What Are You Expecting

Well, Happy New Year! It is great to see you guys in church today. My name is René. I'm one of the pastors here and in the time between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, all kinds of stuff has been happening in this church and as a result of this church, including, I just want to show you some great pictures. I love these. How many of you gave a present to the Giving Tree Grove, one of the Angel Tree gifts? Most of you did. We had hundreds of gifts and some of them went to little kids through the Salvation Army and Prison Fellowship and some of them went to Care Facility residents through the Bridge of Hope Ministries and these are some of the Bridge of Hope people accepting the gifts that you guys brought through the Giving Tree Grove. So let's thank everybody here who gave one of those gifts. You guys are awesome. I love seeing that and that was repeated hundreds of times.

And today we have with us again a group from TLC that went out with Club Dust and they went out to Tocati, Mexico to a very impoverished neighborhood that was completely destroyed by an arson's fire. This neighborhood was wiped out and our group went down there with groups from other churches and just in the days between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve on their vacation, they built eight new homes. So let's welcome them back and let's thank them too and you're gonna be hearing more about that in a few weeks. Oh and also right now we have a group that actually left on New Year's Eve in India. Pastor Dave Hicks led a team to the Little Flock Children's Home so keep them in prayer too. They'll be back in a couple of weeks with some stories I'm sure about their adventures there.

Right now take out of your bulletins that you got when you were handed in. The message notes with this logo on the top "Empowered" is the name of our brand new series here at Twin Lakes Church. We're kicking off the New Year because as the New Year starts people decide to make some changes in their lives and we need to be empowered by God to make those changes. In fact let's do a little audience poll here. Raise your hand if you have ever ever in your life made a New Year's resolution. Anybody here ever made one? Okay now raise your hand if you have ever in your life broken a New Year's resolution. Can I see that? More than once already this year. Anybody here? Me too.

All of us get to the point where we realize there are just some things in our lives over which we're powerless and we all get how we need God's power to work in us and through us to overcome our hurts, to overcome habits and hang-ups and wounds in our lives and that's what this series is all about. It's actually based on a great brand new book that a good friend of mine Kevin Harney wrote. He's pastor at Shoreline Church down in Monterey and his book Empowered just came out. We have hundreds of copies available for you or at least we did have hundreds. Most of them are gone now but there but pick them up in the lobby we're making them available at our cost which is ten bucks and the idea behind this is it's a month-long little reading program and you can read every day a daily devotional about a story in the Bible of somebody that God empowered in unusual circumstances and it's also designed to be small group curriculum.

You could do it with your small group or with some friends at work or with your family. There are videos that go along with it. You can pick up a free copy of the DVD with videos that Kevin made for this and we're doing this designed to get your January 2015 off to a great new start and this week as an introduction to the series and the new year I want to talk about an often forgotten key to God's power working in me and let me phrase this as a question. What am I expecting? What are you expecting? As we start off the new year I want you to ask yourself this question. What am I expecting God to do in my life in the new year? What am I really expecting God to do in my life in the new year? Just think about that as we look at a couple of introductory scriptures.

In Matthew 9, two blind men come up to Jesus and they shout out, "Lord heal us!" And Jesus asks them a very interesting question. Do you remember the story? He says, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" And they say, "Well yes Lord we believe." And then Jesus says something that to me is very surprising, almost bizarre. He says this in Matthew 9:29 and this is sort of our theme verse for the day so let's read this out loud together. Let me hear you. "According to your faith it will be done to you." I grew up in a church where this verse was basically ignored because some people take this verse and they use it as their ticket to anything they can imagine. Name it and claim it. Whatever you believe you can achieve and I know I don't quite believe that because there's a lot of things I can conceive that I know I can't achieve.

I mean I can conceive that I could fly and I know that's not possible and so I know that's not what this verse means and so this verse makes me uncomfortable and so I just set it aside and I don't think about it a lot. But it means something. Something very important because Jesus says according to your faith it'll be done to you. What does that mean? Well there's another interesting story a few chapters later in the book of Matthew. Matthew 13:58 says Jesus goes to his hometown and it says, "He did not do many miracles there because of their what? Lack of faith." Well I believe these two stories are in the Bible so close together in the book of Matthew so that you will ask the obvious question which one am I? Which one of those people are you? What are you expecting the Lord Jesus to do in your life?

