Speaker: Heath McCoy

Today we discuss how everything starts with rest. Rest allows us to enter our week and our work from a place of fulfillment and satisfaction. But sometimes we, like sheep, need some help to convince us to rest.

David wrote Psalm 23 during a season filled with anxiety and unknown. As we read this psalm, it helps position us to have strength in the midst of struggle. We take hope that “I have a shepherd” in Jesus, a shepherd who rescues, redirects, protects, and provides for us, His sheep.

As we go through life, we find ourselves in confusing, unknown, and unfriendly situations. It’s often not until we get to the other side of that situation that we understand it. Today we unpack some “spoiler alerts” to remember, whatever you are going through now, or may go through in the future.

What are you thinking? Our minds are a powerful place, and our thoughts have the ability to lead and direct us in places we may not want to go. To win the battles in our mind, we must audit and define our thoughts, argue with our thoughts, and ask God to transform our thoughts.

As we end this heart series, we talk about cultivating a heart for the church. The church is what God (still) wants to use to make a difference in the world – let’s be reignited and passionate about what God is doing through the church! Let’s pray for our church, prioritize the church in our lives, and participate and invest ourselves into what the church is doing.

We believe many myths about being busy. But busyness causes stress, unhappiness, and distance from God. Some practical things we can do to keep from feeling “too busy” are to simplify our lives by saying “no” to some things, slow down and make time for rest, and seek God by prioritizing time with Him daily.

A bewildered heart feels lost, confused, and doubtful. When we feel bewildered or perplexed, we can lean on the God who cares and gives peace, go to the God who gives peace, and be faithful to do the next right thing.

A broken heart is painful, weakening, and often puts distance between us and Jesus. When we feel broken, we can sit in that feeling or give it to Jesus, we can keep our emotions pent up or vent to Jesus, and we can keep our brokenness or let Jesus transform our brokenness into something beautiful.

Our heart is an important thing to guard and remember – everything we do in life comes from the heart. We can get a bitter heart if we let the negative things that happen to us live in us. We must learn to recognize bitterness when it’s small, and do all we can to kill it with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.