 I'm going to talk about something that I don't feel is talked about a ton, especially with creatives. And if you're here and you're like, man, I showed up at this conference because they said it wasn't just for creatives, you're still in the right place. Everybody is a creative. If you're a teacher, I mean, let's just think, a teacher has to figure out what to do with about 20 kids for about eight hours a day. If you're not creative, you will not, you will die. Mothers. Okay, I have three kids. Gabriel is nine, Lily is five, and River is almost two. If I am not creative in asking the Holy Spirit to give me ideas of what to do through the day, I will go mad. It's just, we are all, we were made in the image of the creator. We were all created, and he put that inside of us, and there's something innately deep inside of us to create. So no matter if you paint, or if you dance, or if you do flags, or if you sing, or do an instrument, you might be a teacher, or you might be a businessman, you are made to create. In our ideas of getting things, we have to be creative in so many atmospheres of our lives. So I just want to say you're in the right place. You didn't come to the wrong conference. Okay, so like I was saying, I'm going to talk to you today about you are not behind. You know that voice inside your head that comes, especially when you're like, did I, man, this person, in comparison, it's always there. You get on Instagram, and you're like, oh, they just, they just did this incredible song, they just wrote this incredible song, or look at this church, look at all the salvation that church is having, and I mean, so on, and so on, and so on. And this voice comes in our head and says, you are behind. You should be more ahead. You should have done more. You're too old, or you're too young, or you should have done more by now. You guys know that voice? We hear it often, huh? Well, I want to, I want to take us into the scripture this morning, and I want to look at Jesus' life, and I want to encourage you guys, and that you are not behind. You are not behind. So like I said, we started out at the International House of Prayer. I'm just going to share some of my, my story with you, and go in and out of the scripture of it. Cool? Cool. So we started out. I grew up, I grew up in a Christian home, and from North Carolina, you may hear a little bit of my accent come out at, at different times. When I say no, it comes out, Corey likes to make fun of me. Hey, who's the Greenville people? Wow! I'm from Little Washington. Yeah. Yeah. A little, little, little po-dunk town. That's awesome. Yeah. I grew up in, you know, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and I loved Jesus from the time that I was, I was really little. I, I just, I just wanted to sing songs to him. I would, I would have my guitar in my room, and I was like six years old, and I was like strumming, and I would just sing, and sing, and I'd make up these little songs, and I just, I just really loved Jesus. There's something in my heart that was so drawn to him. And, oh, let's just stop really quick. Pastor Lee that was talking last night. Thank you, God. He, he just reminded me. His wife is in surgery this morning. She is, she's having surgery on her brain, and it's an eight hour procedure. And they were here last night with us, and they were in there. They had to be in there at 5.30 this morning, and she's in there. She's, yeah, for eight hours. So can we just pray together? I just want to cover them in prayer. Holy Spirit, I thank you for your presence. I thank you for Pastor Lee and Jane and what they mean to this body, what they mean to this region, what they mean to me. And I just ask right now, Holy Spirit, that you would come. Your angels would be in that room with Jane. I ask for accuracy. I ask for your healing power. I ask for peace over Jane's body, and peace over Pastor Lee and his children. I ask that your kingdom would come. I thank you that even now you are helping these physicians and you are, you are touching Jane's body. And I just ask that as she wakes this afternoon, that she would be filled with life and strength and hope and joy. I even ask that the Spirit of God would come upon her and Pastor Lee would laugh at her. That hope would arise in their hearts and your presence would envelop them. I ask for a quick recovery, no complications, in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks guys. Okay, so, so I'm like 15 years old. And I hear of this teen camp. It was called A Place for the Heart. And do you guys know the song, I'm no longer a slave to you? Well, I got a lot of feedback coming from this side of the room. I, that's Jonathan and Melissa Helsing. And when I was 15, maybe 13, I was around that age, I go to my, this camp that they would put on in the middle of the woods in the deep south of North Carolina. And it was called a creative worship camp. And it was like me and about 20 other teens, and we stayed in these cabins in the middle of the woods and Johnny and Melissa would have us do these crazy creative things to encounter the Father. And so one day, we are having, I mean, we're in a small room. We're in like a room the size of this corner of the stage. And Johnny is just, you know, he's going for it on the guitar. We have a cello player and a violinist and