You see everybody says yeah I got faith I got faith God could do anything sure everybody believes that if they believe in God but let's make it more practical than that. What are you expecting God to actually do? This is something you find all throughout the Bible you could call it the principle of expectations. The principle of expectation. Now let's just start just at the natural level not even the spiritual level just at the natural level your expectations influence your life more than you realize right? We often walking around town see what we expect to see. We often every day in our lives feel what we expect to feel. We often achieve what we expect to achieve. Your expectations influence your relationships right? Your expectations influence your daily level of happiness they just do. Your expectations influence your health.

In fact in the journal Nature they reported a study where researchers performed brain scans on volunteers' brains who volunteered to have electrodes stuck into the by the way who volunteers for these tests I don't know but anyway they found out that when volunteers were merely told to expect an electric shock the neurological reaction to the expectation was as powerful as actually experiencing a jolt. Expectations are hugely powerful so even on that level the point would be well then why not expect the best but it goes so much deeper than this when you get down to the spiritual level of life. See when you boil it all down there's really only three basic approaches to life and you can jot these down in your notes if you want but there's pessimism or fear right? As I've said before I sometimes enjoy reading that great British theologian Winnie the Pooh some of you are with me on this but I can relate to Eeyore right? Good day Pooh if it is a good day which I doubt.

This guy reminds me of the Israelites in a story in the Bible it's almost like a comedy bit because there's a part of the Bible in the book of Numbers where the Israelites are on the border of the promised land and so everything they've just experienced think about this they're now on the border they've escaped slavery in Egypt the whole Ten Commandments thing has happened they've had the party of the Red Sea they've had all those miracles with the plagues and with Pharaoh and Moses his staff turning into a serpent spectacular stuff and now they're on the border of this land and what do they focus on? Numbers 14:3 says, "Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?" Right? Now notice they don't even say might they say will this is the future that they're painting for themselves after all those miracles with all kinds of miracles ahead of them they were pessimistic and pessimism is an easy sell in our culture right now but you know what pessimists don't change the world pessimists don't work on their marriages pessimists don't walk into the promised land.

So what's the alternative? Well a lot of people think the only alternative is what you could call blind optimism Pollyanna optimism denying the truth optimism. In Ezekiel 13:10 God says this about the blindly optimistic prophets he says they lead my people astray saying peace when there is no peace when a flimsy wall is built they cover it with whitewash in other words they're not being realistic about the negatives they're not acknowledging that there's some dangerous stuff here and sometimes in the aim of faith Christians fall into the same trap blind optimism but there is an alternative and it's this biblical optimism.

Biblical optimism not that everything is going to go exactly the way I wanted to optimism not that I'm great and I can do anything but optimism based in the truth of God's Word which tells us that God is sovereign and God is gracious and God is good and he's going to work in all things and his plan will not be thwarted like the Apostle Paul who said in Philippians 1:20–21 and I love the Living Bible paraphrase of this he says I live in eager expectation and hope that I will always be ready to speak out boldly for Christ while I'm going through these trials here for to me living means opportunities for Christ and dying well that's better yet.

I want you to circle two words in a key phrase that if you have your pen or pencil with you circle eager expectation. Do you remember the situation when Paul's writing this letter to the Philippian Church he was in prison in Rome chained to a Roman guard 24/7 and so really bad circumstances and yet the whole book of Philippians is just dripping with this biblical optimism. Why? Notice he doesn't say I live in eager expectation everything will go great now he says while I'm going through these trials in fact he even says though I may not get out of this alive I live in eager expectation even through my death God's gonna do great things you can focus on the positive without denying the negative.

Now why be like this? Why not be pessimistic then you're never disappointed right? And in the world the way it is with the news you see you know and some of our own personal experiences are really bad so why not just be pessimistic? Well biblical optimism first it honors God and that's the most important reason it honors God because you're saying I am trusting him. It also helps me it increases my ability research proves this again and again optimism actually increases IQ it improves physical performance and optimism encourages others faith is contagious it really is.

