 Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Friday morning prayer. I love getting to see the Friday morning faithful every week. It's amazing. It's amazing. This morning we're going to go ahead and get started by just opening out of Psalm 8. We're just going to spend this next hour meditating on the word of God, gazing at him, bringing him glory, honor and praise. All of which he's due. It's a Psalm 8 starting in verse 3. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. We start this morning just by remembering how good you are, remembering your goodness, how kind you are to us. Lord, you are so big. You made everything, the earth, the moon, the stars, everything around us, everything that has breath you made, yet you chose to make a way for us to come to you and to have relationship with you, our creator, our maker, and you call us friend. That doesn't even make sense, God. You're so big and so good, so kind, and somehow in the midst of all the things going on, you see all of us individually. And we bring our life's problems to you that seem like mountains to us. They must seem just so small to you, yet you take time to listen to us and to care for our hearts. And you genuinely care. It's not a have-to for you. It's a get-to, because we're your children. You love us. You care for us in a way that truly doesn't make sense. We can't fully comprehend. But somehow, Lord, some way your love is that great. Your love for us is that great. Whether you don't just see us and choose to give us your attention, but you came down Jesus and left your throne to live amongst us, to pay the price for us and our sin, our mistakes, you didn't have to. You're so far above us, yet you humbled yourself to come down to us and take our place, take our suffering, take our sin, take our shame, our painful death, and you put it all on your shoulders. So we wouldn't have to. You love, Lord, sometimes it just doesn't make sense, but we're so thankful for it. We're so thankful for it. So thankful for you. It's love that is beyond our knowledge. It's beyond our comprehension, Lord, we can't fathom it, but yet we're so grateful to live in it daily. Every morning at every sunrise, you're still faithful. Your love still remains. Your mercy, it endures forever. Every morning we get to wake up and rest in the knowledge that our Father still sees us, still loves us, still cares for us. In the midst of life's storms, Lord, you are so good, so good to us, so kind to us. But we just meditate on your goodness and your love this morning. Often times our hearts are at least in mine. Thank you, Lord. And there's a life circumstance, a thing that often times, that just keeps us from truly giving him our worship and our praise and saying thank you with our whole hearts. And Stephen, a little bit ago, as Megan was singing through Psalm 23, reminded of verse 4, Yeah, walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for you are with me. And that it's not the absence of evil that brings us comfort and brings us safety, but it's the presence of God in those hard seasons and in the valley. The valleys are promised, but so is the presence of our Father and of our God. And so as the musicians just continue to play and as we continue to sing, I invite you just to remind your heart that even though you may be in a valley, even though there may be a thing that I love you, Lord, but this thing that I'm holding tightly to this, this problem, this circumstance, just allow yourself to rest knowing that God is with you in the midst of it. He's for you. And that whatever the outcome is, he's going to be with you through it all. That's the promise that our good shepherd gives us. And so as the team just continues to play, just meditate on that, that even though the valleys come, even though you may be in a valley currently, the Lord is with you, strengthening you, walking with you, closer than a brother. He's for you. So Lord, we just invite you. We invite you, Lord, to remind our hearts of your faithfulness, to remind our hearts that even in the valleys, Lord, you're with us. You're for us. You never leave us. Regardless of if we feel you close or not, you are. That's the promise that your word gives us. You are with us. Thank you, God. That even in the midst of the pain and even in the midst of the trials, we can place our hope in you that you're with us, that we can remind our souls to hope in God because you won't fail us. Whatever the circumstances would say, Lord, you are faithful to bring us through and faithful to bring us closer to you. Thank you, Lord. Feeding in green pastures and besides still waters, whether we're in the valley, the shadow of death, or we just declare your faithfulness. If we're in the valley, Lord, we declare to our souls that we'll see the green pastures again. We'll see the still waters again because that's where you lead us. In the midst of the journey of the highs and the lows, the mountaintops and the valleys, the times of rest and the times of pain, the pastor isn't the prize. The still water isn't the prize. It's being led by you. It's intimacy with you. It's getting to know you more and more as Good Shepherd. Lord, as Paul says in Philippians 4, he's lived with much than he's lived in need. He can be content in every season because he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. Lord, in the highs and the lows and the sunrise to the sunset, the hard times and the good times, Lord, when we lean into you, we'd be one to cling to our Good Shepherd, having confidence knowing that there's a time and place for everything. There's a time for the valley and it serves a purpose. There's a time for the green pastures and the still waters. They serve a purpose and it's all to bring us closer to you. We rest in whatever season we're in, whether it's one of abundance or one of lack, knowing that you're sovereign, that you know the way. You know the way through the valley. You know how long to keep us in the green pasture. None of those things are the reward, it's you. It's you leading us, it's you guiding us. You're the prize in the midst of every season, the joy of our hearts in the midst of every season. Lord, Ecclesiastes says that everything but you is vanity, it's all loss. Everything that this life can offer, whether good or bad, it's all vanity. It means nothing. Our hearts will never find satisfaction in anything this world brings, in any work of our hands, in anything that we can make for ourselves. Our hearts weren't made to be satisfied by those things. Our hearts were made to be satisfied only in you. And we just repent for where we've tried. We've tried to find satisfaction in the works of our hands and it's taken us on this race to be something or to build something or to make something of ourselves or to find affirmation in the eyes of others or in the eyes of the world and what our hands can build. Just come back to you. It's that simple. We just lift our eyes to you, our good shepherd. You're still with us. You're still for us. You still see us. You still love us. And every season we're yours and in every season you are ours, God. And the highs and the lows and the good times and the bad times and the pleasure and in the pain and the weeping and in the laughing and the mourning and in the dancing. You're still God. You're still our good shepherd. We draw near to you today. We draw near. Our hearts will find no satisfaction outside of you. There's no better lover of our souls than you. You're our beloved, our savior, our friend. Jesus, it's you. The only place we'll find true comfort. The only place we'll find true rest. The only place we can find hope is in you. So here are our hearts. In every season, Lord, you find a resting place in us. Not because we're never in pain, but because we have it all together. But you find a resting place in our heart because we desire to be with you. And our desire to be with you would be stronger than anything else. Any other hope, any other want, would be our desire to be with you would be stronger than anything else. And we look to you and we're so grateful to call you friend, to call you savior, to have someone who we can put our hope in. And we just thank you, Lord, for being faithful in every season. For loving us well. We don't deserve you. But we're so grateful for you. We don't want to do this life without you. Not one step on our own. Every step with you. We just close this morning by saying that we love you. We give you all of our love, all of our hearts. And the good and the bad, we're yours and you are ours. We love you, Jesus. Thank you everyone for joining with us this morning here in the room as well as online. We hope to see you at one of our weekend services on Sunday, whether in Richland Portage or downtown and we'll be back here in the prayer room Monday morning at 8am. Love you guys. Have a good day.