it's just a raw, beautiful worship time and it starts to pour down rain. And we've got the doors open and the windows open and I'm in there and I'm feeling the presence of God. And I hear him say, will you come dance with me? And all, I mean, we're in the middle of nowhere. So there's this huge field and I go and I go out and you can hear, I mean, all the windows and the doors are open. So you can hear the worship coming out and I'm out in this field and I'm just dancing my heart out, just dancing my heart out. Last night I danced a little, this was, this was, you know, one of those David moments. I was just going crazy and dancing my heart out in the rain. And I feel all of a sudden, boom, I encounter the father's love so intensely. And I'm weeping as I'm dancing in the rain and I'm all of a sudden he's saying, I love you, Anna. I love you, Anna. You are my daughter. I love you. I love you. And I, that was a marking point in my life that, you know, it was just me and him and this music playing. I mean, it's a pretty incredible moment, but it was raw. I mean, there's mud and I probably fell a few times and so it wasn't like this. I'm like, oh, it's a beautiful movie. No, it was a little, it was raw, but it was raw. And I felt his, I encountered the father's heart. I saw his, his smile and I saw his eyes over me and that marked me. And it was a marking point also, even for being with the Hellzers and loving what they carried. And I mean, you hear it in their song, just this absolute confidence of the father's and dying affection for them. And that was the beginning of my journey of just knowing who I was as a daughter. So, you know, fast forward a few years, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I, you know, people kept asking me, what do you want to do with your life? And I just would say, a teacher, I guess, I, my parents were both teachers. So I thought, I guess that's what I'll do. That sounds, I don't really want to be in a classroom for the rest of my life, but I could not get language for what I wanted to do. Nothing fit me. I just didn't fit. And so I just gave people what they wanted to hear for a long time, just so they get off my back. And so I'd be like, I guess I'll be a teacher. I looked at a few colleges in North Carolina and I got accepted to a few. And, and then I heard of the International House of Prayer and I, I went out there and I, I finally found where I belong. I wrote that by the way. I write a lot of songs that Corey gets to take credit for. That's all right. I got more treasure in heaven. He'll want to come over to my house. Anyways, a bit, a humble brag moment there. I've got the microphone, so he can't say anything. What was I talking about? Yes. So anyways, so we go to, I go to IHOP and I check it out and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the place I was made for. You know, Anna in the Bible. Have you guys ever heard the Anna calling? I was like, oh, it's so easy. My name's Anna. This is perfect. And so I'm just waiting to graduate from high school so I can go. And so I finally graduate high school. I go out there and I'll never forget the moment that I had the first day. We call it, they called it consecration day. And I had, in the middle of loving Jesus, I had gotten in a really bad relationship and I'd fallen pretty hard. And I was feeling a ton of shame. I actually thought as I was going into the internship that I might be pregnant. And the amount of shame that was heaped on me, because I loved Jesus, but yet I had fallen really hard. I didn't feel like I was good enough to be even in the, in the prayer room at all. So I sat in the way back and I'm, you know, I was, you know, how Corey last night saying, like I had all my lines rehearsed before the father of all the, all the right things to say, to repent and say, I was sorry. And I was sitting in the back and somebody from the stage says, I just feel like there's some people in here that are dealing with shame. And so I'm sitting there and they're like, will you stand up? And it was one of those moments, I don't know how I even stood up. I don't even remember the thought in my mind, like, you know, I'm gonna stand up, I just stood. And, which was a miracle in itself because I was dealing with such intense shame and I felt like I had let God down. Every thing that I had felt he had called me to, I felt like I had canceled it, you know, I just had let him down. And so I was, you know, what can I do to prove to him that I'm worth his love again? And in that moment I'm surrounded, I don't even know, Caleb might even have been in that group that surrounded me and they're praying over me. And I felt in that instant shame break over my life. It was gone in a second and I never dealt with it again, not ever. I was standing there and it was such, it was a miracle. It was just, boom, shame was gone and I was able to walk forward. And the rest of that internship, I did like six months. The rest of that internship, I was lost in the song of Solomon. And I could not stop. I would get in there and I would see Jesus on the mountains and I'd see him running towards me and saying that I was worth his love. I was worth all of his affection that he had set a seal of love on my heart. And there was, I was just lost in it for six months. I didn't care about