Now before you flip over to page two let me just say this excuse me I know what some of you are thinking because I here's how I'm wired I would listen to this and I'd go well I would love to be optimistic but I'm a born pessimist I would love to be all like God's gonna work but I'm just not wired that way naturally I'm an Eeyore I really am but you know you can't choose to live with eager expectation because another word for that is faith.

So flip to page two of your notes four strategies for expecting empower expecting God to empower you though you are powerless that I want to give you as you start the new year as you start this empowered series but before I give you these four strategies I just want to talk about what I'm not teaching here. There's a very cute viral video I love it I've shown it to tons of people that's kind of going around the internet it's already got 15 million views on YouTube but it's a dad who is taking a little video of his young daughter as she looks herself in the bathroom mirror and gives herself a pep talk to start today and it's awesome check this out it's hilarious.

Now my whole house is great. I can do anything good. I like my school, I like anything. I like my dad, I like my cousins, I like my aunts, I like my alisons, I like my mom's, I like my sisters, I like my dad, I like my hair, I like my haircuts, I like my pajamas, I like my stuff, I like my rooms. I like my whole house. My whole house is great. I can do anything good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do anything good, better than anyone, better than anyone. Don't you love that? I love that. But you know if it was the mom who caught her doing this, that never would have been on video. Only dads, when a kid is dancing around on a bathroom counter, would go, "Oh, let me take a video of that." Moms would be like, "Get off the counter, you're gonna kill yourself!" Right?

But you know, that's awesome to give yourself a pep talk in the mirror every morning. Why not? That's probably what would help your day. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Because that only goes skin deep. What I'm talking about here today really goes so deep. Because it's rooted not just in your optimism, it's rooted in God's plan. That you remind yourself about God is sovereign and God is gracious. And so here's what you do with that. Very practical steps. Jot these down.

Number one, you want to initiate your day with faith. Initiate your day with faith. Start every day reaffirming your faith in the Lord. You know, studies have shown that the first 10 minutes of your day sets the tone for the rest of the day. And the Bible talks about this, gives examples. Look at this, Psalm 5:3. "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice. In the morning, I lay my requests before you and wait in," what? There it is again. Circle expectation. Now, this is hard to do for some of us. Quick show of hands, how many of you would say, "I'm a morning person." How many morning people do we have here? They were all at the 9am service, by the way. It was all a sea of hands, of course. How many people would say, "I'm really not a morning person." Yeah, me neither. I am so sluggish when I get started in the morning.

So if you're like me, can I just make a suggestion? Don't start with the morning news, okay? If you're like me, the first thing you want to do when you get up is you grab your smartphone and you tap on your USA Today or BBC News app or your SportsCenter app and you want to check on the news and the sports news. Or you want to go to your cable and turn on headline news, go to your computer. You know what? You can get there, but don't start there because 90% of what makes the news is negative. That's just the nature of the business. And so start with the good news. Start with God's Word. And some of you are going, "I don't have time to do a big Bible reading deal." Or, "I'm too sluggish. I can't comprehend it before my first cup of coffee." I get it.

So at least you can do this. Psalm 118:24. Let's read this together. Let me hear you. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad..." You know what? I don't believe you. Actually, I don't believe you when you say it that way. So let's read this with more enthusiasm. Okay, here we go. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Now here's your assignment for the next seven days. Get up out of bed and you can memorize this or paraphrase it and say it out loud when you get out. And if you think your spouse is going to slug you because they're not a morning person either, my wife is not a morning person, then what you can do is you can affirm this to yourself. You can pray this in your mind. Something like this. Say, "Today is a day that the sovereign God created." "Today is a day in which God has plans and today I am a part of God's plans. And so I'm going to live this day. I'm going to, as the scripture tells me to do, I'm going to choose joy."

