Speaker 1: 0:14

Wow. Well, for those of you who may not know me, my name is John, as Jeff said earlier, and it's an honor to be with you guys, especially during this series. What an amazing series you guys have been in and have walked through. I'm proud of you. It's one thing to walk into a church. It's another one to be in a church where people literally are real, like your founding pastor on that video. Your pastor now, larry, is just such a great friend of mine, so encouraging and helpful to me. Personally, I try to be that for him and, like I said, it's just an honor being here with you. In fact, I was looking at my notes. I think I've been here six or seven years in a row and it's just always always good to be here. If you remember me from like the very first time, just bear with me for a minute because I'm gonna tell a story I told way back when, but I've got a reason why I need to tell it again. Okay, just hang in there with me.

Speaker 1: 1:06

I'm at a Starbucks and I'm sitting there in one of the comfy chairs. Now they have two comfy chairs and they have a bunch of those really hard. We don't want you to stay here very long. Chairs I got lucky I got one of the comfy chairs. I got my computer, I got my chai, I'm just all set up, I'm just relaxed. And this guy walks up. He goes hey, do you mind if I sit there? I'm like nope. Now backstory.

Speaker 1: 1:27

I rarely tell people first thing that I'm a pastor. I find that that closes more doors than it opens for me. So I don't tell them what I do until they ask. So he sits down and proceeds to give me his life plan and I'm like I'm so glad I didn't tell him I'm a pastor Because here's his life plan. He says I'm a nurse and I work three 12-hour shifts a week and I've got all this time on my hands. I'm like, yeah, and he goes. I want to get a job here. I go, you're going to get a job at Starbucks. Yeah, and I go. Why he goes? The ladies. I'm so glad I didn't tell him.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So we're sitting there and he's like, yeah, yeah, See, he tells me every girl that works there who has the prettiest eyes, who has the prettiest smile I'm sorry, but even the prettiest body, like. He gives me all the details and then he says and all these women come in here all the time, you know. So, while he's giving me this whole thing no exaggeration, every woman that walked in knew me. Every woman that walked in looked at me and goes hi. And I'm like hi, hi, john, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.

Speaker 1: 2:33

There's a good 12, 15 women that walk by, get their drink and leave and look at me and say hi, and at one point he's telling a story. Well, you already know all the ladies. I just say well, I come in here a lot. He keeps going. I'm just like keep going, buddy, keep it. This is too good, right?

Speaker 1: 2:52

So then one of the ladies, as she leaves, she's got her drink. She hits the door and she goes oh bye, pastor. He looks at me and he goes. Did she say master? I said yes, she did, and I just let him sit there for a while, right, I finally told him I go. No, she said pastor, he goes.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Oh really, how do you get paid? I'm like never mind. That's why I don't tell anybody, you know. But what a great, funny, real moment. But then that got me thinking Like we never know who's sitting next to us, not at a Starbucks.

Speaker 1: 3:33

We don't always know who's sitting next to us at a game. We don't always know who's sitting next to us, even in church or standing near us at a checkout line at the supermarket. We don't know what they're going through and listen to me carefully. Like right now, somebody's walking through fresh news of a cancer diagnosis and right now, an addict just broke his sobriety streak and he's wondering if it's even worth it. And right now, a mom and a dad just found out their daughter's cutting. A mom and a dad just found out their daughter's cutting. And right now, a husband and a wife are wondering if their marriage is going to make it. And right now, a family is is considering crossing all kinds of sexual boundaries just because she wants to hear the words I love you, even though she knows he doesn't mean it when he says it. And right now, not next year, not next month, not next week. Like right now, we need to be in their corner. We need to be with them as they walk through the toughest things in their life. Right now, because of these reasons and all other kinds of reasons, people are struggling with depression and a bunch of other things that you've talked about in the series. But, like I said, we don't know always who's even just sitting right next to us, and so I want to encourage you in the get-go, make a choice to be with them as they walk through this stuff.