friendships. I didn't care about what I was gonna do next. I just was a junkie for hearing him tell me he loved me. And so for six months, that's all I cared about was just being in there, singing to him, hearing him sing over me, getting in the scripture and hearing him over and over tell me how much he loved me, how much he liked me. I couldn't get enough, I couldn't get enough. So they asked me to stay. And then Corey comes in the next internship and the rest is just the rest is sistering. We fell in love, not right away, but we did. And it was good. We broke up like four times and Corey was a little rough around the edges. And so was I. So it was good. We have been married now 12 years. And yeah, it's been, it's been beautiful. So we started there. And then I had my first child at 23, Gabriel. And I, it was a really rude awakening for me being a mother. Like some, some women, they dream about being mothers. And I love that. I love that there's already a surrender in their heart. I did not have the surrender. In fact, I fought it very, very intensely because all of my life I had been looking for what I belonged and it looked like I belonged in a room singing to Jesus. I had no grid for now I have a baby. And how do I care for this baby and still do what I'm called to do? Does that make sense? There was a very big separation between both of those callings. I didn't, I was like, how am I to be a mother? And also, how am I to do what I'm called to do? And then the resentment came like, how come Corey gets to do what he's called to do? And I have to sit at home with the baby and then I felt guilty. You know, you think all the guilt comes because I'm like, but he's awesome. And I'm sorry, Gabriel, that mommy is dealing with all these things. Please God, don't let him be messed up. Seriously, that was some of my prayers. Like, I promise you're awesome. My mommy loves you, mommy loves you. But then I'm dealing with all of these feelings, you know. And the other thing is awakening breaks out in the International House of Prayer. The day that I have Gabriel, which I would like to say that I birth the awakening, you know, whatever. Think whatever you want, but that's what I like to think, 19 hours of labor and then the awakening came. Hello. And so Corey's gone every single day and he's getting drunk in this spirit. Like, I mean, there are beautiful things happening. People are getting healed and there's just laughter and joy and all of these awesome things happening with our students and with our worship leaders. This is when we were in Kansas City. And I was dealing with postpartum depression. And I was home with a little infant that I didn't know how to take care of. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm just alone. And it was the middle of the winter, so it was really dark, you know. Like, it gets dark super early. So I am sitting there and I'm like, I do not want to be angry at God, but I feel really angry. And I feel guilty that I should be more surrendered to the motherhood thing and whatever, so on. And then I'm mad at Corey because he just gets to go, he would come home drunk in this spirit. And I would be there like, I have been changing diapers and I'm awake all night and you come home and you're just experiencing this beautiful thing of God. And I would just be like, I think I'm happy for you. And I wasn't. I was so mad. I didn't like Caleb. I didn't like anybody. I was like, all these people, I hope you're faking it. I think some of them were. Anyways, so I am, yeah, I'm in that place. It's real. It's raw. And I'm really depressed. I finally figure out like, oh, I'm dealing with depression here. Like I'm seriously depressed. And so I'm left in a place, you guys, where I am like, OK, I don't know where to turn right now, except to look at Jesus. And so I started to look in the scriptures and go. I feel these beautiful boundary lines around me. They don't feel so beautiful right now. They feel pretty horrible. But I believe, Father, that you placed me in this position as a mother for a reason. And surely me being home, nursing my baby, changing diapers, doing dishes, means something, even though I'm not on a stage and I'm not creating in the eyes of the world. I'm really hidden. And so I begin to look at Jesus and go, how did you do this when you were here as a man, as a baby? You came. You went through this exact process that all of us go through. How did you do this? And I started to see a very different story than the one that the world had painted for me of glory and stage lights and authority and what I thought it meant to be called of God. And it didn't just end right there, you guys. So I had Gabriel. And then four years later, we moved to Colorado Springs. And I had Lily. And I shared a little bit of the story with Lily last night with you guys. And then I had River here. So there's like three, four years between each of our kids. And so it's been like 10 years of me, sorry. There's no other things I needed to pray about. That's not an alarm for me this time. There's like 10 years of me just being in an invitation of hiddenness and slowing down and following a different voice and a different vein, a different river than the one that the world would say, I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to look like. And has it been like