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The River ChurchSermons

Josh Yates · 14 Jun 2026

Josh Yates · Sunday, 14 June 2026 · 38:27 · 5,558 words

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon examines why faithful living can seem unrewarding while the wicked prosper, drawing on Psalm 73 and the story of missionary Helen Rosavare. Josh Yates shares his own seasons of doubt amid years of struggle and the COVID pandemic, showing that even leaders can feel angry and betrayed by God. It urges listeners to turn their eyes from circumstances to God’s presence, affirming that God remains the strength of our hearts and is worth more than any comfort, and asks whether we would choose Jesus over all else.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

sanctuary 14 wicked 18 asaph 14 shalom 7 asap 7 crisis 8 bitter 7 perspective 10 torn 6 testify 6 ruin 6 prosper 5

Topics

Faith 2 Prayer 1

Scripture referenced 10

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 73 0:37 Psalms 73 3:20 Psalms 73 10:11 Psalms 73 10:18 Hebrews 4:15 15:05 Psalms 73 16:35 Psalms 73:15 16:45 Psalms 63:1-3 18:37 Ezra 5:12 20:18 Psalms 73:25-28 27:49

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:35. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey, everyone. My name is Zach, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

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You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Psalm 73, truly God is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure.

But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.

For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.

They seem to live such painless lives. Their bodies are so healthy and strong.

They don't have troubles like other people. They're not plagued with problems like everyone else.

They wear pride like a jeweled necklace and clothe themselves with cruelty.

These fat cats have everything that their hearts could ever wish for.

They scoff and speak only evil in their pride. They seek to crush others.

They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut throughout the earth.

And so the people are dismayed and confused, drinking in all their words.

What does God know, they ask? Does the Most High even know what's happening?

Look at these wicked people enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?

I get nothing but trouble all day long. Every morning brings me pain.

If I had really seen God, I would have said,

If I had really spoken this way to others, I would have been a traitor to your people.

So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper, but what a difficult task it is.

Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked.

Truly, you put them on a slippery path and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction.

In an instant, they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors.

When you arise, O Lord, you will laugh at their silly ideas as a person laughs at dreams in the morning.

Then I realized my heart.

It was bitter.

I was all torn up inside.

I was so foolish and ignorant.

I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

Yet I still belong to you.

You hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

I desire you more than anything on earth.

My health may fail.

My spirit may grow weak.

But God remains the strength of my heart.

He is mine forever.

Those who desert him will perish.

For you destroy those who abandon you.

But as for me, how good it is to be near God.

I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter.

And I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.

Man, crisis of faith in Psalm 73.

Crisis of faith.

You can do all the right things and have nothing work right.

And have nothing work right.

You can be persecuted for doing the right thing.

And it can feel as though you're all alone.

Though you're really trying to do what's right and follow God.

In 1953, Helen.

Rosavare, a highly qualified British physician.

Gave up a comfortable, lucrative career in the medical field in England.

And decided to serve as a pioneer and medical missionary in the forests of the Congo.

For years, she sacrificed everything.

Building a hospital from scratch.

Battling tropical diseases.

And working herself to the bone to show the love of Christ to the local people.

Then in 1964, a violent civil war broke out.

The Simba Rebellion.

And rebel soldiers overran her medical compound.

For five agonizing months.

Helen and her staff were held hostage.

Instead of being protected or rewarded for her years of selfless, pure-hearted service.

Helen was subjected to just horrific cruelty.

She was beaten, humiliated, and ultimately brutally assaulted by the very people she had come to serve.

She lay on the floor of a ruined home.

A massive crisis of faith gripped her soul.

It was her Psalm 7313 moment.

All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

She looked at her rebel captors.

Violent men who were laughing, drinking, and totally prosperous in their cruelty.

She looked at herself.

A faithful servant of God.

Broken and bleeding on the floor.

The math didn't add up.

She felt a deep, bitter wave of betrayal.

She questioned if God was actually good.