Speaker 1: 5:32

Today we're talking about depression, and I don't even pretend to try to solve this in 30 minutes or 55. I can't remember how much time they gave me. I'm not going to pretend to solve it in 30 minutes, but I do want to get the conversation started and, like what you have done throughout this series, you've gotten the conversation started in some very difficult conversations. Like there's power in that and it's helpful for us to be able to do exactly that, to talk about this stuff. When I was working on this message the song I'm kind of a song person. I love worship music, but I love music period and the song that came to mind was Don't Worry, be Happy. I'm not going to sing anymore because I'd like you to come back to this church, but it's probably the most trite, helpless song title you could give when you're talking about depression. Like if somebody's truly depressed, you walk up to them and go don't worry, be happy. That doesn't help anybody, right? And so what we want to do today is kind of walk into some heavy stuff and maybe a trite little song title might come to mind, but that's not really going to help us.

Speaker 1: 6:43

In fact, just so you know that this is one of those things that many people deal with, john Hopkins came out with this stat just recently. He said 26% of Americans 18 and over For those of you who don't like math, that's one out of every four. All right, this is a lot of people. One out of every four people this year will have some kind of a clinically diagnosable mental health issue one out of four. And then one of my friends who's a counselor, he said that 85% now again, if you're not good with math, that's almost all of us right 85% will have some kind of a depressive season in our life. We'll have to deal with depression at some point in our life 85% of us. And so what I want to do? Because, well, so many either experience this or have someone close to us that does experience this I want to go to Psalm 42.

Speaker 1: 7:40

And I want to just really camp out there today. I want to give you what I feel is the key verse. In fact, it's so important. It's repeated Verse 5 and again in verse 11. But here's verse 5. It says why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God. Even if we try to give Scripture to somebody who's hurting, sometimes it feels more like a weapon than a cold drink of water on a hot day. When you go to somebody who's depressed and you say, come on, just put your hope in God, you should have more faith. That doesn't really help. In fact, it shames them even more.

Speaker 1: 8:23

A friend of mine her name is Lisa Well, I'll call her Lisa because her name's Lisa and she dealt with depression for two decades without getting help Severe. She shared her story at our church and what she said was this when she first came to grips with what was going on, she opened up to somebody at the church she was going to at the time and that person told her your depression is your problem because it's your sin. So for two decades she didn't ask for help. She finally got help and has been free from this depressive thing that's just hovered over her life. And now she has turned around and she's helping our middle school girls walk through their mental health challenges.

Speaker 1: 9:12

I'm like, yes, that's what we want to see. That's what we want to see, but here's the idea. It're like that's what we wanna see. That's what we wanna see, but here's the idea. It's like it's more than just don't worry, be happy. It's more than just, oh, put your hope in God. It's like, no, there is a God who loves you, even if you're feeling the way that you're feeling. And what I wanna do today because it's kind of maybe the way you're dealing with this throughout this series I wanna put some of this in the context of different buckets.

Speaker 1: 9:34

So bucket number one would be this is our biological bucket and this is just the idea that the way that God has designed our bodies to function, and particularly the way he designed our mind to function, is with these different chemicals, that kind of work in conjunction with everything else. So there's chemicals in our brain working. Now maybe you have heard of one. If you love exercise, maybe you've heard one of these chemicals. It starts with N anybody Endorphins. All right For everybody who doesn't want to exercise. If you don't like exercise, just raise your hand for a minute. Some of you are like wait a minute, that feels a little like exercise. I'm not going to raise my hand If you don't exercise at all. I got good news for you this great chemistry thing, this chemical that God gave us that's released. It gives us a feeling of pleasure and motivation and everything. It's called endorphins. We can get it in ways other than just exercise. Listen to this. This is from Harvard Health Laughter, a good belly laugh, can do wonders for your state of mind.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Along with releasing endorphins, laughter alters levels of serotonin and dopamine. Okay, so get this. Solomon did know what he was talking about back in Proverbs 17 when he said laughter is good medicine. Think about this. Dopamine is one of the ones listed there Endorphin, serotonin, dopamine. I had to do a lot of reading on this study. I'm not like a clinical psychologist and I came up with so much stuff that I didn't understand or know about. But dopamine is one of these chemicals too, and it actually helps us with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction and motivation. And there are some things that we can do to drain the dopamine. So dopamine is good, but we can drain it if we're not careful.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Let me give you the short list. Stress Some of you are like right now, going thanks a lot. I can't do much about that. Right, my life is stressful, but you can do something about all the rest of these Ready, poor diet, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption by the way, we're talking about depression. Alcohol is a depressant. It may not be helping you get where you want to be. Drug use, lack of physical activity, chronic boredom here's a big one now excessive screen time. So let me paint the picture for you it's 2.45 am, you're in bed eating Cheetos, drinking a monster energy drink and scrolling on your phone and you're wondering why can't I get any more dopamine? Yeah, you're not going to get it like that.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Let's go back to Psalm 42, verse one. As the deer pans for streams of water, so my soul pans for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long where is your God? Sometimes people aren't that helpful, right, but what he's saying is this In the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant, in order to experience the presence of God, they felt like they needed to be in Jerusalem, at the temple, because God did some stuff right there where he demonstrated his presence.