this beautifully easy thing? Heck no. It's been tension. But I feel like in the last 10 years, now I have something to say to you. And I want to give you something this morning that I have cultivated for 10 years in the hidden place. And I have something to say. And I have something that I've seen. And I have maturity in a garden and in the Holy Spirit as my friend. And I want to be able to impart something to you so that you don't have to have the same struggle that I did. So I want us to turn to Luke 2, Jesus. I'm gonna read verses 41 through 51. But before I do, let's just think about him. Think about his life. He came as a baby. I mean, we all know his story well, right? We should. He subjected himself to the deepest place of humility. And he was born in the stable. Okay, we're talking about the God of all creation. He's born in a stable. He's born to a family of Nazareth. Nazareth was like the slums, you know? Of all the places that he could have been born in all of Israel. He decided, let's be born to the family in Nazareth. It was like the slums, the ghetto, the whatever you want to call it, whatever the name is. It was the poor. And that's where he decided to call home, the hidden, the outside. And we see his life as a baby and we hear, you know, we talk, it was a pretty triumphant entrance of angels singing and, you know, they're in the heavens and it's big and it's loud. And then, you know, the wise men come and bring him gifts and then it's kind of silent, huh? Silence. And then all of a sudden we hear again a little bit. So let's read. I'm gonna read from the passion translation because it's my new favorite. If you haven't got any of the passion translation, go for it because it's really awesome. So every year, Jesus' parents went to worship at Jerusalem during the Passover festival. When Jesus turned 12, his parents took him to Jerusalem to observe the Passover as was their custom. A full day after they began their journey home, Joseph and Mary realized that Jesus was missing. They had assumed he was somewhere in their entourage, but he was nowhere to be found. After a frantic search among relatives and friends, Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After being separated from him for three days, they finally found him in the temple, sitting among the Jewish teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard Jesus' speak were astounded at his intelligent understanding of what was being discussed and at his wise answers to their questions. His parents were shocked. Mary scolded him saying, son, your father and I have searched for you everywhere. We have been worried sick over not finding you. Why would you do this to us? Jesus said to them, why would you need to search for me? Didn't you know that it was necessary for me to be here in my father's house, consumed by him? Mary and Joseph didn't fully understand what Jesus meant. Jesus went with them back home to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother treasured Jesus' words deeply in her heart. As Jesus grew, so did his wisdom and maturity. The favor of men increased upon his life for he was loved greatly by his father. And then silence. Isn't that crazy? We have all this, this whole Bible is full of really just three years of his life. We have just a glimpse of when he's 12. And then for 18 years, we don't know anything. We just know he went home to be with his parents. And then it's just Jesus and his family. We, I think we forget about this part of Jesus' life. I mean, it's not glamorous, huh? It's hidden, so there's not much to talk about. But I beg to differ. I think that this part of his life, the beginning, the maturity, the growing, the hiddenness, the silence, the learning, the obedience, the submitting, the humility, the serving, learning a business, learning a trade, this is what the three years that we stare at was based upon, it was based upon 30 years, you guys. 30 years Jesus took, the God who created everything took 30 years in hiddenness and in silence. Intimacy was a father, isn't that crazy? And I think sometimes we get a little backwards, okay? We think we're behind, so we have to produce something. We have to have a product to show, to show that we're worth something, that we're worth love, that we have something to say, that we're relevant, we're growing, but Jesus wasn't worried about that. He wasn't worried at all. When he was 12, he gave us, at 12 years old, a really sweet, beautiful formula of how to apply ourselves. What did he do here? I mean, we see him in the house, the father's house. He said to his mom, didn't you know I was gonna be in my father's house? He loved the presence of his father. Lee was talking about it last night. There is no creativity without intimacy. Jesus wasn't, he wasn't overwhelmed or ready to go to the next thing. He just was consumed with one thing, being in his father's presence. He sought out teachers. He sought them out, and he was sitting. Jesus, the God of everything, sought out teachers. He listened, he asked questions. That's what he was doing in there for three days, asking questions. If he was asking questions, how much more should we be asking questions? How much more should we be listening? How much more should we be consuming ourselves in the presence of the father? And he gave answers. I just