If he was actually there.

And if her sacrifice had just been a cruel joke.

Crisis of faith.

Have you ever been there?

Have you ever had an experience like that?

For Jeannie and me, ours was in 2020.

I'm going to take us back to some of the history of how this location, which used to be Gingiville Community Church.

Became part of the River Church, becoming the Lake Orion location.

Some of you in this room know this story because you lived this story right alongside of us.

Some of you have heard this story and you know it that way.

And so many of us in this room have never heard this account.

So for me, I realized I didn't introduce myself at the beginning.

So my name is Josh Yates.

I'm the location pastor here at Lake Orion.

And I have actually been at this location in October of this year.

It'll be for 23 years.

I've been here a long time.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I mean, that's great.

But I've served in some capacity as youth music pastor for the first, I think I have 11 years is what I figured out.

Then I was a senior pastor of Gingiville Community Church for seven years.

And now I've been the location pastor here of the River Church Lake Orion for the last five.

For those of us that have lived it, can you believe it's been five years?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There were so many ups and downs over the years.

So many ups and downs.

For those of you that see the beautiful road out front, we love that there's a road there.

But it did not come without many birth pains.

There was a, I mean, I don't want to make a long story longer, trying to make a long story short.

But for the first 10 years, I'd say for 10 years and every year that I was a senior pastor of the church,

we were in the middle of a lawsuit trying to figure out how in the world it was going to happen.

Because it was eminent domain and certain governmental organizations said our property is only worth about this amount.

And they didn't even consider the fact that, see that little thing goes down on the wall right there.

All the way up that main beam.

That is now about, I'm going to say like 17 feet, 20 feet away from the road.

If somebody hits that beam, like Legos, right?

We now have a two foot thick concrete reinforced wall in front of that beam.

So if a semi truck hits that wall, it's going to go boink.

But at the time, that was not the case.

And so anyway, 10 years of a lawsuit of going, what's going to happen?

God, what's going on?

And so we were actually meeting across the street.

In 2019 and early 2020 at the Mount Zion community house, because our building was deemed unsafe.

And so we went over there.

We were a mobile church for about eight months and God was blessing.

We were growing.

People were coming.

New families were coming.

And then, well, COVID.

We stopped meeting.

We didn't meet from March through about June.

We did in online, but not in person.

Then somewhere in June, we met outside in our parking lot.

We assigned people numbered parking spaces to try to be socially.

You know, distant that we were told to do.

Um, I met online with people.

We had growth communities online and Jeannie and I, along with the elders and their families were working hard to try to keep the church together.

We masked too much for some, we didn't mask enough for others.

It didn't matter what decision you made.

It was the wrong one.

And to be honest, I didn't understand.

I'd given so much of myself to the church and to God.

We sacrificed years away from family.

Our family lives on the west coast.

We have no family here.

We do.

We do have family because of you here, but not blood family, grandparents that didn't get to see their grandchildren grow up for this.

That was my question in 2020 for this, to people who walk away after ministering to them for years over masks for this, I had my ASAP moment like this song.

I was still confident that God was good, but a crisis of faith was on Jeannie and I, what does one do in these moments?

What have you done in your moments?

There were days that I looked to God and many days I was just angry and I was just bitter.

And I'm sure that's true for all of us when we have our ASAP moment.

I'm sure it was true of Helen Rosavare and many pastors, missionaries, and Jesus followers all over the world.

So what are we to do?

We turn to Psalm 73.

ASAP is the song is the author of this song.

So if you have your Bibles, we'll be back in the ESV.

Now, I wanted to read it in the NLT at the beginning, but Psalm 73 is where we're at this morning.

It says it's right off the bat.

It says it's the song of ASAP.

And he was a Levite or a priest who was served as a worship leader amongst God's people.

Commentator described it like this deep down in his heart.

He knows God is good.

And the Psalm is not the doubting of someone who is opposed to God or someone trying to prove God isn't good.

No, this is the doubting of someone who believes God is good.