Speaker 1: 12:47

And so when they're away from Jerusalem you see the psalmist write about this a lot it's like, oh, I long to be there. I long to be in God's presence. I can't because I'm here, but it's over there. But I have some really good news for you right now. The old covenant, god's presence was in the temple. Now, in the new covenant, you are the temple. God's presence is with you.

Speaker 1: 13:13

By the way, if you feel distant from God, you may be sitting in a church right now. You may be watching online. Right now. You're just like, okay, I'm trying, but you feel distant from God. Guess who moved? I did.

Speaker 1: 13:27

God is with us. It's perhaps the most often repeated promise in the Bible. I mean, how about in the middle of July? Well, the end of July, let's just get a little Christmas in us. When Jesus shows up, they say his name is also Emmanuel, which means God. What With us? So God with us. This is good news. Like here, we are biological bucket. God's wired our brain a certain way, and part of the thing I need to remind my brain of is that God is with me, even when my brain doesn't feel like it doesn't give me that signal. Second bucket is the situational bucket.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Now I want to give you something that our Surgeon General just came out with last year. It's called our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. This was from 2023. So this is fresh stuff. Listen to this. A review of 63 studies concluded that loneliness and isolation among children and adolescents increased the risk of depression and anxiety, and that risk remained high even up to nine years later. So we all know the isolation that occurred during COVID. Now schools are shut down, kids are at home like away from everybody. It's like that isolation created all kinds of issues. We know that their study is saying those issues could literally go on for nine years. So we're into 2030 now because of some of the stuff that just recently happened.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Dartmouth Medical School also released a study entitled Hardwired to Connect. Now, this study was done as a result of the shootings in schools back in the 90s and they put together like 33 different children's doctors, research scientists, mental health and youth service professionals. And then they ask this question like what is the real crisis? And this is what they said. So the crisis comes in two parts. First part is the deteriorating behavioral and mental health of US children, and then they list all the stuff like anxiety, depression and attention deficit. Conduct all this. But I want you to listen to their conclusion of this study.

Speaker 1: 15:36

The report concludes that the main cause of the crisis in American childhood and adolescence is a lack of connectedness. And here's their definition close connections to other people and connections to moral and spiritual meaning. Now this is what's amazing. This is not a Christian study, but these secular people recognized our need for connection, both relationally as well as spiritually. We need that. I mean, we've actually been watching this stuff on depression for some time and mental issue, mental health issues and really in the last several years we've seen some changes. From 2007 to 2017, anxiety and depression among teenagers tripled tripled, by the way, 2007,. You know why that year is significant. That's the year of the iPhone. Ever since our kids got glued to their phones, anxiety and depression has tripled up to 2017. Then in COVID, it goes through the roof because of the isolation.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Listen to verse 4, psalm 42, verse 4. These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the mighty one, with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throngs, like he's like sensing a loss of a season in his life, and I think sometimes loss itself is the thing that can kind of get us into depression or maybe even just on the brink of it, because we miss that person or we lost maybe our job or we have a loss of a dream right? I had my own loss this year. Significantly, may 29th this year, I lost my hero, my dad. My dad had come home to live with us. My dad had come home to live with us and the end of July or end of January, so for four months and four days, my dad lived in our home on a hospital bed under the care of hospice and under our care, and for four months and four days he couldn't get out of bed. Now he was mentally fine. We had great conversations. We put him in our living room. We didn't put him in a back bedroom because we wanted to eat together as a family, we wanted to watch NBA playoffs together as a son and a father. It's like we did life together. And my grandkids who just don't live that far away, they were over a lot. They got to see Papa and in fact, there was like, as you can imagine, a lot of conversations. Well, why is Papa in a bed? Well, papa's not doing very well and there's going to be a day very soon where he gets to go home to be with Jesus. And so we had this conversation more than once and their parents had this conversation with them more than once. Well, my dad passes on May 29th.