love that at 12, at 12 years old, he's saying, we're seeing just this glimpse. God said, you know, Luke, let's put this 12 year old moment in here. I just want him to see a glimpse of what Jesus was doing in those years. Give him a glimpse. Give them a part, a little piece of the mystery. I like to get lost in the years of Jesus. I really do. From baby to 30 years, I'm like, what was he doing? You know, we know that his father was a carpenter. Although, okay, I just went to Israel. This is just a side fact. And we were in Israel. And did you know that carpenters were actually worked with stone? Mind blown. You know, I'm always like seeing them work with, in my mind, I'm like imagining Jesus building the table. But what if it wasn't a table? What if it was something with a rock? Which makes a lot more sense to me. If it was a rock, you know, he's building everything upon a rock. Hello, makes way more sense. So, he was learning how to do things. He was learning a trade. He was with his brothers and sisters. He was serving his mom. He was loving his mom. Family meant so much to Jesus that he spent 30 years just doing that. Just doing that. That meant so much to him. He said, I'm going to submit myself. I'm gonna place myself right in the middle of chaotic family. And I'm going to breathe it in and do it. And this is what I'm gonna base my entire three year ministry on, is this. It's crazy. He spent 18 years from 12 until 30. In the scriptures, Torah, getting away with the father. We know that from, you know, his ministry. We saw him. He said so many times. It said so many times. He was going away to just be with the father. He had cultivated something so deep, a well so deep that was his everything. Relationship was his everything. He did the mundane life, you guys. And then we see after 18 years, silence is broken. And what happens after 18 years? He gets baptized and the father declares over him this beautiful declaration, this voice resounding over Jesus' life. This is my beloved son. This is my beloved and I'm proud of him. Okay, hold up a second. He's proud of him, but he hasn't done anything. He has no product. He has no beautiful creations of anything that we can, he has nothing to show for, right? He has no many, no salvation. Nobody believes in him really yet. Maybe his mom, but she's probably questioning a little bit. I mean, really, there is nothing he has to show for. But the resounding, resounding voice from the father is, from the father is, I am proud. I am proud. What does this tell us about our lives? We are so quick to want to prove our love, huh? We're so quick to want to say, look what I've done. Look what I can sing. Look at the song I did. Look at the song I made. Look at the sound I created. And it's beautiful. But we're so quick sometimes to want to have the approval. But if we could just dive in a little deeper, it's not about that. God loves our creations. I mean, when Lily and Gabriel bring me something, a picture, our creation with tape, they love tape right now, I don't know why. I mean, our tape is always gone and they've taped all these different things and somehow it's, we get these taped things. Cory and I have so many coasters. They're like, here, this is for your cup to sit on. And they're like, beautiful. They're beautiful, it moves my heart. I can't throw any of them away. We have coasters everywhere of tape. And this is the same way that the father is looking at our creations. And he's going, I love what you've created for me. But I just think sometimes we get distracted and we get it a little backwards and we think we have to create before we have the depth, before we have the relationship because we're saying, God, look what I can do. And we're wanting approval so badly that we miss the whole point. It's all about relationship. It's all about relationship. That's all it is about. This entire life, if you did not do one thing and all you did is you got up and you made your bed in the morning, his resound, and there's a conversation in your heart. You've cultivated a relationship with the father. You know what his resounding voice would be over your life? Right now, you know what his resounding voice is over you? I'm proud. Slow down, slow down. Listen, just listen a little bit. I wanna share with you what I think is awesome about you. Slow your pace. You don't have to run so hard. I love what you're doing. But I love you. I love you. Let's not be afraid of hiddenness. Let's not be afraid of silence or quiet or looking at ourselves and hearing what he has to say to us. What happens when we cultivate and we spend the years and then we create? When I was 28, I was, I think Lili was like one and a half. And I was leading worship a little bit, but I was mostly just doing the mom thing and loving it, but you know, there's still a little tension in my heart. It's real, you guys. Being hidden is really hard. You wanna be seen so bad, you know? You want somebody to tell you what you're doing is worth it, but I love motherhood for that reason. I'm not just talking about motherhood, but I just am a big advocate of mothers. Big advocate of mothers and I love kids and I love marriage. And you should get married and you should have kids if you're not. I think it's beautiful. It's what Jesus did for so many years. How could it not be the