll stop the live streaming for now. Stop organizing around that. And I believe again in verse 18, I will rejoice in the Lord. There's that joy that John speaks about in the face-to-face relationship that God wants to do. And so that's the things that are on my heart.

as we look at Habakkuk chapter three, the hymn of deliberate faith, as I look forward to Wednesday nights. You know, there's some things for me on the job front, some things you can be praying about. I don't have any...

real sense of what the Lord wants to do, but I've heard of some potential job, a potential job opportunity that might be offered to me in the near future, which would be more of a full-time position at a local company as opposed to

find your own work and figure out how to make money all by yourself kind of thing. And so that may be coming and that's gonna come with some pros and cons. It's gonna come with some decisions to make. And so I do invite you to pray about that. But as I've been praying about that already, all of these things that the Lord has been ministering to me about for Wednesday nights, I firmly believe that doesn't change. So if the Lord works that out and then I have to work on Wednesdays, you know, like a normal job,

Well, Wednesday nights, we're still going to keep it going. We're still going to maintain because I do believe this is what the Lord has. I'm going to choose to rejoice even if, you know, that things change in my situation and my time changes. I'm going to choose to rely upon the Lord for strength even if those things change and to trust the future to God. God's in control. And so it's a deliberate faith that he has called us to.

And so that's where I'm at. And those are some of the things that, you know, I've been working through, praying through. You've been praying as well, and I appreciate that. But he's just been ministering to my heart in these areas. And so Wednesdays, God is my strength. Worship. I'm going to rejoice in the Lord and just continue to see and explore what God has next for us. So those are the things that I wanted to share with you this evening. And again, some personal things just from

My own time of devotions in Habakkuk chapter 3 this morning that just fit so well with many of the things that God has been speaking to me over the past couple weeks and months. And so now I'd just like to open it up a little bit and just kind of start the face-to-face opportunities and give you an opportunity to share. What's God been speaking to you?

Through your devotional time, through the word, what's God been ministering to your heart? And maybe a quick scripture or thought or something that might be helpful and encouraging to the rest of us as we hear what God is speaking to you. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.