Speaker 1: 18:24

Nearly a month later, my wife hurts herself. She literally fractured some ribs. It's kind of a sissy story. I told her I come up with a better story. Like she's in a car getting something. She leaned over and hit her ribs against the steering wheel and like fractured ribs, like let's get a better story. It's like it's like that's a baby. So I'm sorry, that's just not a good story. So I've tried to work with her. We got a better story. But that's the true story. She just fell over in the car, broke her ribs. So my daughter's telling my grandkids by the way, lolly's hurt, you can't just go over and run and jump on her, you can.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Five-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter said is Lolly going Right? Like seriously, like this little girl has figured out. Like Papa wasn't feeling good and then he went. Now Lolly's not feeling, maybe right. Well, sometimes we have some comedy, even in the midst of our grief. But sometimes we don't and sometimes it just hurts. And sometimes, instead of comedy, we see cruelty. And in the midst of everything else. We're trying to understand and deal with that.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Some of you may not know Corrie ten Boom, but she was responsible for saving nearly 800 Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. She said this I've experienced his presence in the deepest, darkest hell that men can create. I have tested the promise of the Bible and, believe me, you can count on them, like I've tested the promises of what God says he's able to do. And she says you can count on them. Let me give you another bucket, the clinical bucket.

Speaker 1: 20:09

I want to just go right back to verse 5. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God, with the counselors that I've talked to. They say that depression sometimes is just simply a result of us repressing those feelings of loss and then the grief and the pain of life. It's like not dealing with, not talking about, not getting it out there with someone that we can trust. Let's go on to verse 6. He says my soul is downcast within me. Therefore, I will remember you from the land of Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mazar. He's just saying like okay, there was this sense of like. I used to feel close to you and now I don't. There was this sense of like man. We used to be tight and now we're not. And we're going through this and wrestling through this and my mind is just going crazy because I just feel so alone.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Let me jump over to the New Testament for just a minute. In Ephesians, chapter six, it's giving us the full armor of God talk. Maybe you remember that, verse 17,. Part of that is this he says take the helmet of salvation. What does a helmet do? Protects your head, it protects your brain, and God's word is able to protect us. With all the nonsense and all the lies coming at us, there is some truth that he's using to protect us. And the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, lies coming at us. There is some truth that he's using to protect us, he says. And the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God and, by the way, the sword is never intended to turn around and affect you like attack you. It's used against our enemy. So we need the word of God to protect our minds.

Speaker 1: 21:44

Let's go back to Psalm 42, verse seven and eight. This is a beautiful picture. He says deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls, everybody say roar Roar. That was kind of like nine o'clock week-ish. Everybody say roar Roar, all right, deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have swept over me by day. The Lord directs his love. At night his song was with me, a prayer to the God of my life. You can kind of see him as he's talking and wrestling with the sense of loss and the grief and maybe even this depression. Why am I so downcast? And then he comes back he says but but your truth is like this roar of a waterfall.

Speaker 1: 22:34

How many of you have ever been to Rainbow Falls in Mammoth? Anybody been there? You really need to go, do something, go somewhere, watch a video about it, I don't know. So my wife's not really a hiker. She loves tennis and pickleball and that kind of stuff, but she doesn't like to hike, and so I talked her into the Rainbow Falls hike one time. We're in Mammoth. I really wanted to go. I'm into photography, I go. I gotta see Rainbow Falls for myself. And so what they do is they drop you off. They take you in a bus, they drop you off in one spot and then you walk for miles and then you get to see it and then you have to walk for miles out but there's ice cream. So this is what I told her. They drop us off in a bus, we walk a little while and then there's ice cream. And so she went. I'm not happy with me the whole time because it was miles.