As I start off this day, you will be amazed at the difference this makes in your lives when you initiate your day with faith. And then number two, meditate on God's promise. Meditate on God's... Now notice I didn't say promises. I specifically left it singular promise because here I'm talking about one big promise that is in almost every book of the Bible either explicit or implied. It's one big promise that God is sovereign, meaning that he rules the world, that he's in control and that God is gracious, meaning that he's good and merciful and generous and compassionate. And consequently, since God is sovereign and gracious, he is going to work everything out according to his plan.

There's so many verses I could show you about this, but here's one of my favorites. Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future." This is a promise. Now this is not a promise that life won't be grim at times. This is a promise that there's a hope. And if you want to talk about the whole context for that verse, we did a whole message on this in the 40 Days in the Words series that we just finished up. That makes it even more powerful, but this is so important. Believing not. Life is perfect and stress free if I only expect great things. This is believing life is full of challenges, but there is a greater purpose.

Now let me show you why this is so important. I want you to raise your hand if in the past year you've experienced no stress or relatively little stress. Anybody raise their hands. Now raise your hand if you've experienced what you would call moderate stress in the last year. Now how many of you would say this has been kind of a high stress year for you? This has been the majority in every single one of our three services. And it's been a high stress year for me, for sure. Now here's the problem. For years, medical experts have been telling us that stress is bad for your health. Stress makes you sick. It appears to increase the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. Basically they've turned stress into the enemy. And that's a problem because life is stressful.

But you know, they're starting to change their mind about stress to what I think is a more biblical view of stress. And this is coming from science. There's a woman named Kelly McGonigal. She's a professor, Professor McGonigal. She's from Hogwarts. No, she's not from Harry Potter, but that is her name. Can you imagine, Professor Kelly McGonigal? But she's a health expert who talks about a giant recent study. They tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years. That's a huge study. Huge, right? And they started out by asking them how much stress have you experienced in the last year? And they also asked, do you believe that stress is harmful for your health? And then they used public death records to find out who died.

Some bad news first. People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying. But that was only true for the people who believed that stress was harmful to your health in every case. People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view their stress as harmful were no more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had no stress or low stress years. And it gets better when people said they viewed their stress as having a purpose. That life was full of challenges, but their challenges had meaning. Those people were the healthiest people of all. As Kelly McGonigal puts it, it turns out that finding meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.

Now let that just sink in for a minute, because that's actually a biblical view of life. Life is full of painful things. Life is full of uncomfortable challenges. But when you can find meaning, and what better way is there to find meaning than to believe that God is sovereign and God is gracious, God is a purpose for us. God promises He's doing something great, even in our pain. That changes your life when you meditate on God's promise.

You know, we were just in Tahoe. My wife and I and our three kids and the two older ones with their spouses, all seven of us had such a great time over New Year's Eve. I think it was my favorite New Year's Eve I've ever had. It was just wonderful. But while I was up there, I was thinking about an old friend of ours named Raphael Elias. Raphael one day hit bottom. Before I knew him, he took out his gun out of his lock cabinet. He put bullets into it, undid the safety, and put the gun on his pillow, and decided, "I am going to some church where I'm going to do my last business with God, and then I'm going to come back home, and I'm going to take my life." And the church that he chose to come to was a church called Sierra Community Church in South Lake Tahoe, where I was the pastor at the time.

I didn't know Raphael. But in my sermon, I said, "Some of you here have come to the end of yourself. You are done with you." But let me just suggest that when you're done with you, that's when you're in the perfect spot to say, "God, I'm done with me. You take me. Don't end it all. Give it to God and watch God work." And I said, "Some of you, God brought you here to hear that." And Raphael's sitting there, and I had no idea that he had a gun waiting for him. Well, he comes up afterwards to pray with me, and I had to just wait and let him cry. I mean, it seemed like it was four or five minutes that he just was sobbing, and he couldn't—he just couldn't ever gain his composure. And then finally, he could talk, and he told me what I just told you.