But at the same time, the psalmist is honest about his struggles.

We've heard ASAP's words this morning.

Let's dig in and really listen for a little bit.

If we look at the first 14 verses, his sight is distorted.

Can't see clearly anymore because of everything that's going on in his life.

Because just like ASAP, let's be honest.

All around us so often in life.

And we see so many people prospering.

Well, it seems like no matter how much good we do, it doesn't seem to get better.

People around us are jerks and they're mean to people.

And they use undermining and just evil, wicked ways to earn money or to advance their business or advance their career or all these things.

And all around us, we see pride popping up and seemingly being rewarded.

And we go, huh?

It's almost like going back to when Paul said, if Jesus Christ isn't raised, we are above all to be pitied.

Spoiler alert, Jesus isn't in the grave anymore.

But, well, we still have questions.

And so ASAP is struggling with this.

He's actually envying the proud.

They're prospering despite their evil and wickedness.

He's even wrestling with just how good God is.

He knows he's good and he's been good to Israel, but he's just not seeing it.

In verse 2, he says, I've almost lost my footing.

Man, have you ever felt that?

You've almost lost your footing.

You know these things in your head, but, man, life is not showing it.

And we know this because of all the terminology ASAP uses here.

He talks about the proud.

They live painless lives.

Their bodies are healthy and strong.

They don't have troubles.

They have all the money, and it solves their problems seemingly.

They even wear their pride like a necklace, he says.

They're fat with everything they have and the food that they have.

They scoff and speak evil than anyone around them.

They seek to crush others.

And he wraps it up in verse 12 when he says,

Maybe I'm the only one, but I've got to believe that many of us sit back and go,

Why is it so hard sometimes when everybody around us seems to be doing so well

and they don't care about anybody but themselves?

I'm at least trying to give food to my neighbor and trying to do the right thing.

Then he asks a very real question in verses 13 to 14.

He says,

Go back one verse if we could to verse 13.

Get my heart clean.

I try to be innocent about stuff, and I guess it doesn't matter.

That's where Asaph is right now, leader of Israel, struggling with reality.

It often can be a sacrifice to live for God,

and it can seem like you're missing out on all the good stuff.

And the thing that's even a little bit crazier in this passage

is that the word for prosperity here is actually the Jewish or the Hebrew word shalom.

He's looking at these people going, their lives are at peace.

Their lives are fulfilled.

Their lives have everything.

It looks as though everything is right for them,

and all I can see is pain,

and I'm getting punched in the face all the time

even though I'm trying to live for the Lord.

Shalom is the way things should be, and this is what it looks like.

He was in a place where it looked like all of the wicked had received everything from God,

and he was left with nothing but the crumbs.

So Asaph is basically saying for the first 14 verses,

God, what gives?

What is going on?

It reminds me, though, of what we hear in Hebrews 4, 15,

for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,

but one who is in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin,

because we got to understand, Jesus was actually tempted to think the same thing.

How do we know that?

We just have to walk into the Garden of Gethsemane.

In one of the darkest moments of the life of Christ,

he's wrestling with the cup he has to drink, the sin of all humanity.

And in one moment, I personally am so thankful

that God told us this about what Jesus struggled with in that moment,

because my translation of that is,

Dad, can we do it another way?

Jesus prayed that to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane,

sweating drops of blood.

Then he showed us how to move past that temptation.

And he said, but not my will, Dad, yours.

Jesus knows this temptation.

God knows this temptation.

He understands our questions.

He understood Asaph's.

He understands yours.

But then there's a shift in Asaph's thinking in Psalm 73.

He's reminded that he's in a position of leadership.

And he couldn't really share this with everyone.

In verse 15, he says,

See, if he shared that as a leader with the people

in the time that they were all experiencing the same trouble,

the people would have despaired.

See, he had been faithful to God.

And instead of peace and prosperity, shalom, he had received rebukes.

And he didn't want to share it publicly at the time

because he didn't want people to despair around him in the middle of it.