best thing on earth? Family is like the best thing on earth. So I'm 28 and I go to this. You know those like painting classes where you can go and they like tell you how to paint certain things? Well, me and Rachel, Rachel's like, let's go, Corey and Caleb are out of town. I was like, okay, sounds fun. Get out of the house? Yes, I'm in. So we go and we like, Rachel and I decide to do this like beautiful abstract like whimsical, like then it was like a whimsical flower painting. I wish Rachel could have brought hers. Do you still have it? Yeah, she still has hers. Mine is in the trash. I wish I could have had you bring it next time because we are painting and Rachel doesn't claim to love artistic things. Okay, she is a beautiful singer and she loves to lead worship but I claim, okay, I have a little bit of pride about the fact that I want to create things. So we're sitting there and I'm like looking over and Rachel's is looking like the bomb. Like she is ruling at this whimsical painting and I'm like watching her and I'm like getting agitated because I'm looking at mine. And I'm like, this sucks. Like it is bad. Everything about it is horrible. And nothing is making sense. I picked the wrong colors. Like nothing is going on the canvas. Like I want it to just lots of drips. And then finally I just decide sprinkles. Like just, we're just gonna spray paint. Like you can't go wrong with that, right? And I am agitated and we finished and I'm looking at my painting. I'm looking at the girl. I'm mad at the girl because I'm like, you could have taught me better. You know, it's her fault now. And I'm just agitated. And we had a couple other friends and one of my friends said, Anna, can you just stop? You can't be great at everything. And I was like, you are wrong. I can't be. So we leave and Rachel hangs her painting up and I stick my painting in the back of our closet. I didn't even want to show Corey. I didn't. I don't think I ever showed him. I did it. And then I throw it away. And I think Rachel's is still in one of her bathrooms. So funny. This is beautiful whimsical painting she did. So I go home and I'm really bothered. Like deep down bothered about this. And next morning, I sit down, I'm like, I'm gonna try again. So I sit down and I grab Gabriel's Crayola watercolor, you know, the six pack and his little plastic paintbrush. I'm gonna give this a shot. So I sit down and I start painting. And as I start painting, I feel the fire of God come on me. And I'm like, okay, I'm paying attention. Something's happening here. And I keep painting the same way that some of you may feel like when you're in your moment of like your trade, you know? It's like you're feeling the Holy Spirit. I'm feeling the Holy Spirit resting on me in a very intense way. I feel like there's fire burning on me. And I finish and I look and I'm like, I just painted that. I'm shocked. I take a picture of it and I send it to Corey. Like, I just painted this. And he responds and he goes, no, you didn't. I'm like, I did. I painted this little buck with Gabriel's six pack watercolor from Crayola. And I'm astonished. It's nothing great, but it's more than I thought I could ever do. And I'm sitting there and I hear the father starts speaking to me. He says, you thought that there was nothing new inside of you. You thought that this hiddenness was forever. You thought that you'd already found all that you could do and you needed to just major on those things. But I had a surprise. You can paint and you can create. And I'm giving you this gift. And I didn't want you to discover it until you were 28 years old. A mother at home in the mundane that I call beautiful. The in-between moments. You just discovered something about yourself that I always knew. I always knew. And I began this new journey of discovering a gift that I never knew I had. And I started painting. I started painting prophetic things for babies and families. And if I found out somebody was pregnant, I'd ask the Holy Spirit for who the baby was. And I started painting these things for these babies. And I remember Aliyah that Caleb and Rachel adopted Aliyah. And I knew that she was a prophetic songbird. And so I painted this bright bird for Aliyah. It moves my heart. Aliyah will come up to me and she says, you painted the bird for me. And it moves my heart every time. She's like, you're the, Anna, you're the one who painted the bird for me. And it moves my heart. And this thing I didn't even know was inside of me. God decides to just surprise me. After all these years, I'm just cultivating a relationship with him. As I'm cleaning my house, as I'm doing the laundry. Mostly in the, you know, in-between moments. Just loving Jesus. Hearing his words over me. Hearing his thoughts over me. And then boom, I have this new gift. Why do I share that? Because there's some of you today that think you're all washed up and dry and you have all that you have. And this is all that you have to give. And some of you are going, God, I felt hidden for years and years and years and years. Is it, does it mean anything? Does it mean anything? It means everything. In fact, when you stand before the Lord, these are the moments he's gonna talk to you about. Last year, Corey and I, we had a big year. It was a big year. Rickless Love came out on his album and we found