Speaker 1: 23:20

But as you get close to the waterfall, all of a sudden you can kind of begin to hear it right. But then you get to the other side of it and there's this beautiful, massive waterfall. If you get the right angle, you see the rainbow in it and it's just pouring and you're literally yelling at each other because the waterfall is so loud. He's just saying in the middle of the day, when these voices are coming at me, the roar of God's truth is even louder. In the middle of the night, when I'm just like anxious and depressed and like all the little voices are kind of just attacking me, it's like no, the roar of his waterfall and his truth comes over me. It's just like the waves breaking on the shores. You can't avoid his truth. Just go to him and let it refuel you.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Paul Anderson is a friend of mine. He's the president of Hope International University. He's also a licensed counselor and he talks about his own struggle with depression. But in his counseling he's come up with nine, nine things. I know this is a lot. I'm going to run through all nine of them really fast, but I'm going to give you the nine things that he says that are helpful to you if you're dealing with depression. So I know nine is a bunch. You may not be able to get them all right now. You can go back and actually online and watch it, freeze it like, just kind of go through and count them up, write down, but if even just one of these maybe helps you or somebody, you know we're good.

Speaker 1: 24:43

He says number one decide you're sick and tired of living in depression. I find it interesting sometimes when Jesus goes up to heal somebody, he asks them a really big question. He says do you want to get well? Says the guy who can't you know he's talking to a guy who can't walk Like do you want to get well? Because if you get well and you're able to walk, that sounds cool. But now you have to get a job. Now people aren't going to just carry you wherever you want to go. So things are going to change. This may be your life and maybe it stinks, but it's the dysfunction you know. Do you want to get well? And he says we got to start with saying I'm sick and tired of living like this. Number two is think baby steps. Anybody remember what About Bob? Baby steps to the elevator like Bill Murray, richard, If you haven't seen it, it's actually worth seeing. It's a funny movie.

Speaker 1: 25:35

Another one he says get a physical. So let me talk to everybody in the room who doesn't want to get a physical. So now I'm talking to all the men. I'm one of you. Like I haven't had a physical since before COVID. Like I keep telling myself I probably should go, I get, I get. I have Kaiser, I get emails from Kaiser. Like you really should come and check with us. You know, like I'll get around to it. I don't. I don't want to. But here's the thing when you do a physical now they do blood work and and just the, the chemical stuff that they can find out through the blood work can show you what's missing or maybe what you have too much of. They can get a track on what's going on right away.

Speaker 1: 26:14

Get a physical, evaluate your diet. Our brain loves carbs and alcohol. By the way, alcohol is a depressant. I don't know if I mentioned that yet it's a depressant. But just think about carbs for a minute. I'm just given this option every now and then, like over here is a celery stick, over here is a scone. I've already forgot what's over here. Besides this has blueberries. You know it's good for you, right? Oh, man, we love carbs, like our body craves carbs, but too many carbs has like the downside effect on us as well. Evaluate your diet.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Number five start praying, journaling and talking to somebody. So all these things are about getting it out, because, remember, when we keep it in, that's where wethat's what's sometimes used by the devil to get us trapped in this depressive thinking. Here's a big one. I saw several lists in my reading and they were all similar, but I didn't see anybody else say this. On his list he says this. Number six pray for power and courage. What do we usually pray for? Number six pray for power and courage. What do we usually pray for? Peace and comfort and safety and mercies while you travel, like those are our big prayers. Because, no, if you're depressed, you need to pray for power and courage, because it's gonna take some work to get out of this. The next one on his list alcohol. I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but alcohol is a central nervous system depressant.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Number eight find one person who is safe and you can pull the curtain back from your soul at least once a week and just be real with somebody. And number nine he says walk with scripture in your heart. He means, like, go on a walk and just maybe have your thousand dollar Bible with you, your phone, look up Psalm 42 and read a verse and just walk for a while, think about it, find your favorite passage. You know, like just take the word of God with you as you walk. Now here's what I found. I discovered this If you want to lengthen your life, the most effective thing you can do for lengthening your life is just walking, not going to a gym and lifting 6,000 pounds. That's cool, but just walking is actually the most beneficial thing for your body.