See, when we're in the middle of it,

we got to at least learn here that

we got to...

We got to tell somebody, but we can't tell everybody.

Because we're all leading somebody, whether we realize it or not.

We have to be careful because if we really share everything,

especially in a position of leadership like that,

everybody despairs.

Everybody can despair there.

So then he says,

I sought to understand what's going on around him.

Verses 16 to 20 in the ESV.

But when I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to be a wearisome task.

Yeah, it does seem to be a pretty wearisome task

trying to figure out why things happen the way they do.

Until I went into the sanctuary.

Then I discerned there

the wicked's end.

Truly you set them in slippery places.

You make them fall to ruin.

How they are destroyed in a moment.

Swept away utterly by terrors.

Like a dream when one awakens, O Lord,

you rouse yourself.

You despise them as phantoms.

And I had always read this passage thinking that

Asaph went into the house of God.

This grandiose, this beautiful temple,

this sanctuary of God.

And he was reminded about all of these things

when he focused on God

rather than the problems around him.

And God's presence brings perspective.

And I think that still rings true here.

And we see this in Psalm 63, 1 to 3,

just a few Psalms earlier.

O God, you are my God.

Earnestly I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you.

My flesh faints for you

as in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,

my lips will praise you.

There is definite truth in the fact

that when we finally get our perspective

into the sanctuary,

of God, which is not this place. It's the holy place where his church meets with God. You're the

church where you meet with God is when you meet him in a sanctuary. There's nothing holy about

this place until God's people are in it. So your bedroom, your breakfast nook, your backyard can be

a holy place when you're meeting with God. When you meet with God in the sanctuary, God's presence

brings perspective. Absolutely. But a commentator that I read this week posed this situation. And

the more I studied it, the more I think it may be true that I'm not sure this is what Asaph is

describing here. Because he went to the sanctuary. At the start of book three, Jerusalem had been

destroyed. At the start of book three, there's, just before that, there's been some talk about

how there was destruction coming upon Israel. So when he went to the sanctuary, he was actually

seeing God's judgment on the wicked. Because what he was looking at was actually the ruins

of God's sanctuary. Ezra 5.12, but because our fathers had angered the God of heaven,

he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this

house and carried away the people of Babylon. Asaph was gazing upon the consequences of the wicked

in this psalm. He was looking at the end of the wicked by the destruction of the temple that was

in front of him. The ruins of the temple shocked him back to this reality. Commentator put it like

this. This destruction was devastating in two ways. Physically, he saw the destruction of

worship with songs and sacrifices had been torn down. The roof was collapsed. The stones were

ripped one from another. Spiritually, what he saw was even more devastating. God had left his sinful

people. Ezekiel saw the glory of God leave the temple, and the psalmist saw the results. These

ruins changed his perspective dramatically. God does judge the wicked, even his own wicked.

Different perspective on this song, going to the sanctuary of God.

And Asaph remembers who God is. He remembers how God works. He sees evidence right in front of him

what happens to the wicked eventually. Something we got to learn is that it may look like the

wicked prosper, but we have to understand their end is without God. And I love how at the end,

I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but when we see that, instead of envying them, we should

actually, like Asaph says at the end, love them enough to tell them who this God is. See, our

people, and we see them as the enemy, rather than people to be loved, that they need a savior,

that they need Jesus. Because at the very end of this chapter, his last line talks about,

I will tell others of all the wondrous things you do. See, this whole idea of a crisis of faith and

envying the wicked actually is a tool of the devil to keep people from knowing Jesus. Because it gets

our focus off of him and God and telling people and loving people enough to tell about Jesus

and onto ourselves and focused on what we don't know.

Have or wish we did. I mean, first Corinthians six, nine to 10 says, or do you not know that

the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually

immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves,

nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And in the middle of June, there's a specific type of month. If we are more frustrated and

angry at what we see and not move the tears for the souls of people,

we're missing the point. People that don't know God need Jesus. And if we're more focused on

telling people how they're wrong, we are actually disobeying the word of God because with those

outside the faith, we are called to be gentle and loving. Now, loving is telling them about Jesus.