ourselves in the middle of a big whirlwind. We're family, right? I'm gonna share some vulnerable, beautiful stories. Just one more story with you. You guys good? So, I hope I'm not stealing one of Corey's stories. But whatever, he has his way of telling it. He can tell it a different way. But come March, one year ago, it felt like we were in a full on like war. There was so many opinions coming in our lives. I can't even tell you. There was so many opinions of what we needed to do now because of this song blowing up. And so, I mean, there was the, you gotta ride the wave, you gotta ride the wave. You've reached the pinnacle, so you gotta keep it up there, right? So this is what you need to do. Some people are like, you need to get a new manager. Leave Bethel, because Corey signed with Bethel. Leave Bethel, you need a new place to go because they'll be able to steward what you do more. I mean, there were so many voices coming in. And we were kind of like, oh my God, what do we do? And Corey's feeling a ton of pressure because he's the first guy on radio for Bethel Music. So there's all these pressures from every side coming in. And we're kind of looking at each other and we're just like, survival mode. And so he's touring a ton. And I'm at home with the kids a ton. And we were trying to go as much as we could. And anyway, so March comes along and we look at each other and we're like, oh, I'll tell you this moment. We're sitting in our bathroom floor. I don't know if you guys have any conversations with people on your bathroom floors, but our floors are heated. So sometimes we just like to sit on our heated tile floor and talk. So we're in the middle of this storm. It feels like a storm. We were thankful, but it was crazy, you know? And we are tired, really tired. We look at each other and Corey says, wouldn't it be awesome if we could just take a year off and get a dog? And we start crying. And it sounds so weird, but a dog to us represented, we could never have a pet before because we were always on the road too much. And we were always giving out so much that there wasn't time to have a pet. And our kids have been begging and begging and begging. And so people like literally like start crying over the thought of being able to take a year off and get a dog. Well, we leave that moment and life happens. And we have another moment. I think in the bathroom again, we're sitting on the floor. Yes, we are weird. Sitting on the floor and we talk about it again. We cry again. And then life happens and you know, it felt like we were in the middle of a tornado. There was wonderful moments in the tornado, but there was really hard pressures in the tornado. And we were just trying our best to go, God, what are you saying? What are you saying? So finally, we look at each other and we're like, we gotta get away. We're saying, we gotta take a break and we gotta get away. So Corey and I, we take a little retreat to Chicago. And we get this, oh, I've got three minutes. Okay, we get to Chicago and we just stop and we say, father, what are you saying? All the other voices are telling us something, something everybody has a good opinion. But what are you saying right now over us? And Corey hears the father invite him to give it all up. And it was this over moment. I mean, everybody else is, you get to a place in a career like Corey and I just reached in. The world is gonna, there's a lot of pressure to just keep producing, keep producing, keep riding the wave, keep creating. But the father's way isn't always like that, huh? So we sit and there's tears and we're hearing him say, would you take a year off? Just be with me? Spend time with your family and get a dog? So we make the decision that 2019 was gonna be our entire year off. No ministry travel at all, except for a couple of things that we had to do. And we do it. 2019, here we are. And everyone has called us crazy. You know, there's a few that are like, awesome, pat you on the back. And then there's the industry that says, you just made the worst call of your life. But God's way is so different. Jesus's life was so different. I mean, even Jesus, he come, you know, the first miracle that we see in the Bible that he performs, his mom tells him to do it. It wasn't even his decision. He was still pumping the brakes. He told her, woman, it is not my time. And she looked at him and says, and she looked at the servants and said, do whatever he tells you to do. She overruled Jesus, which I love. But even Jesus was pumping the brakes at the time of his first miracle, saying it's not time yet. He didn't, he wasn't jumping at the bit, you know, to go run this race. He was slowing down. His pace was so different. So my word to us today, let's listen. Let's slow down. Let's hear the father's voice and hear what he has to say about our lives. What is he asking of us right now? Let's not compare. Jesus didn't compare his life to anyone else. He heard the father's voice and he did what the father told him to do, right? That is what we are called to do. As creatives, we create for sure. But how much is meant for the secret place and how much is meant just for his eyes? We're so quick, you guys, to produce something. And I love, I love, I love what we can produce. But I wanna, I wanted to give you a counter-cultural message this morning. He's not