And he said, "I'm done with me, and I want to just turn it over to the Lord." And he did right there in that moment. And, you know, sometimes you wonder what's going to happen to people when they turn their lives over to God in this moment, in a moment of crisis. Well, recently, a couple of years ago, we were back up in Tahoe for a service, and I was rejoicing because I was able to sit there in the congregation and watch the worship band on stage being led by that church's worship pastor, who was Raphael Elias. Isn't that great? God is good. And I just—tears started coming down my face as I heard him between—he was talking between songs, and he said, "You know, some of you are here today because you are done with you." He said, "Take it from me. You're at the perfect point to turn it over to God and watch God just start to do miracles."

And some of you know exactly what he's talking about. Some of you came into church one day at the end of yourself, and God brought you here, and God found you here. And some of you are here right now, today. And you barely made it to church. You don't even really know why you came. Well, now you know, because God loves you, and he's sovereign, and he's good, and he brought you here to tell you, "Believe this. Believe it. My promise for those who are done with themselves and give their lives to me." He says, Romans 8:28, "We know that in all things, even whatever you're going through right now, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Now, this does not mean he causes every hurt, but this means he never wastes a hurt.

And he can use whatever horror, whatever tragedy, whatever weakness, whatever mistake you're going through right now, and he can turn it into something amazing, something miraculous. And if you don't believe it, you're probably surrounded right now, whatever pew you're sitting in, with people who are on the other side of that, and can say, "Yes, don't give up. Expect him to work." And then, as you go through your day, what you want to do is this. Number three, eliminate negative speech. Now, what do I mean by this? What are you saying to others? What are you saying to yourself? Question, have you ever talked yourself into feeling bad? Somebody goes, "How are you doing?" "Fine." "No, really, how are you doing?" "Well, I'm really kind of tired. I'm kind of stressed. I'm wiped, man. Things have been tough. Things have been tough. I'm exhausted. Honestly, I'm fried." "You know, I want to end my sermon right now and take a nap. I just talked myself into that. I'm exhausted."

Sometimes you complain and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But look at Ephesians 4:29. Since this is about words, let's read this out loud. "Do not let any unwholesome speech come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Circle the word only. Even when you talk to yourself, this is true. You know, one of my concerns about Christian culture in America is that we're picking up cues on how to communicate from the secular culture and the Christian culture, too. You listen to radio talk shows, for example. It doesn't matter if it's Christian or conservative or liberal or sports talk. It's all about people arguing, right? It's all about people finding incendiary things to say to kind of blow up a conversation. Blogs on the Internet, same thing.

And sometimes we think that's the way we're supposed to communicate our hope. And Christ, that's crazy. And we forget what James 3:5 says. "By our speech, we can ruin the world, turn harmony into chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell." That's James from the message translation. Do you agree with that verse? You can set yourself up for failure. You can set up your friends, your children for failure. You'll never amount to anything. I feel sorry for you kids and your friends growing up in the sorry world that we got right now, you know? The tongue, James says later, the tongue is like the rudder of a ship. It's small, but it sets the trajectory for your whole life.

So picture this. You initiate each day with faith, right? And then as you go on your way, you meditate on God's promise. And then you speak positively. And then finally, number four, I concentrate on God's power. Not your own power. The only place to get the strength for any of this is the Lord. And check out this verse. And this is really what the whole first week of the book Empowered is about. What Kevin does every day is he goes to a different person who was very weak in the Bible to see how God worked through their powerlessness. But look at Paul. Paul's one of the people Kevin talks about. He says we were really crushed and overwhelmed. And we feared we could never live through it. We felt we were doomed to die. And we saw how powerless we were to help ourselves.

Look at those words. Crushed, overwhelmed, feared, doomed, powerless. And then Paul says, "But that was good." What? How can feeling like that be good? Well, it's when I hit bottom, then I realize how much I need God. Paul says that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us, for he can even raise the dead. For Christians, it all comes back to this. Jesus died on the cross for your sins. And then he rose from the dead guaranteeing your victory. Talk about the ultimate bad thing being turned into the ultimate good thing. And then the Bible says the same power is at work in you. And some of you are going, "Yes, I believe that." But do you expect it to work in you? We started by talking about the principle of expectation. And here it is again. Paul says, "And he did help us." Yes, and we what? Expect him to do it again and again. What do you expect him to do?