It's not affirming sin, but we lead with Jesus, not our anger. And we miss the point of even what

Asaph is saying here. We're going to see it and see that. And we're going to struggle with it.

We're going to struggle with envy, but we got to come back to the sanctuary of God and remember

their end so that it brings care and love and concern for people, not anger. Because when we

lift our eyes to God, our perspective does change. And Asaph comes to this realization. I was telling

somebody this morning that I was reading through this. I'm like, this is good stuff. I'm like,

this one, you know, it's good. I feel like I'm doing okay though. And then I read this verse

and it was another gut punch and I was destroyed on Thursday. Because after this, I was like,

the realization of what had happened, and what would happen to those that don't follow God,

he realizes this, and this is out of the New Living Translation. In verse 21, he says this,

then I realized that my heart was bitter. I was all torn up. Why is it there's times in my life

that I'm just bitter, and I'm all torn up inside, and that's why I'm frustrated. I know that's true

of a lot of us, if not most of us. I was so foolish and ignorant. I must have seemed like a senseless

animal to you, to God. Then he continues, yet I still belong to you. Why? Because he knows God is

good, and you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.

Have you been bitter when looking at the seeming shalom of those around you? Have you been torn up

inside at what is happening to you? When I had that moment with God on Thursday, with Asaph, I'm like,

man, I'm just ignorant and foolish. I lose perspective. I'm ignorant and foolish, but God has never come to me

and said, I told you so. He's always come and said, I've revealed this to you. Josh, come back. That's what he says to every one

of us. There's going to be times in our lives when we're bitter, and we're all torn up inside. We do

not serve a God that comes to you and says, really, again, I told you so. It's not our God. He'll love

us by saying, okay, I've told you the truth. You've heard that from me. He doesn't come to say, I'm

right, you're wrong, neener, neener, neener. That's not our God. He's always drawing us back to him.

God is sufficient, and that's what Asaph says in the last part of this psalm. Listen to the last

part of Psalm 73, verses 25 to 28.

And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the

strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish.

You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you, but for me, it is good to be near God. I have

made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of your works. My friends, if you know Jesus, and if

you've given your life to him, you have the God of heaven holding your right hand. No one better

no one else. Our perspective, getting our view of God, getting our eyes back on God, changes our

perspective. I also want to say, if you're not sure of whether or not you know Jesus this morning,

you can call on his name. Confess that he's the Lord of your life. You want to give him your life

and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that he's alive today. He died in your

place. You can be saved right where you are. I always want to say something about the gospel

every time I speak, because I don't want to assume that everybody here knows Jesus. You can know him

today. We all need a savior.

Again, he's not a God that's saying, you're the worst. He could, but he doesn't. He sent Jesus to

die in our place. You can know him as your savior today, if you call on his name. Believe he is who

he says he is. Believe that he did what he said he did. But the reality is, the wicked may have wealth

and health. They may have everything that you think you want. Popularity and prosperity, even shalom.

But Asaph and you, brother or sister in Jesus, have so much more. You have God himself. God is close

beside you, holding your hand. You have God himself. You have God himself. You have God himself. You have

God himself. You have God himself. You have God himself. You have God himself. You have God himself.

It is good to be near God. This is what we have to grasp today. Gotta get this point. When you change

where you look, God changes how you see. When you change where you look, God changes how you see.

In the depths of that dark room of her broken home, Helen experienced a profound internal shift.

Her entering the sanctuary moment. She didn't hear an audible voice, but she felt the overwhelming

presence of God close the gap in her understanding. She realized that God had not

abandoned her to the wicked. Rather, he was sharing his own cup of suffering with her.