like the world. He doesn't have us moving so fast that we can't keep up. We are not behind. We are not behind. And when we take the time to hear him say who we are and we cultivate the intimacy, everything Pastor Lee was talking about last night, when we take that time, then we have something to say. We have things to create. We find out new things about ourselves that we never knew were there, right? So I'm just gonna take five more minutes here. And I wanna give you a tool. You're like, Ana, great. I just remember being in these messages and being like, great. So how do I do that? Can you please tell me what to do? And I'd be like, go, have intimacy. Great, how the heck do I do that? So there's something that I've done over the last years of my life. And it's helped me hear his voice. It's helped me slow down. Journaling. How many of you guys journal in here? Well, I journal in a special way. I journal in a, I journal my prayers, my most raw prayers out to God. And then I stop and I journal his voice back over me. And so a lot of times, I mean a lot of songs that I've sung have come out of my journals of his voice, hearing his voice. A lot of things that I've painted have come out of that place. I have to slow down to write with my hand, right? You know, I have to take time. And then I have to listen to hear his voice back over me. And so I'll do this. I try to do this every day. In our whole team, we are avid believers in this. And I think that it has helped us stay the course, hearing his voice every single day over our lives. The other tool, so that's one. Number two, is memorizing scripture. And again, I've been, I've been doing this with my kids. I felt, I took a break. And then I felt the father go, and how are they supposed to know the tone of my voice if they don't know my word? And I was doing this practice with my kids. I do it, you know, every so often. I homeschool them and saying, okay, let's take a moment and ask the Holy Spirit what are you saying right now? And Lily is like singing. She's like, I see rainbows. And you know, she's getting into it. I'm like, yes. Gabriel, Gabriel does not put on for anybody. And he says, I just hear death. Okay, death. He's like, yeah, I just hear death, mom. Okay, like, why don't you ask again? He's like, okay. He sits in here and he's like, nope, just death. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm feeling as a mom. There's a spirit of death in our house. Like, keep cool, don't shame him. Like, okay, well, what do you think the Holy Spirit is saying about that? And he's like, I have no idea. Okay, let's take a break. Lily put on some worship music. I was gonna have him paint something, but I'm like, let's not paint death. Let's take clear of death. So I leave that moment. And it was, I was laughing. I'm like, okay, what do I do? My kid just hears death. And I just heard the father say, they don't know the tone of my voice yet because they don't know what my voice sounds like, Anna. We can't just have all spirit and no truth, the spirit of truth coming from the word. We have to have his word along with the spirit. And you can't have one without the other. They both have to be combined. And so as creatives, we can't just be leaning hard to one side or leaning hard to the other. We have to mesh the two, right? Because we can't hear him if we don't know what he sounds like. We can't know what he's like if we don't see him in the scripture and see Jesus and what he's acting like, the tone of his voice. We can't create if we don't know the nature of God. Because what will come out if we're only leaning hard into the spirit to create is our own image, our broken image of who he is. Beautiful, beautiful, but there could be more. So tomorrow morning, I want you guys to apply, call it a prompt. I want you to take time to write your most honest prayer to God. And I want you to write his voice back to you. And I want you to ask him for scripture to base it on. Because sometimes when we're first exercising this muscle, some of you are big in this and you don't have a problem hearing the tone of his voice. Others of you, this is a new muscle that you're working. And it can be a little scary. Like, is this really God? And so when you take the scripture and you base his words off of scripture and you go, okay, this is who he is. This is who he says, Psalms are awesome to do. And then you write his voice back to you. And I want you to not just write one sentence. I want you to write a page of his voice back to you. And I want you to start to practice this. This is a tool I'm giving you. And if you'll take this and you'll apply it to your life, you're gonna see fruit. There will be fruit. So I'm just gonna pray over you guys. Thanks for listening to my story. Our stories are one of the most powerful things we have to share. So Father, I thank you for this family that you've brought into our home. I thank you for this time. God, I ask for moments in silence. I ask that you would open up the word and your life Jesus and make it alive. Let him see it. I ask for the ability to be counter-cultural and to follow your voice above any other. There's some of you here today. This was the word for you. You've been saying, I don't know what to do. And the Father is saying, stop, I have the word for you. In Jesus' name, amen.