I want you to look at the question at the bottom of your notes, and I want you to fill it in in two ways. First, what am I expecting God to do in my life in the new year? What are you really expecting him to do? New year, what about this week? You know, pray for me. 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, I'm leaving for a mission trip to Africa. I'm going with a few people from Twin Lakes Church. I'll be in South Africa working at a camp that gets kids from a township. I'll be in Zambia meeting with local pastors there. I'll be in Senegal speaking to junior hires and high schoolers there. We're going to be going into some dicey places, a lot of travel.

You know what the thing that's got me most scared? Talking to those junior hires. I'm freaked out about that. But personal confession, I've had a bad attitude about this trip. Like, "I don't want to go. It's a hassle. And I don't know if I'm going to be any good at this." And then I realize that's completely not a faith-filled way to approach this. And yesterday, I wrote in a little diary I'm bringing along with me, I wrote down what I expect God to do through this trip. And I actually wrote down 12 very specific expectations. Like, I expect to have at least two conversations with a couple of kids at the camp where I'll be serving about the Lord, and I'll be able to speak into their lives. And I expect to meet at least two pastors with awesome stories that I will be able to share with you when I return to inspire you. Excuse me, specific expectations.

And I'd encourage you to take this idea and write down specifically, what are you expecting God to do in your life this year? How are you expecting him to work on your character? But then also, I'm asking you to also fill in the blank this way, what am I expecting God to do in my church in the next year? Do you expect God to move here at TLC in miraculous ways? Do you expect when you come to church to meet new people every week and you're going to keep your eye out for those people that you expect to meet and greet them? Do you expect to be moved by the worship every week? This is a huge question. And I'm asking you as your pastor, please live with eager expectation about what God is going to do here, this our 125th year as a church. What's he going to do? According to your faith, it will be done to you. And I believe it's going to be a great year.

Let me wind it up with this as we prepare our hearts for communion. I want to show you one more little video that's been making the rounds. Somebody put this on the internet. His name is Joe Requelme. And this video, which his sister took, shows the moment on Christmas a couple of weeks ago when his parents, who are immigrants, opened up his present to them and realized that as his Christmas present, he has paid off their entire mortgage. In the envelope, a simple note reads, "Your house is paid off. Merry Christmas." Now watch the moment that they realize what he did for them. And I hope you enjoy this video.

We have a little gift for you. That's good. For both? For both of you. Only me and you, daddy? They have to be a nice present because this is special after this. What? No, I don't. Oh, I love you. Thank you, pap. [Crying] [Speaking Spanish] Oh, baby. Thank you.

Well, do you realize something? Do you realize that the Son of God, the Son of God has told you, "Your debt is paid off." The debt of sin, it's gone because he paid it fully on the cross. Now if they could respond with that kind of emotion to a measly home mortgage, how do we respond to Jesus when he says, "You're clean." All debt's wiped away. See, when you're rooted in this, when you deeply grasp this, that's when you can really live with a sense of empowerment with what God is going to do in your life. Because as Paul says in Romans 8, "If he gave us his Son, how will he not also graciously give us all things and empower you to do what you need to do?" Let's pray together. Would you bow your head with me?

God, help our confidence not to be rooted in our own optimism or our own faith in faith, but in what you did for us on the cross, how you paid our debt. And God, I pray in this moment during communion that we would express to you our gratitude, our thanks for that, and that we would realize that if you did that, then you are going to empower us to do what we need to do. And Lord, I pray in this moment, if there's anybody who has never turned their life over to you or isn't sure yet that they, like my friend Raphael up at the church in Taw, would just say, "Lord, I don't understand it completely, but what I understand, I love that Jesus Christ came to pay the debt for my sin, and now his resurrection power can be a work in me." God, I choose to believe that. Help my unbelief. But God, I thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's listen to Trent and Bob just play an instrumental, and I just want this to be a moment that you're able to take communion and just say, "God, thanks. And God, help empower me." We're going to distribute the bread representing the body of Christ, the cup, the blood of Christ, and I want to invite you, if you've trusted in Christ, you just take that and keep that there in your hand and listen to this beautiful music and do some business with God. Talk to God in these few moments.