She felt the Lord silently asking her a staggering question. Helen, can you thank me for trusting you

with this experience, even if I never tell you why? Crisis broke, not because the circumstances

changed. She was still a prisoner because her perspective shifted from her immediate trauma

to the transcendent worth of Christ. She realized that having God with her in the ruins

was worth more than a life of comfortable safety without him.

Helen survived the rebellion and was eventually evacuated to England, but she didn't stay away.

Driven by the realization that God was her ultimate portion, she actually returned to the Congo

years later to help rebuild the hospital and continue her work. For the rest of her life,

she traveled the world speaking to young people. She would look at audiences and say,

people ask me if it was worth the cost. I want to tell you he is worthy. He never failed me.

The privilege of knowing him far outweighed the price I paid. I stand here today and I testify that God never left me.

That God never left Junior High and he never left Gingival Community Church either. We sit here today

because he didn't leave us. We're seeing families raise their children here in Lake Orion. We're

seeing people come to Jesus. We see people get baptized. We have a River Kids ministry full of

children that was quiet during COVID. We have three pastors on staff for the first time in my

23 years here. We have every room filled with the love of God and his word and people loving each

other. On Wednesday, we're going to be in the church. We're going to be in the church. We're going to be in the church.

On Wednesday nights throughout the year, we have too small of a parking lot right now for the people

that come on most Sundays. God never left and he won't leave you. Won't leave you. But I was empty

during that time. Guess what? Even with all of that, I'm still tempted to get empty again. In the middle

of all God's blessings, we can still be like Asaph. We all can be sometimes. So it brings me to this

question for all of us. If you could have everything on earth but not Jesus, would you take it? I know

we want to say no, but don't just glibly answer that question. You're not telling me if Elon Musk

walked through these doors and offered you 50% of the stock of SpaceX and worth billions of dollars,

you'd be like, no, I'm good. Let's not just glibly answer that question. We have to really take a

stock of that question and think about it. If you could go to heaven with a sound mind and a healthy

body to live in a mansion and walk streets of gold, but Jesus isn't there, would you go? If you love

God, we know what the answer is because all those things, although any of those things are nothing

without him, don't just glibly answer it. The question isn't meant to make us feel like we've

got it all figured out. The question is, I got to check my motives because let's be honest. Some of

us in this room have already for like kind of given Jesus up for our retirement accounts for

security with where we are. It's the little compromises. Heaven is not heaven without the

Lord though. It is good to be near God. Is that where you are today? You have questions and doubts

about the goodness of God. Where in your life are you looking for Shalom other than God? Because

again, when you change where you look, God changes how you see. And when we see correctly, we testify

to God. We testify to the goodness of God. We testify to the goodness of God. We testify to the

goodness of God. And we can say, just like Helen said, I want to tell you that he's worthy. He has

never failed me. The privilege of knowing him far outweighed the price that I paid. And we declare

with Asaph at the end of the passage, whom have I in heaven for you? There's nothing on earth

that I desire beside you. My health may fail. My spirit may grow weak, but God remains the

strength of my heart. He is mine forever. Those who desert him will perish.

For you destroy those who abandon you. But as for me, good it is to be near God. I have made the

sovereign Lord my shelter. And I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do. I don't know if

you're here this morning and you're in a crisis of faith. I want to testify that God has never left

me. Even when it seemed like he did. Even when I told him I didn't want him. Even when I wanted

my way more than his and I messed everything up. He will not leave you. If you don't know him this

morning, he's calling your name because he died for you. Change where you look. It changes how you

see. You're the sanctuary of God. See him for who he is. Whom have I in heaven for you? I desire you

more than anything on the earth. My heart, my health may fail. My spirit may grow weak, but God

remains the strength of my heart. He is mine. Thank you for your word. We thank you for your love.

We thank you that you are worthy and that you don't leave us or forsake us. Even when we see

everyone else around us seemingly just so awesome and even living in shalom. I pray someday I would

have to know your heart. Some days I feel so far from that. Some days maybe a little closer. Help

us to change where we look to you so that you can change how we see. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.