Speaker 1: 28:40

And this is what it said in this one article I was reading. It listed all these emotional benefits, physical benefits, all these things. I would add spiritual benefits, like when I'm out hiking or I'm riding my mountain bike. There's a spiritual dimension to that too, and it's like for this kind of exercise it's so good. It listed all these good things and then it said this this was really what caught me If you walk with someone else, it multiplies all the benefits.

Speaker 1: 29:07

It doesn't just add to it, it multiplies it. So just think, man, you're struggling, you're oppressed, you're going through this, but get somebody to walk with you. How much good could come out of that. And all of it. Really, if I could say it this way, is our fourth bucket, spiritual bucket. Please don't put spiritual stuff, don't put God in one little bucket over in the corner Like, no, it's all spiritual, but let me just deal with it head on.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Let's go to the end of this Psalm 42, verse 9. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long where is your God? Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Speaker 1: 29:57

Max Lucado is one of my favorite pastor and writers and he talks about how control freaks are the most stressed out people on the planet, because we can't control everything. In fact, if you know a control freak, we're gonna point at them on the count of three. So what we're gonna? No, we're not, we're not. Okay, in fact, really good control freaks already told you not to point at them when I said that. But Max Lucado also said this listen to this. This is good. Peace is within reach, not for lack of sovereign or not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. He's just saying peace isn't like the absence of conflict or war. No, peace is the presence of Jesus and we get to walk with him.

Speaker 1: 30:45

I'm going to end this by Galatians. Chapter 3, verse 26 and 27 have this beautiful picture of what's possible in our relationship with Christ. Listen to this. So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who are baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves with Christ. Let me ask you a quick question this is not a trick question. When you put on your clothes today, were you then in your clothes? Yep, I'm in there. Okay, just so you know.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Galatians is not talking about clothes, it's talking about relationship. You've put on Christ, you're in Christ, he says for those of you who've been baptized, you're in this relationship, and that relationship changes everything for us. In fact, here's what I want to do. I'm going to point at you and when I point at you, you say out loud better than you did roar the first time. When I point at you, you say in Christ, so here we go, ready, all right, here we go.

Speaker 1: 31:51

We have freedom, innocence, grace upon grace, redemption and the righteousness of God. We have a heavenly Father and a beautiful Holy Spirit and a personal Son who walks with us. We have no condemnation. We have a new birth. We are a new creation. We're a new life. We have love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. We have wisdom and knowledge and vision and imagination, creativity, focus and purpose. We have the mission of God and the meaning of life and we have a clear purpose because of what Jesus has done for us and we have him. We could go and do this all day. You have an identity, you have a story, you have an eternal value and worth, you have the image of God. You have a transformation of life, an epic mission, an epic purpose. Yeah, we could go on and on and on. We have so much in Christ.

Speaker 1: 32:56

What depression does is it doesn't allow us to see all the benefits, it just focuses on the things that are bringing us down. And what we need to do is be able to open our eyes and see what we have in Christ, what he's made possible for us. So here I want to give you two thoughts. The first thought is this If you're struggling right now, yes, I want you to go talk to somebody, I want you to open just let somebody know. But here's what I want you to know you are not alone. He is with you. It may hurt and he may feel distant, but he is with you. But here's the other thing, and please don't miss this, maybe you're doing good right now. I want you to go keep your eyes open this week for somebody who's hurting and be with them. Let them know you're in their corner. Let them know that you care. You may not even be able to understand, and please don't go slap some cliche on it. Just be there.

Speaker 1: 34:13

It's like, yeah, but I don't know what to say, you don't have to say anything. Did you know that? Like, your presence speaks volumes, and they just need to know that they're not alone. Let me pray for you, god. I love this church. I care about what's happening right here at Northgate. I thank you for the people who are so special and you love them and you know them, and even if they're struggling, they are not alone. So, god, we ask that you would be with us. Let us feel and sense your presence like never before, let us know that you're with us and then, god, send us so we can take your presence, so that we can just sit with somebody and be with them, so that they can know that they're not alone. God, thank you for loving us and walking with us, even when we don't have it figured out. I pray, god, that today maybe somebody can start the conversation and in the name of Jesus, I pray Amen.